Prepping the Asparagus Bed

This is the third year for my asparagus patch, which means that I finally get to harvest a crop.  Last year as thick stems burst out of the
ground, it was painfully hard not to break off each one and enjoy them.  Truth be told, I did cut 4 or 5 spears, just to compare to what we buy at the grocer. There is no comparison...garden asparagus is crisp, fresh, and meaty. My patch now needs very little tending.  What little that is needed, I completed recently.

My asparagus patch is separated from the main garden.  The stems brown and die with the first frost each winter.  I leave them alone to dry and get crispy, but now those dead stems are a resource for me.

I bust out these grass shears and snip the stems close to the ground.

Here the patch has been fully sheared, and ready for the next step.

I put on my heavy duty gloves, grab bundles of dry stems, and break them up into little pieces, turning them into a light mulch for the asparagus bed.

There's now 2 or 3 inches of loose mulch for this year's asparagus.  The growing stalks will have no trouble pushing up through last year's dry stems, and the mulch will keep weeds down as the growing season progresses.

The asparagus bed is brown now, but underneath green shoots are getting ready for spring.  It's almost wrong to cut them, steam them, butter them, squeeze lemons over them, and eat them...  So wrong that it's right.