Those are on there because I wasn't out there picking when I should have been picking. lol
I planted my asparagus bed in 2008 and didn't pick anything from it the first three years. Very light pickings the next two years. Last year I picked it clean til the end of May and I plan on working it the same way this spring. I add 2"-3" of compost on top every year after the tops die back. It seems to be working.
As far as letting it go to seed... male plants will give you more asparagus to eat. Female plants will give you wild asparagus all over the neighborhood. I leave one female plant in my patch just for that purpose. Any new ones that show up get plucked and chucked.
Certain species of birds will eat the seeds, and some of the seeds will not be fully digested ,
the bird travels elsewhere and drops excrement even as it flys
which, in reality becomes an asparagus seed encapsulated in fertilizer ( sorta like a yogurt raisin), ready to sprout elsewhere in the wild.
One of the first books I got on horticulture and foraging was : Euell Gibbons' book, "Stalking the Wild Asparagus",
and found some wild asparagus in a hedgerow adjoining a farm field in my then apartment , back yard.
I include foraging, herbology, grafting , hybrids and heirlooms as part of my horticulture education.
Augie : how can you know in the early season which stalk is male and which is female (seed producing) ?
Is it like squash where the males are the first to appear , followed by the female stalks (seed producers) ?
Are they sequential ?
Honestly , I don't know.
Thanks for the information. It helps a lot. As near as my wife and I can tell it the patches are 8 to 10yrs old. The patches are 30ft. by 5 ft.