The Great Aspargus Debate

For years rural landowners including farmers have weighed in on the great aspargus debate. Did their city counterparts have the right to traipse along their ditches and snatch their tender green shoots of aspargus from right under their noses?

I guess that depends which side of the issue you side with. Since the local government has control over the right of way along roadways, does that mean all taxpayers (who support that govt. through their taxes) have the green light to forage the ditches for aspargus even though rural landowners argue that they pay taxes right up to the centerline and should be the collector of all the spoils including the aspargus, ragweed and discarded tires.

I have even seen some landowners actually confront the 'trespassing pickers' and order them off their 'property'. If you have seen the ditches of some stretches of roadway, there are literally paths worn in the weeds from one stand of aspargus to the other. While some folks can't tell the fronds of an aspargus plant from goldenrod, some wily natural gardeners have scouted out the good spots in the fall, relying on the sight of the telltale tall, ferny-looking fronds come late summer. Either they have a good memory or a secret system like the hobos used to tell a generous household from one that housed a rolling pin wielding housewife...some folks just seem to know where to zero in come spring just in time to find the tender spears peeking out of the soil.

Even though our kids didn't like aspargus, they did take issue with those pickers who had the audacity to order them off of our own property. Their solution? Make signs warning folks of the dangers of poison ivy. Did it stop the interlopers from getting our aspargus? Not really, but the kids enjoyed beating them to the punch by getting there first until I came up with our rule: what is picked must be eaten. By the end of the growing season my husband couldn't look at another spear of aspargus.