Lindsey Nair

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You can ask Nan Gray all day long how she grows amazing asparagus. But she's going to give the exact same response she gave me: a sunny smile and a shrug.

"We're scientists," she says.

And that's all anybody needs to know. Gray has a master's degree in soil science, and her husband, Eric Day, has a master's in entomology, the study of bugs.

If they weren't blessed with green thumbs, they've certainly earned them.

Day is a professor of entomology at Virginia Tech; Gray is president of a soil consulting company called Soil Works. They have two teenage sons, Gordon, 19, and Graham, 17.

On the side, they run a small, pick-your-own asparagus farm called Silver Lining Farm in Craig County, just a few miles outside of Newport. The home sits on a hillside of terraced gardens, while the asparagus is planted on a couple of acres atop a sunny hill across narrow Happy Hollow Road.

In addition to the asparagus, the farm consists of a huge vegetable garden, a coopful of chickens, 11 fuzzy goslings, a frog pond, two cats and two dogs, Dot and Rover.

We walked past a big, red barn and over a burbling creek, passing wild columbines and bluebells along the way, before huffing up a hill on an 80-degree spring day to find the fully exposed, blazing warm field of asparagus.

Upon first glance, it was the least charming sight of the day -- until I saw that on the mounded rows of red dirt, among small clumps of grass and weeds, grew the most impressive asparagus stalks I'd ever seen.

Big but not tough

I don't have a lick of experience growing asparagus. My father had a small patch in the garden when I was young, but all I remember are a few puny stalks and the beautiful fernlike leaves after it had gone to seed.

The Gray-Day asparagus field is surely a lovely sight when the asparagus goes to seed for the summer. But this time of year, those bare rows studded with purplish-green stalks are a joyous sight for the family.

It means it is asparagus-eating time. And they eat pounds and pounds of it all spring.

Photos by Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

The hybrid variety of asparagus that Nan Gray and Eric Day plant on their Silver Lining Farm produces huge, juicy spears of asparagus.

Nan Gray prepares asparagus and boiled eggs with curry sauce. She attributes the success of her family's asparagus farm to her and her husband's background in the sciences.

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• Asparagus and boiled eggs w/ curry sauce

"We eat it every day for two months, maybe more," Gray said. "By the time we are done eating it, we are really fine about not eating it again for nine months."

That's an impressive development for a woman who once hated asparagus. When she and Day were trying to decide what kind of crop to put in, their friend Charlie O'Dell from Crow's Nest Farm in Blacksburg said "you've got an ideal spot for growing asparagus."

"I looked at him like he had six heads growing out of his neck," Gray said. "Who would want that? He said, 'No, no, you don't understand. People who like asparagus really like asparagus.' "

The hybrid variety they plant on their farm produces huge, juicy spears of asparagus -- one as long as my forearm. There is nothing woody or stringy about these sweet, tender stalks.

In fact, the bigger the better. It's knife-and-fork asparagus.

Asparagus is planted as a crown of roots that looks like an octopus, Gray said. A well-cared for plant has a life span of about 15 years before it must be replaced. Their plants range in age.

Gray monitors the flavor of her asparagus when it first starts to peep out of the ground in early spring. For a few weeks, the family eats the asparagus, but it is not sold to customers. That's partly because the field doesn't produce enough and partly because it isn't sweet at the very beginning.

"I don't want somebody to think that's what my asparagus tastes like," Gray said.

She never cuts asparagus, saying that damages the root. It is much better to simply bend the stalk and let it snap where it wants to.

Plenty of regular customers watch their calendars in eager anticipation of late April, when the farm is usually open for picking.

"We like our customers," she said. "We have some who call in January and say, 'How is my asparagus?' And I tell them we are taking good care of it."

Open for picking

The first time you want to pick asparagus at Silver Lining Farm, you must make an appointment. This year, it is going for $4 per pound you-pick and $4.50 per pound if they pick it for you.

The family picks the fields every evening. Gray says if a person sat in the middle of the field for a few hours, he or she could literally watch the spears leap from the ground.

The clumps of grass and weeds along the rows are there for a purpose. The greenery gives beneficial bugs a place to hide, confuses hungry critters and keeps the asparagus cool.

If the weeds get out of hand, Gray and Day do a thorough picking, then mow and mulch the rows. After that, the asparagus is ideally the only plant that can penetrate the mulch.

"This is a huge amount of work, and it is a labor of love," Gray said. "As Eric likes to say, this is like our golf game."

Gray said they never know how long the season will last -- generally it is eight to 10 weeks, depending on the weather.

When it gets so hot that they can't pick it fast enough before it goes to seed, it is time to close up shop for the summer.

"There is really no point in coaxing it," Gray said. "Why rob next year's crop?"

After years of growing asparagus, Gray is definitely a convert. She believes there is no asparagus like freshly picked asparagus.

She used to wonder why the grocery store stalks looked so bad to her, then she left a pound of hers sitting in the refrigerator for two weeks and discovered the reason.

Through careful planning and tweaking over the years, Gray and Day have so perfected their crop that other farmers want her to give them lessons on growing asparagus.

But she is not one to readily divulge her secrets.

Again with that bright smile, she will say only: "We are willing to be patient. We review our notes. It is all a big experiment, and we do a tremendous amount of planning.

"This year, I think we will produce more asparagus than ever before."

Check out the blog for more delicious asparagus recipes. If you've got a good one, share!