Why Are My Aspragus Spears Thin?

G'day, welcome to iCultivate, my name's Steve. Welcome to my small but very very productive asparagus garden. Now are you someone who grows asparagus but you notice that quite a few of your asparagus spears are very thin? Well don't worry you're not on your own there but there are some reasons for that and during this video I'm going to have a look at why your asparagus spears might be thin and what you can do about it. Now as you can see right here I have some asparagus spears that are really thin. Now that can be really frustrating but what I'll do now is I'll have a look at a number of reasons why these thin asparagus spears can occur and what we can do about that. So reason number one is the age of your asparagus plant. Now don't expect to get nice thick asparagus spears like those ones you buy at the grocery store if your asparagus plant is only one or two years old. You really should be waiting three to four years before you start to harvest your asparagus plants. Now these asparagus plants are actually only two years old and while we did harvest a small number of spears this year we really do need to wait for another year or two before we can get the normal harvest from this plant. Now reason number two is possible over harvesting. Now you can see in this particular plant here we've now let this go. Some of these would have been beautiful spears but we chose to let them go because as I said just previously this plant or in fact all of these plants are only two years old. Now we harvested for just a couple of weeks. Now if your plants are only two years old that's really all you should be doing. If your plants are three or four years old then you can start to harvest a bit longer but even then probably no more than six or seven weeks. You do need to get to the point where you allow your asparagus plant to actually produce these spears to the point where they form these ferns because it is these ferns that then photosynthesize and put the energy back down into the crown so that it can get prepared for the following season. Reason number three that your asparagus spears might be thin is to do with the soil and nutrient levels. Asparagus is a really heavy feeder and so therefore you need to keep the food up to it. In other words you need to compost and to fertilize reasonably heavy particularly during its growing season and also just before the season for growth begins. Now you will see in one of my previous videos I talk about what the winter jobs are for your asparagus and I'll put a link to that particular video just above us now but keep in mind that it is totally about the health of the crown in other words the plant itself the root system that is underneath the ground and so therefore we need to make sure particularly given that it is a heavy feeder that that crown has all the nutrients that it requires in order to grow these spears in the way in which we see now. So just at the end of winter just before your spears start to emerge give it a really good compost and a good feed and then a little bit later around now towards the end of the harvesting time when you allow these ferns to grow give it another good solid compost and feed as well. Remember it's a heavy feeder and so therefore you need to make sure that it gets all the nutrients it requires. Another reason why your asparagus plants might be producing spears a little bit on the thin side might have to do with overcrowding. When you plant your asparagus crowns originally you need to make sure that they are somewhere between 12 to 18 inches apart at least and if you look at these ones here you can see that the original crown here was somewhere around here compared with this one over here. Now that's certainly at least 12 inches but probably closer to 18 inches apart. This is important because as I said just before asparagus plants are heavy feeders and so therefore if you have them close together they are going to be competing for the nutrients so you need to ensure that they are well spaced and so therefore are able to access all the nutrients they require without competing with other asparagus plants. Now the last reason that I'm going to mention as to why you might be getting thin asparagus spears has got to do with watering. Asparagus particularly during the growing season require a good level of So make sure that when you are watering your soil that you water deeply. Now something else that will help with the water level within the soil is a good thick layer of mulch. Now you can see here that while my soil actually is nice and moist and does have some good organic matter in it I really do need to get another layer of mulch on here. I probably would want somewhere between two to three inches of mulch on here in order to help with this moisture level. Now I'm going to sort of double that up because I need to feed this asparagus so not only am I going to mulch but I'm going to put a good layer of compost across here and probably kill two birds with one stone. So to sum up in order to get your asparagus spears to be not so thin and to thicken up make sure firstly that you are feeding them well, that the moisture levels in the soil are good, you're not over harvesting and you have the plants really well spaced. If you follow this regime of looking after your asparagus you should find that over the next year or two that your asparagus spears will thicken up and become more like those beautiful asparagus spears that you see typically in the grocery store. Now I hope you enjoyed this video about why you might be getting thin asparagus spears and what you can do about that. Can I ask you please to go down to the thumbs up and give us a thumbs up, subscribe to this channel and go to our website icultivate.net and become a member of the community. Thanks for watching.