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Old May 19, 2018   #18
carolyn137
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Upstate NY, zone 4b/5a
Posts: 21,169
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We had a very large field of asparagus at the farm where I grew up that lasted for many decades,I think the Shakers might well have been the ones who planted that whole field back in the late 1880's. My father sold where it was to a developer who plowed it up,made it an extension of what was called Maple Lane.

Now I may get this not right,since I'm not looking at any links,nor doing any Googling, BUT, when the bushes with red berries went up he disced that field proto,since some bushes would have male berries and some female berries.

Is this making sense to anyone?

I still have several of those asparagus forks here where I now live,it was a back breaking task to keep bending over to cut the stalks down where they kind of met the soil. Then haul all those stalks into the barn where that asparagus buncher was.

And the seeds from those bushes would be blown around at the edge of the farm and form clumps,we called them the wild ones and many times my mother and I went around the edge and cut stalks to bring home, she said to always cut the ones in the middle of those clumps, the biggest ones,then to trim off the bottom where the white part was and cook the rest for meals.

After being bunched,a red rubber band went around each bunch,the bunches put in a shallow pan of water and my father would take them to market early the next morning.

Carolyn
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