thaspi
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Purple asparagus seeds

Thanks Applestar and Soil for the answer, but...
my problem is that I cannot find an asparagus plant near the purple asparagus spear, to collect the berries with the seeds

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applestar
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OH, OK. The spears, when left to grow, grow up to become the plants. The berries form in late summer-fall. So if you are seeing spears now (?) -- a little confused because I normally harvest asparagus spears in spring -- then you will have to not harvest them all and let some of them grow up.

More precisely, when I harvest in my garden, I harvest all thick spears then let the rest grow. Sometimes I miss a few thick spears until its too late and I let those grow as well.

thaspi
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Thanks again....
I usaually harvest the purple spears in March....
You mean that if I do not harvest the purple spears (https://www.google.gr/search?q=purple+as ... 80&bih=862)
they will become plants and I will find the berries late summer...

P.S.It is quite different with the wild "green" asparagus. In this case, I can see the plant now, with the green color berries. In Feb or March I will harvest the green spears, and later I will gather the red color berries with the seeds......

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rainbowgardener
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Image

Image


Image

Image

Image

Image


On the theory that a picture is worth 1000 words, the above is my attempt at photojournalistic essay on the life of asparagus. The spears come up looking like the vegetable we eat. You can either harvest it, in which case that particular stalk is gone and will never become a plant, or you can leave it. Later in the season you have to leave some to feed the roots for next year.

If you leave it, it gets a lot taller and then as in picture three, what were the scales start to open up. Eventually each one becomes a frond. After the plant has changed from a spear to a big plumy, ferny plant, then it will put out berries. All asparagus goes through this progression. Leave the plants until they have all turned yellow, to feed the roots as long as possible, then you can cut them down.

tomc
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rainbowgardener wrote: Image.
Each one of those red berries will have two or four seeds in each.

Mash and rinse berries. Dry remaining black seeds. Or plant to field or pot promptly.

Asparagus seed does well with cold stratification.

thaspi
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Thanks for your help, but I am interesting in "purple asparagus", like the photos in the following link:

https://www.google.gr/search?q=purple+as ... 20&bih=963

The "rainbowgardener"'s text conserns the green asparagus
...[/img]

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rainbowgardener
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Right, but it is all aparagus. The life cycle from stalk, to the scales opening up, to having fronds, to making berries, is exactly the same. If you harvest all the stalks, you will never have berries, because the stalks are the beginning of the process.

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applestar
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That's right. Are the purple asparagus planted in your garden? When did you plant them? (how old are the crowns?). You didn't see any spears grow out and become plants/fronds?

I only have Purple Passion asparagus in my garden. I stop harvesting when the spears become thin like pencils, and my attention moves on to other parts of the garden. But almost always, the asparagus will sneak up thick lovely shoots when I'm not looking and sometimes I'll catch them in time and harvest the late treasures, but most of the time, by the time I notice, they are knee high and starting to unfurl. :roll: Those big shoots turned into GIANT fronds probably 6feet or taller, arched over and gave me all kinds of trouble by shading the strawberry patch until I got them corralled and under control.

I didn't get to cut down the yellowed fronds after frost. I'm going to get to them after a dry spell and just use them as strawberry mulch. :D

BTW, Last year, I was even worse and the asparagus fronds didn't get cut down until spring. There were some berries still on them and I processed some of those (soaked and took out the seeds) and sowed them, and I sowed (in truth just scattered :P ) the berries in parts of the veg garden to see what would happen. The seeds in the pot germinated and I uppotted them -- hopefully, they are still OK out there. The berries in the garden AS WELL AS THOSE THAT FELL INTO THE STRAWBERRY PATCH all germinated. :shock:

I havent been feeling well and have not been outside lately, but if I find berries out there when I get out one of these days, I'll post. :wink:



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