“My family didn’t grow asparagus when I was a child. We found it.
My dad had a sharp eye for the tender green spears that grew wild along roadsides near our home in Piqua, a wisp of a town in southeastern Kansas. He could spot even a single spear when he took the family on Sunday afternoon drives. He would stop our Plymouth Fury and gather the crop.
I developed a passion for asparagus, too.
Only now, though I fondly remember those asparagus hunts, I find it much easier to simply step out the back door of my house and snap a few delicious spears from the bed in our garden.
When I first planted asparagus, I was a little intimidated by all the folks who said it was hard to grow. Starting a bed does take more work for asparagus than for many other vegetables. But after 15 years, and expanding to 20 acres for commercial production on our farm in Lawrence, I know asparagus is one of the tastiest, easiest vegetables you can grow…
