ASPARAGUS
Is one of the garden assets. Once established an asparagus bed is good
for a lifetime, almost; certainly it is a permanent feature of the
garden, showing little if any deterioration if well cared for and kept
free from weeds.
The starting of an asparagus bed is not the serious undertaking it
was a few years ago, as the deep planting then thought so necessary
is seldom practised now; instead it is thought sufficient to open a
furrow—with the plough, if the planting is large, with the spade, if
small—set the plants and fill enough earth to cover the crown of the
plant, and, as growth starts, to gradually fill up the furrow until
the ground is level. The ground should be of the best and heavily
fertilised before planting, for asparagus is a gross feeder and an
additional application of coarse ground bone in each hill is well worth
while as it furnishes food for two or three years independently of such
annual dressing as the bed may receive.
For garden culture where hand cultivation is to be practised, the
plants may be set in hills two or three feet apart each way, leaving
room to cultivate between each way for the first few years. Two year
old roots are the best to use and in planting a little mound of earth
should be made in each hill, the roots of the plant spread out around
this so that the earth will fit in beneath, close to the under side of
the crown, then the earth should be firmed about the roots, a handful
of bone meal sprinkled over the soil and the remainder of the soil
filled in. Asparagus beds may be set in spring or fall; good results
follow either setting. The asparagus bed must be kept free of weeds
and grass from the start as once allowed to become infested with foul
seed and grass it is a very discouraging proposition. One of the worst
weeds to combat is the young asparagus plants which come up every year
from self-sown seed; to avoid this the tops should be cut, as soon as
the berries are red, and burned. If the tops are burned on the bed the
resulting ashes will be of benefit. It has been my observation for
many years that the spots where the tops were burned always gave finer
stalks than the rest of the bed; this suggests the application of wood
ashes as a top dressing after the dressing of manure, which should be
applied every spring, has been worked into the soil. A heavy covering
of barnyard manure may be applied in the fall and spaded under in the
spring, or it may be applied in February; if this is not feasible it
is an excellent plan to spade into the space between the hills any
available manure—poultry, rabbit or sheep or stable manure that is
well rotted. The space between the rows, or paths, should not be broken
up when this is done as, if unbroken and hard, it is easier to keep
the beds clean and an application of some good herbicide may even be
used to keep down weeds here. When the bed has been thoroughly spaded
and enriched in this way in the early part of the season I have found
the after care of the bed very much more successful than when all over
culture was attempted.
The variety to plant is largely a matter of taste—some prefer the
green, some the white grasses. Lately a preference is being shown for
the green. These will always be preferred by those who like a tender
asparagus. The white sorts—Bonvilete and Argenteuile—are unbelievably
tough as they appear in the market though beautifully white and of
mammoth proportions that make them very attractive; possibly if cut, as
the green grasses are, just below the level of the ground they would
prove more edible. All asparagus is tough below the ground, green as
well as white, and, for this reason, should not be cut much lower than
the surface.
Of the green grasses Conover's Colossal and Dreer's Eclipse are excellent
sorts, and Columbian Mammoth White is a white variety that is good.
If one wishes young plants for setting one can obtain them very easily
by cutting the tops of asparagus when the berries are nearly ripe and
piling them in some convenient place where the ground is mellow and
free from weeds and grass and leaving them undisturbed for a year; the
seeds will germinate and produce a large quantity of thrifty young
plants that later may be taken up and set where desired, and all
without any care or labor further than the cutting of the tops.
One may begin cutting the asparagus when the bed is two years old,
though small stalks will be produced at that age. Cutting at this age
should not extend over a period of two weeks and in an established
bed should be limited to four. All small stalks should be cut and not
allowed to grow during the cutting period as they would exhaust the
plant if allowed to grow, but when the cutting period is over they
should, of course, be allowed to grow.
Salt was formerly considered essential to successful asparagus culture
and certainly does no harm, but its chief value is in keeping down
weeds and this can be quite as successfully done by hand cultivation;
this is better than to form the habit of depending on some quick,
laborless road to clean beds—in the annals of gardening "There ain't
no such animule."