Note to self - 1.19.23 Transplanting Asparagus in Yucatan for retail sale

 Maybe a reader would be interested.  But I'm making this note to myself to refer to later.

I planted 500 asparagus plants in mid August 2022 in two rows in my raised-garden-beds.  Each row had 3 rows of asparagus with about 75 plants per row.  September nothing.  October 19th, 60 days later, they popped up overnight.  

A month later, on November 21, 2022 they were about 30 cm tall (12"). You can see them in the rows between the coconut trees I'm growing (for sale).  The coconut trees give the plants partial daytime shade from the very hot Yucatan sun.

On November 21, 2022 I decided to pursue growing asparagus for a 2nd income stream.  To raise as potted plants to sell retail in Merida in 3 years to expats and nationals who would like to buy a mature plant and begin cutting spears from the plants immediately.  2 mature plants would provide a couple of small family enough asparagus for their own needs to eat it as often as they'd like.   The mature, ready-to-harvest plants should sell for about 500 to 600 pesos each.   ($25-30)   Since they cost me less than 40 pesos each to start in cups, and then transplant to nursery bags that will contain them for 3 years, it would be a 10 to 15 time return on my money.  I will have to provide some water (free) and some fertilizer for 3 years, but that cost is minimum by having the plants consolidated for care.  On November 21, I planted seeds in 150 red solo cups and kept near the house to water and watch.   As before, they came up in about 8 weeks, so there is not difference in planting in August or November.

Today, January 19, 2023 we have about 500 plants that are up in the planting beds, and hearty, and we've already cut back one time, to promote root growth below the ground instead of tall thin plants above the ground.  We are also planting today, an additional 1,000+ plants that should come up in mid March.  That will be a total of about 1,500 plants that we will be for harvesting in 3 years and selling the spears at the Oxkutzcab produce market.  Hopefully it will be an income of about 4,000 pesos per day ($200.00) after paying the labor to harvest the spears and transport to market.  I'm uncertain how long it will go on each year, but I expect in this tropical climate at least 7 to 8 months a year.   Then I intend to cover them and apply liquid nitrogen to throw them into a winter-like condition and go dormant for 2 or 3 months.  (I'll decide more on that later since we have no freezing temps here).

Meanwhile, yesterday and today, we transplanted the plants from the November 21 red solo cups to black nursery bags for retail in 3 years.  After we emptied the red solo cups, we then put in new prepared soil in the red cups and planted 160 more plants to be grown for retail.   I have also started an experiment today, and besides the 160 in red solo cups, I'm also planting 160 plants in a much smaller blue plastic cups.  These smaller cups are about 1/4 the cost of the red solo cup and I want to see will they sprout in 8 weeks the same as the red solo cups.  If so, I'll change and just use the blue cups in the future because I can get many more of them in the same area and it makes caring for them for the next 2 months easier, and I can be sprouting 300 at a time instead of 160.   Now I wait and see.  I will update this again on about March 25, 2023 and post the results here.

The plants in 4 liter nursery bags on the right are the ones that will be like this for 3 years to grow and mature for retail or nursery sale.

You can see below that not only are the blue cups much cheaper than the red cups, I can get about the same amount of plants in half the area.  That makes it easier for watering and fertilizing.