Asparagus gone wild!

I've mentioned in previous posts that we found asparagus on our property when we moved here.  This property was farmed for hundreds of years, and I have no idea when the original "gus" was first planted.  I'm always learning something about this property; it's so interesting. 

The asparagus is growing very well after all these years, the stalks from the original patch are huge and come up every spring.  The asparagus patch is in the middle of a field in our back yard.  When we moved here the field grass was chest high.  Now we keep it mowed, but we don't mow around the asparagus patch, we have to cut that by hand in the spring.  The below picture shows at least 4 asparagus stalks growing in the grass.  And this is just one section; there are more large stalks growing all around.  (The grass needs some hand-trimming when I took this pic!)

There is a second smaller patch of asparagus that is at least 3 years old.  We believe this patch came from seeds from the larger patch.  The stalks are thinner, but are not bad!

Here's one of the larger asparagus stalks that I cut.

This spring we planted some new asparagus roots.  We tried 2 different varieties ~ Jersey King and Mary Washington.  And they both are growing in just a few weeks!  You can see from the pictures below why they say you have to wait several years before you can harvest from new asparagus roots ~ the stalks are so very tiny!!!  I'm holding the big asparagus which I cut so you can compare the baby asparagus stalk to the grandpa stalk; the little stalk is in front of my fingers. It's easy to miss!

Here's another little asparagus stalk.  When I looked around I could see them everywhere, they are just so small.  In quite a few years, we'll have more asparagus than ever!