It just seems so WRONG..... Harvesting Asparagus.
The first edible that pops up out of the ground on our place announcing the advent of SPRING is Asparagus!
"HI!! I Bring Good News! Its SPRING!! Winter is OVER!!! "
...and the first thing we do this this early Bringer of the Good News is cut it off at the ground.
(ans steam it, and eat it with moans of delight)
It just seems SO wrong.
Everything else in our Garden, upon showing signs of life after the dark of Winter is nurtured,
cared for with tenderness, fertilized, weeded, and visited daily with loving appreciation.
Days, sometimes weeks will pass in agonized anticipation of a Tomato or a Strawberry reaching that perfect ripeness before it is harvested...
...but NOT Asparagus.
As soon as it pops UP, Off With Its Head!
(The thin ones are seedlings from last year's seeds that dropped in the bed.
The thicker ones should have been cut yesterday.
The shorter brown stubs are the stalks from last year's standing crop that were cut off last Fall.)
If immediate decapitation is not bad enough,
it can get even more brutal.
Hey. Lets cover up the babies so they can't get any light!!!
Light Deprivation produces White Asparagus
that is even more tender.
YUM!
We love this stuff so much that we added another variety, and two more beds this year.
Asparagus is one of the very few Perennial vegetables.
A well maintained bed will produce for many years.
Our original bed is 4 years old, and producing beyond our expectations.
It has been trouble free, with no pests, diseases, or any special needs.
(There is an Asparagus Beetle, but we haven't seen one here yet.)
After harvesting (4 - 6 weeks in a mature bed),
the stalks are left standing for the rest of the Summer,
and cut off at ground level when they turn brown in the Fall.
Asparagus Beds are self-weeding for the most part because the plants grow so tall & thick that weeds don't really have a chance. After the Spring Harvest, we just give it a little water if we don't get any rain, and just watch it grow.
This is a beautiful plant, very lacy and ethereal.
It grows very tall, over 6', so I suggest locating it along the fence.
Asparagus has been the most trouble free/ low maintenance crop we have grown here,
and the taste and tenderness of fresh cut Asparagus is better than anything that can be bought in a market,
or ordered in a high end restaurant.
We prefer our lightly steamed with a little butter.
In 2006, My Wife & I sold everything,
left the Big Northern City (Minneapolis),
and moved to The Woods of West/Central Arkansas (Ouachita Mountains).
We are committed to living as independently and as sustainability as possible.
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For anyone following the saga of Blossom, the rescue fawn,
she is now 9 months old, and completely free to go where she chooses.
She still returns home every evening for apple treats, back scratching, and a walk in The Woods with her Deer Mama
and our two Mousers.
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You could leave her the remainders of the stalks and she'd chomp them right down, a whole pile of them too.
Missy the cat lived to be almost 17 years old. Gee, I wonder why? 
I love this post and the photos! Best of luck to you in the Ouachitas! 
....but have opened things up a bit over the years.
We have the room to do so,
and wider spacing makes the plants easier to tend,
allows for more air circulation (we have some mold & fungal problems from high humidity),
and easier to spot small problem before they get big, like Squash Bugs.
We still use Companion Planting stressed in the Square Foot method,
and for limited space/maximum production (Variety & Quantity), SqFt is the only way to go.
Thanks for the kind words about Deer Momma.
My wife still enjoys a very special relationship with Blossom.
Sweetee LIKES me, but LOVES her Momma.
They are closely bonded.
Sweetee will sometimes join me if I'm working outside.
She just suddenly appears at my side.
If my wife Starkraven steps outside.
Sweetee will go bounding over to her with her tail up in a joyous greeting.
As part of her Deer Momma duties, when Sweetee was old enough, my wife started taking her on daily Walks in the Woods,
picking leaves and vines and offering them to her, essentially showing her how to forage for food.
The Evening Walk has become a daily ritual, and my wife & Sweetee are joined by our two mousers who also enjoy the daily Sunset Walk in the Woods. The critters will assemble in the yard and wait for us if we are late.
We expect that one day, she will choose to do something else besides spend her evenings with us,
and we will miss her, but as long as she continues to show up,
we are going to enjoy her as much as possible.
She LOVES to chew ice, and if we're not attentive,
she will steal the cubes out of your Tea or Ice Water.
[font size=3 color=firebrick]A Note of Caution for readers of this thread:[/font]
Blossom IS a wild animal, and there are good reasons WHY they haven't been domesticated.
As gentle as she appears, she is EXPLOSIVE, and even the slightest unexpected noise can trigger a full panic.
She is powerful and dangerous when this happens.
We are always very careful around her,
always let her approach us,
avoid being in confined areas with her,
and never get between her and the way out.
Deer also carry some diseases that can be transmitted (like Lyme Disease).
No vet will treat an injured wild animal,
and there are no medicines or vaccines for them either.
Male Deer (Bucks) are very unmanageable,
far less "social",
and some have attacked and killed their handlers during Rut.
If planted from seed, the required "wait" before harvesting is 3 years.
However, it IS possible to buy "crowns" that are already 2 years old.
If you plant these crowns, you may take a few spears the following next year, but the suggestion is to wait 2 years.
After that, the harvesting is progressive, allowing for a longer harvesting season.
A good bed can produce for many, many years.
After harvesting is over, we just let it stand, water it occasionally,
cut it off at ground level in the Fall,
top dress with compost & mulch,
and wait for next year.
It had proved to be surprisingly easy with no pests, diseases, or special needs.
Our primary bed (shown in the photos) is 4 years old, and we started it with crowns that were two years old,
so we are at the maximum allowable harvest season of between 4 weeks - 6 weeks.
We are two weeks into that span, and are eating fresh cut Asparagus nightly.
We started with 10 crowns evenly spaced in a 10' X 4' raised bed, and that is now more than sufficient for 2 Asparagus Lovers who plan to eat it daily for a solid month.
Asparagus has proved to be very hardy, and self propagating through its own seeds.
We now have Asparagus seedlings popping up all over the garden.
Last year, we moved the seedlings to another dedicated bed that is doing well.
We also bought 15 more crowns (at WalMart!) of another variety (M. Washington) and started another bed along a fence line.
We are hoping to reach a point where we can look at each other and say, "Please, No more Asparagus tonight,"
but , so far, we haven't reached that point.
The only real problem we have with Asparagus is that we haven't found a really good way to preserve it for the rest of the year. 
But Shhhhh!
We don't want the word to get out.
Most of the Ozarks & Ouachitas are still pristine with bountiful wild life.
All the varieties of Swallowtails are spectacular,
but seeing a Giant Luna Moth is a near Spiritual Experience,
and we love seeing the Lightening Bugs again.
that I've never gotten enough of it to the kitchen to actually cook.
I usually ate it raw while I'm working on other stuff in the garden. 
Of course, I've never had a large enough, old enough bed to do more than that. For a decade, I had a cycle that went like this:
I'd double-dig a new bed, put in new starts, nurture them through their first season, and get a little asparagus to eat the 2nd season...until, about half way through, rodents would show up and eat them from below. Gophers, mostly. So I'd start again the next spring.
Until, finally, in the last place I lived, I lined the bed with hardware cloth. That worked great; the asparagus actually made it into the 3rd season. At that point, the neighbor's bermuda grass crossed into the garden and started taking over everything. I was struggling to pull all the bermuda out and leave asparagus behind, until I moved to the far north, where I've never managed to handle all the weeds, let alone find time to actually plant things on purpose, lol.
Anyway, the pictures of your asparagus made me hungry. I'm going to find some dinner.