But I've still got an item of unfinished business that niggles at me. My asparagus bed just won't quite stop growing.
Asparagus, in the event you don't know, is a fernlike plant (closer to the lily, genetically speaking), one that grows around six feet in height. The asparagus we eat are the first tender shoots that rise in the spring, which can be harvested for six or eight weeks before ya just let the plant grow. Asparagus rootstock, once established and well tended, can provide nutrition for a generation. In order to harvest it, you've got to cut down the ferns in late fall, as I have the last three years. You put a nice blanket of leafmulch atop the bed, and tuck it away for a nice winter rest.
To do that, you have to wait until the tall, delicately formed plants end their annual growth cycle. This year, they're just not stopping.
About a third of the ferns have browned and died off, but the majority remain green and vital. I'm sitting there, tapping my foot, looking at my watch, but they're in no hurry.
All it takes is one good hard frost to shut them down, but...that frost hasn't come. Not yet. Historically speaking, first frost in the Midatlantic comes in mid to late October, but this year, it didn't. Instead, we got a record-breaking stretch of drought, coupled with anomalously warm weather. That happens more and more, because of course it does. That frost is nearly a month late is...well, it's something notable. Something real.
The longer the asparagi pump energy back into their roots, the stronger the plants will be, so I'm not going to rush them. That unfinished task will just nudge about in the back of my mind, reminding me of something undone.
And something a little...wrong.
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