Any asparagus growers on BL?

[xapabwa]

Last year I purchased two asparagus plants from one of the local nurseries. They were bout 2' tall and already in the fern stage. They are producing spears now. I know that when you plant just the crowns, you don't cut any the first year and the second year you only harvest for two weeks and then let them go to fern to store nutrients in the crowns. The next year, you can harvest for like three weeks and then by the 5th year you can harvest all season (about 8 weeks). The first spear that came up was not there in mid-March, but went I went back up at toward the end of the month, one plant had a spear that about a foot tall and the diameter of a quarter. Guess the unusually warm temps (80s for a few days and 70s for a week plus), kicked them into high gear. I've been monitoring them and have been snapping of spears when they get to a reasonable size (I've only picked 5 or so) and had them for dinner tonight. Even the thin ones were really tough and stringy. Am I doing something wrong? One of the ones I picked was about 8" tall, but only a little bigger around than a pencil and it was still tough and stringy.

Thanks for any suggestions.