Why Should You Order Asparagus Crowns Right Now?

Because Future You Will Thank You

My April 25, 2018, harvest

If you’ve ever wandered out to your garden in early spring and wished something, anything, was ready to harvest, asparagus is the plant that answers your quiet plea. It’s the first vegetable to rise, ready to eat, when the rest of the garden is still rubbing sleep from its eyes.

The best time to plant asparagus? Two years ago. You would be harvesting spears in six weeks. 

The second-best time? March 2026. 

That means if you want that sweet, nutty, melt-in-your-mouth flavor straight from your own soil, now is the moment to order crowns. They invariably sell out every year at garden centers, and once April hits, it’s too late. 

Asparagus spears grow into tall fern-leaved fronds and make a beautiful hedge.

Why asparagus is a forever plant

Asparagus is hands-down one of the most reliable and rewarding vegetables we can grow in Oregon. It’s long-lived, unfussy, and productive for a decade or longer if you plant it in a sunny, well-weeded bed.

I planted 25 crowns back in 2002, and 24 years later, they’re still producing. Not as vigorously as a decade ago, but enough that I’ll replace ten this year and the rest in 2028. 

Once established, asparagus gives you weeks of harvest every spring. Garden visitors love seeing the familiar spears poking up from the ground like something out of Alien. 

Asparagus Requires…

Not much.

• Keep the bed weeded — gently, because the crowns sit close to the soil surface.

• Stake the summer fronds if they flop.

• Mulch lightly to suppress weeds and keep the crowns happy.

• Apply compost in late winter and a complete organic fertilizer in early summer

• Replace older crowns every 15–20 years if production slows.

That’s it. It’s a set-it-and-forget-it crop.

Asparagus Pests

Asparagus beetles defoliating asparagus frond

Asparagus has two main pests, and luckily, nature provides elegant solutions.

Adult asparagus beetles glue neat little rows of eggs on spears, leaves, and flowers. The larvae feed on the plant and pupate in the soil. The best control is a tiny metallic-green parasitic wasp: Tetrastichus coeruleus. It doesn’t sting. It doesn’t bother humans. But it loves asparagus beetle larvae. On average 2–13 wasps emerge per parasitized larva—nature’s efficiency at its finest.

Tiny garden hero, Tetrastichus coeruleus

You can attract these wasps by planting nectar sources with tiny accessible flowers, including:

• sweet alyssum

• yarrow

• bolted cilantro

• flowering dill

• buckwheat

These plants double as pollinator support and soft, pretty fillers in the garden.

Cutworms are a generic name for the caterpillar stage of a number of species of adult moths. They get their name because they cut down young plants and seedlings. They curl around a spear and chomp it off right above the soil line. If you notice them:

• Use cardboard collars around emerging spears (2" above the soil).

• Grow the same tiny-flowered plants that attract parasitoid wasps—those wasps kill cutworms too.

• Go out at night with a flashlight and gloves and catch them in the act. Smile and wave at your neighbors when they look at you like you're insane. Many Portland gardeners night-hunt to combat cutworms and slugs. It's completely normal here.

• Keep chickweed, grasses, and lamb’s quarters in check; cutworms overwinter nearby.

• Strawberries make a good living mulch that suppresses weeds without competing with the asparagus roots.

Varieties I’m Carrying This Year

When I decided which asparagus crowns to carry this year, I chose two modern hybrids that perform best in the home garden. Older varieties like Martha Washington and the Jersey series have their charm–I have them both in my garden now–but today’s breeders have dramatically improved yield, vigor, and reliability. 

Red berries on a female Martha Washington asparagus plant in my garden.

Millennium is cold-hardy, highly productive, and one of the most consistently male-dominant varieties ever developed, which means bigger, longer harvests for years.

Purple Passion brings all the tenderness and sweetness people love in purple asparagus while still producing mostly male plants, giving gardeners beauty and performance. Together, they offer the best of what asparagus can be: dependable, flavorful, long-lived, and genuinely worth planting now for the next decade of spring harvests.

Both varieties will give you robust, long-lived asparagus beds with minimal fuss.

To learn more about planting asparagus, read the University of Minnesota Extensions guide. Oregon State University Extension also has a guide, but it’s not as well illustrated.