THE BEST PERENNIAL VEGETABLES
One of the tasks that I most dislike about the farming life is preparing the raised beds each time I want to plant out a crop of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, or onion. While I do enjoy eating a fresh tomato from my garden, the tedious, repetitive tasks of preparing the garden bed, weeding, and then planting out a winter cover crop does take up more time than I would like. Pasturing chickens over the beds in the fall time once the crops have stopped producing, does save some human labor, but with our orchards, pastures, and forests to take care of, I often find myself without adequate time to dedicate to beds of annual vegetables.
AN EXPERIMENT WITH ASPARAGUS
About three years ago, I purchased a bag of about 5,000 Mary Washington Asparagus Seeds. The seedlings germinated well in our cold, wet, mountain climate, and my family and I decided to dedicate about half of our on contour garden terraces (about ¼ of an acre) to the Asparagus crop. After a day or two of weeding and preparing the soil, we planted out the crop, mulched them heavily, and then eventually forgot about the Asparagus for several months as other farm jobs took over our attention.
About six months later, and two days of heavy weeding, we found the asparagus crop to be thriving despite our neglect. While we weren´t able to harvest the crop for the next two years, the Asparagus grew to cover the entire three terraces, essentially shading out most of the weeds. During the spring of the third year, we were gifted with bountiful amounts of asparagus that not only would be harvested this year, but for decades to come.
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