The Home Acre

by Edward Payson Roe

I will give in brief just what is essential to secure a good and lasting asparagus bed. We can if we choose grow our own plants, and thus be sure of good ones. The seed can be sown in late October or EARLY spring on light, rich soil in rows eighteen inches apart. An ounce of seed will sow fifty feet of drill. If the soil is light, cover the seed one inch deep; if heavy, half an inch; pack the ground lightly, and cover the drill with a good dusting of that fine compost we spoke of, or any fine manure. This gives the young plants a good send-off. By the use of the hoe and hand-weeding keep them scrupulously clean during the growing season, and when the tops are killed by frost mow them off. I should advise sowing two or three seeds to the inch, and then when the plants are three inches high, thinning them out so that they stand four inches apart. You thus insure almost the certainty of good strong plants by autumn; for plants raised as directed are ready to be set out after one season's growth, and by most gardeners are preferred.

In most instances good plants can be bought for a small sum from nurserymen, who usually offer for sale those that are two years old. Strong one-year-olds are just as good, but under ordinary culture are rarely large enough until two years of age. I would not set out three-year-old plants, for they are apt to be stunted and enfeebled. You can easily calculate how many plants you require by remembering that the rows are to be three feet apart, and the plants one foot apart in the row.

Now, whether you have raised the plants yourself, or have bought them, you are ready to put them where they will grow, and yield to the end of your life probably. Again I substantiate my position by quoting from the well-known gardener and writer, Mr. Joseph Harris: "The old directions for planting an asparagus bed were well calculated to deter any one from making the attempt. I can recollect the first I made. The labor and manure must have cost at the rate of a thousand dollars an acre, and, after all was done, no better results were obtained than we now secure at one-tenth of the expense."

If the ground selected for the bed is a well-drained sandy loam, is clean, free from sod, roots, stones, etc., I would give it a top-dressing of six inches of good barnyard manure, which by trenching or plowing I would thoroughly mix with the soil to the depth of at least two feet. If the ground is not free from stones, roots, and sod, I should put on the manure, as directed, in the autumn, and begin on one side of the prospective bed and trench it all over, mingling the fertilizer through the soil. The trencher can throw out on the surface back of him every stone, root, and weed, so that by the time he is through there is a sufficient space of ground amply prepared.

On all soils except a wet, heavy clay I prefer autumn planting. During the latter part of October or early November put in the plants as explained above, or else make a straight trench that will give room for the spreading of the roots, and leave the crowns between three and four inches below the surface. Then level the ground, and cover the row with a light mulch of stable-manure as you would strawberries. If more convenient to set out the plants in spring, do so as soon as the ground is dry enough to crumble freely when worked. In the spring rake off the mulch, and as early as possible fork the ground over lightly, taking pains not to touch or wound the crowns of the plants. The young, slender shoots will soon appear, and slender enough they will be at first. Keep them free of weeds and let them grow uncut all through the first year; mow off the tops in late October, and cover the entire bed with three or four inches of coarse barnyard manure. In spring rake off the coarsest of this mulch, from which the rains and melting snows have been carrying down richness, dig the bed over lightly once (never wounding the roots or crowns of the plants), and then sow salt over the bed till it is barely white. Let the tops grow naturally and uncut the second year, and merely keep clean. Take precisely the same action again in the autumn and the following spring. During the latter part of April and May a few of the strongest shoots may be cut for the table. This should be done with a sharp knife a little below the surface, so that the soil may heal the wound, and carefully, lest other heads just beneath the surface be clipped prematurely. Cut from the bed very sparingly, however, the third year, and let vigorous foliage form corresponding root-power. In the autumn of the third and the spring of the fourth year the treatment is precisely the same. In the fourth season, however, the shoots may be used freely to, say, about June 20, after which the plants should be permitted to grow unchecked till fall, in order to maintain and increase the root-power. Every year thereafter there should be an abundant top-dressing of manure in the fall, and a careful digging of the ground in the early spring. Light, sandy soil, clear of stones, is well adapted to asparagus, but should be treated on the principles already indicated in this work. There should be no attempt, by trenching, to render a porous subsoil more leaky. It is useless to give the bed a thorough initial enriching. Put on a generous top-dressing every autumn and leave the rains to do their work, and good crops will result.

If, on the contrary, a cold, heavy clay must be dealt with, every effort should be made to ameliorate it. Work in a large quantity of sand at first, if possible; employ manures from the horse-stable, or other light and exciting fertilizers, and there will be no failure.

In regard to the use of salt, Mr. Harris writes: "It is a popular notion that common salt is exceedingly beneficial to asparagus. I do not know that there is any positive proof of this, but, at any rate, salt will do no harm, even if applied thick enough to kill many of our common weeds. Salt is usually sown broadcast, at the rate of ten bushels to the acre."

Until recently I have grown asparagus without salt. Hereafter I shall employ it in sufficient degree to kill all weeds except the strongest. I shall sow it every spring after the bed is dug until the ground is as white as if a flurry of snow had passed over it. I think salt is a good manure for asparagus, and many other things. At any rate, we secure a great advantage in keeping our beds free of weeds.

I have written thus fully of asparagus because when a man makes a bed as directed he makes it for a lifetime. He can scarcely find another investment that will yield a larger return. We have asparagus on our table every day, from the middle of April to July 1; and the annual care of the crop is far less than that of a cabbage-patch. I do not advise severe cutting, however, after the middle of June, for this reason: it is well known that the most pestiferous perennial weed can be killed utterly if never allowed to make foliage. As foliage depends upon the root, so the root depends on foliage. The roots of asparagus may therefore be greatly enfeebled by too severe and long-continued cutting. Avarice always overreaches itself.

In some localities the asparagus beetle destroys whole plantations. Thompson, the English authority, says: "The larvae, beetles, and eggs are found from June to the end of September. Picking off the larvae and beetles, or shaking them into receptacles, appears to be the only remedy."