I’ll confess at the outset that I haven’t been an attentive steward. All the guides I read stress the importance of keeping asparagus beds “clean” — as in weeded and free of herbaceous encroachment. Soil amendments wouldn’t hurt either, like compost or other nourishing organic matter. I’m sure it’s good advice, but I have neglected to follow it.“Neglect,” of course, is the proper description because ever since planting the two varieties of asparagus the first spring of our residence on the farmstead I have been well-intentioned but poor-performing. There are always other, ever-pressing garden tasks this time of year that assert a higher priority. Always. There is greenhouse management, repositioning of rain barrels after winter storage; there is bed prep for the seeds we directly sow and transplanting of seedlings started indoors. There are irrigation lines to run, and interrupting rains and...
Like I said, “always.” The asparagus always gets neglected. Perennially through these past six years this gem of spring has essentially had to fend for itself.
So it is this grace-filled marvel that, inexplicably, it somehow manages to do so. This year in particular. Out of the morass of last year’s detritus and this year’s early weeds; despite creeping competition from nearby berry brambles and grass from the pathways alongside emerge these purple and green stems, at once delicate and sturdy. So pessimistic am I — along with inveterate distraction — the protuberances practically have to wave and shout and jump up and down to attract my attention. Gratefully, moreso than in any of the previous years, they have succeeded. We have happily taken notice. Almost daily, with knife in hand, we navigate our way to those remote reaches of the garden to admire and avail ourselves of what growth the overnight has afforded. Even still I find it amazing, this tenacious generosity of soil and crown and time, made all the more miraculous by my neglect.
We have not taken this beneficence for granted. We have roasted it, sautéed it, grilled it and consumed it raw. We have included it in pastas, in frittatas, and as the frame around steaks. We have, in a word, enjoyed it.
I suspect all blessings are like that — testaments to unmerited grace. They simply present themselves unbidden and undeserved. The tomatoes and peppers, I dare say, I expect to harvest — along with all those other roots and fruits I so carefully coddle and tend. Indeed, I get annoyed when their output is sub par. Harvesting them is my due, after all, given all I have invested in their growth. But the asparagus? By all rights those crowns I buried as a neophyte farmer all those years ago should have laughed at my fecklessness before lifelessly withering into the soil.
And yet, nonetheless, it appears, year after delicious year. As if to say, “I forgive you. Eat well. I’ll do the best I can.”
If I have any measure of gratitude, I will do all I can to do the same.
