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Asparagus (was: intro)

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

Silvia wrote:

> I'm going to start an asparagus
>bed, and am planning to add sand to the clay when we till it.  We just moved
>here in Dec. so we haven't gotten to till anything yet.  Does anyone have
>any experience with asparagus?  I've ordered 25 crowns, but I only want to
>devote one 4 by 4 square to asparagus.  Should I plant 1 per square, or
>crowd them all in?

I'm going to echo what has already been said: add LOTS of organic matter. I
also have heavy clay soil, and I didn't add sand, but did add as much
compost, dehydrated manure, bone meal, blood meal, and other organic matter
as I could find. I think I might have added some vermiculite too.  Since an
asparagus bed is only dug once, I figured I really wanted to do it right.

As far as spacing goes, I planted the crowns about 12-18 inches apart in
trenches about 3 feet apart. The trenches were about a foot deep and a foot
wide, and I filled them in as the asparagus grew. The rows seemed awfully
far apart, and it looked like a lot of wasted space at first. But once the
asparagus foliage leafs out, it doesn't seem  like there's all that much
space to spare after all. Sometimes I plant stuff between the rows, but I
don't always bother. It's kind of difficult to get in there between the
asparagus foliage!

I don't know how well it would work to fill a 4x4 foot block.  Maybe with
lots of organic matter, and lots of fertilizing, it could work well.  I've
always heard that you're supposed to plant asparagus in trenches and
gradually fill in the trenches as the plants grow, which might be hard to
with them planted in a block rather than in rows.  But I could be wrong
--maybe the trench method isn't the only way.

One thing I do know is that you do not, I repeat, DO NOT want to let grass
or other weeds get a foothold in your asparagus bed. I speak from
experience when I say it's very hard to get them out! Use a heavy mulch,
and put some kind of edging around the bed.

Judi
 zone 7

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Judi Hammett
Baltimore, Maryland USA
judi@abs.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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