 Well, hello everyone and welcome to another M.I. Short here on the M.I. Gardner channel. This is going to be a super quick, super quick M.I. Short. So don't blink because you're going to miss something. So we had a question on the Facebook page about Asparagus and I figured why not? Just talk about it right now with the time of season. I can make videos. It doesn't harm me at all to grab my camera and film something. It's a little bit easier as well than just writing a big paragraph and hoping you understand it. So Mark, Mark forgot your last name. But your first name is Mark. I know that. So if you're watching and your name is Mark and you did ask this question, I'm answering it now. I apologize. It took so long to get to it as well. But Mark asked, what do I do in the winter time for Asparagus? Do I trim them back? Because we talked about cutting perennials back so they can reroute energy in the spring time. Now Mark, when you want to prune your Asparagus, don't prune your Asparagus. When you want to, don't. Sometimes you want to say, all right, well, I'm going to clip these back. These are green. Green means that it's still producing energy. Green means photosynthesis and photosynthesis is energy for the roots. You want to just let these go. The snow will knock these down. In the spring time, you'll find some brown dead twigs. Then and only then, you can take your clippers and prune those back. Because what's happening here is two things. This biggestparagus fern, well, it gets a lot bigger than this. This was its first year growing. I'm very pleased with how these have grown. I'll bring you in close because I actually have a tutorial on how to grow these. Many people have asked for a follow-up. I figured it'd be a great multi-purpose episode. A recap on how these are growing. Because if you follow that growing guide, you're going to have so much success growing these. These are just booming along. That's not why I'm here. You don't want to prune these, Mark. You don't want to prune these because what happens is in the winter time is the snow will calm, it will pile down. What happens is that these will lay flat on the ground and it will insulate the ground. Because it will actually mat down. But there will be little air gaps in between all these ferns when they lay down flat. What that does is it actually will warm the soil up sooner so that it can sprout sooner as well. Because theparagus, if you don't know, is actually one of the first things to sprout in the spring time. It is just the earliest thing. By Memorial Day, you typically will have fully ready to eat asparagus sprouts. If not a little bit sooner, usually Memorial Day for here in Michigan. But nonetheless, you definitely want to just leave them. Another thing that I figured out, I might as well cover in this sense I'm talking about asparagus, is prepping for the winter time. When it comes to winter prep, they're very cold hearty. These are very Washington. There are some of the most cold hearty variety that I know of. What I'll do is I'll actually take some leaves. I'll take some leaves here. And I will just mulch the leaves around the base. And again, what that does, the same thing as the ferns do. It adds an insulate to the barrier. It protects the ground from those really, really cold temperatures which can sometimes kill off the plant. And it also just warms the soil in the spring time so it can come back better. Now another thing what that does is the earthworms, it will not only warm the soil for the plant, but it will allow the earthworms and the micro bacteria and the fungi and stuff to, that's already in the soil. It allows it to break down that leaf mulch and it will actually feed these plants earlier in the spring to get an extra boost and get extra healthy start on the growing season. So there's a lot of reasons why you want to mulch. I've even mulched with partially finished compost. So there's a lot of things you can do, but I'd suggest mulching in the winter time. This is a great way to ensure a healthy start next year, an alive plant next year. And it's just one of those things that you probably want to get into the habit of doing. It's just fun. So come any close and check these out because I think you are really going to be impressed by how these things have grown. They are just taking a huff and I am really happy. So come on and check these out. So this is the first year growth. Now oftentimes you really don't see this. That's why I'm so amazed. Oftentimes you don't have multiple shoots coming up until very late in the year, but late in the lifespan of these asparagus here. But what happened is these plants were so healthy that it felt as if it could push another fern out. And they got so healthy it pushed another fern out, another one, another one. And now the one fern that I planted now has one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10, 10 ferns in one spot from one seed. I planted one plant in here and I now have 10 pieces of asparagus from this one plant. You come over here, same deal. Check this out. You got one stock right here. You have another stock right there and all these that came from one plant. Now I'm telling you, that's what happens when you feed your soil and you keep the micro nutrients and the nitrogen, the phosphorus, the potassium. You keep it flowing in here with fresh compost, worm castings, rock dust, all those things have attributed to very healthy plants and very healthy plants are very happy plants. So they'll do well for you and they're going to grow very, very, very fast because I've never seen asparagus multiply this quickly before, but yet again, I mean, you see it right here. The proof is in the pudding. It is happening and most people don't think that it can multiply that quick, but I've proven that it indeed can when you give it right conditions. So there you go, Mark, hopefully you enjoyed. Hopefully you learned something new and until next episode, I hope you all are having a great day. Hopefully you are growing big or going home and I'll catch you all later. See ya. Bye. Ah.