Asparagus bed under construction

I've been spending my last two weekends and a couple nights after work digging rocks out of my lawn to continue what used to be an asparagus bed. The previous owners or whoever planted it originally didn't do such a good job with soil prep and most of the plants died. I could tell that he/she planted many because when I was digging there I came across several dead roots. So...as usual I ended up going overboard and dug down probably 15 inches on average until I was sick of digging up rocks and ended up expanding what was there (mostly lawn, clay and rocks) to a pretty decent sized bed. I'd say it ended up measuring about 5 by 12 feet, or enough to plant 20 roots or so. Here it was when I got started last week:

The rock wall behind it (foreground) was completely redone by Pat and me, which was good because I was able to expand my bed outward another foot or so. Hopefully when we get out of these unseasonably cold temperatures early this week, I'll be able to build a rock wall in the front and finish prepping the soil. Asparagus loves basic soil, so I limed the hell out of it and ended up wheel barreling in four loads full of sand from another bed we built last year. That bed was put in near where our shed is (background of above picture) and the soil there is very sandy from when they built it. So, I moved some of that vegetable hating sandy soil and relocated it for my sand loving asparagus. I'll replace the soil I 'stole' with better loam later in the spring.

I ended up buying 25 - one year Jersey Giant roots from Burpee for $29. I figure with shipping that is only about $1.50 per plant. I'm sure a few will die, so I'll be happy with twenty plants. I could have gone with the cheaper Mary Washington variety, but those are more prone to fusarium wilt and root rot and only yield about half the Jersey variety does. When the roots arrive in a few weeks, I should have the bed done and the soil prepped. In the meantime, I'll have the enjoy waiting for the two surviving roots to sends up shoots.