Perennial plantings are the gift that keeps on giving to preppers. Put the work in now, reap the benefits from now on. Two such plants are a match made in heaven: They cooperate very well in the same bed, they both make food so good that many people are willing to pay up for them in the best of times, and they produce food early in the season before most other crops are ready. These nutritional stars are asparagus and strawberries.
Setting up the asparagus and strawberry bed
I thought it would be hard. Asparagus is fairly expensive in stores, which often means a food is a troublesome crop. But hey, I’m all about exploring perennial food options, so I gave it a shot. I dug up a bed as soon as the ground thawed, fortified it with some composted manure, stuck in some asparagus roots, and let them have a row. I put a row of strawberries right in front of them, having heard they made a good combo. After laying a drip irrigation line (more on the irrigation system here) and setting plenty of straw around the stems as a mulch to suppress weeds, I left them be for the rest of the year.
Just a few asparagus spears came up later in the spring; I left them all to go to seed. The strawberries spread by a few runners but put on few berries (which had to be tested for quality control you know … so I ate them still warm from the sun before they even made it into the house).
Why this combination?
Strawberry and asparagus plants both die back to the roots over winter. Asparagus pops up first, but its thin spears don’t block the light or discourage the strawberries below. Meanwhile, the strawberries make a good ground cover, becoming a living mulch so the bed requires little weeding. The live mulch is particularly cooling to the soil below, which extends the harvest of the asparagus.
Now this is my idea of great mulch…
How did the companion bed work out?
The second spring was one of the latest, most snowy spring seasons of my experience, and I was wondering if all the asparagus roots had died during a heavy cold snap. Not at all, at all! Spears popped up enthusiastically the week after the last snow, and the strawberries soon after. Now, two months later, the asparagus is slowing down but the strawberries are starting to roll in. It looks at the moment that a moderate stream of both fruit and veggie will continue for quite some time.
<Here’s where the pic of the big bowlful of strawberries and asparagus I picked today would be, if I had remembered before I ate the the asparagus.>
For lovers of asparagus tips:
- Placing the bed just north of some other planting that grows tall throughout the summer extends the harvest of both asparagus and many strawberry varieties. Both spring crops dislike too much heat, so as the shade grows as the heat rises, they stay happy longer. Mine is liking the partial shade of the blackberries just to their south.
- Asparagus and strawberries both are good guerilla crops, it turns out. If you’ve got extra strawberry runners they can be dug up and replanted, and the thin, late-season asparagus spears will go to seed if left. I saw it growing wild in three different states this weekend. You might turn some of each crop loose in land no one cares about; and if someone wants to harvest them later more the better. They have shown no tendency to be overly aggressive invaders.
- Strawberries freeze, can, and dry admirably. If anyone knows a tasty way to preserve asparagus, I’d love to hear about it.
- If slugs find the strawberries, you can buy them off with beer. Find out here.
Happy planting – you’ll be prepared to have really good food at hand!