After the cutting season throw down the ridges made by the hilling-up and apply either barn-yard manure or commercial fertiliser, repeating the application about July 1st. If green asparagus is desired, the only difference in treatment consists in omitting the hilling-up.
After the third year care of the bed consists of manuring and cultivating. We have found it best to use barn-yard manure and commercial fertiliser alternately. Sowing the seed in trenches or deep furrows is done to insure the crowns being three or four inches below the surface when they have developed considerable growth, which would not be the case if they were sown on the level ground to commence with. Like its cousin, the lily of the valley, asparagus sends out roots and stalks from a heart or crown, which must be underground where it is moist and dark.
Asparagus may be canned like any other vegetable for winter use; pack, cut ends down, in glass jars, fill jars with cold water, put the lids on loosely, stand in hot water, boil three hours, fill the jars to the brim with boiling water and screw lids down tight.
If you consider that raising from seed is beyond your patience, buy plants from a reliable grower. Most nurserymen’s catalogues quote one and two year plants, but the experienced are unanimous in preferring strong one-year-old plants, affirming that they stand being transplanted better than the older ones. The ground must be prepared as for seed. When the plants arrive, put them into water for twelve or twenty-four hours to soften. Set the plants two feet apart in trenches, being careful to have the crowns right side up. If you hold up a plant in your hand you will notice that the thick fleshy roots all proceed from the heart, or crown, as it is called, and droop downward, and that on the other side of the crown there are what look like small rootlets. These are really the dry stalks from the preceding season and buds of the coming season, and are often mistaken for roots and placed downward in the trenches instead of upward, which of course they should be.
The proper way to plant is to make a small mound at the bottom of the trench—about two handfuls of soil—and spread out the roots, and place the crown on the mound of earth in such a way that the roots envelope it. Press them firmly into place, and cover until the crown is about two inches below the soil. If it happens to be a dry season, water regularly until growth is well established.
Asparagus must be cut very carefully, otherwise the embryo shoot may be destroyed or the crown itself killed. When only small quantities are being removed each day, the best plan is to pass the thumb and forefinger down the spur an inch or two into the ground, then bend outward, and it will snap below the surface of the earth without injuring the plant in any way. When large beds are being cut for market, a knife will have to be used, as it does the work so much more quickly. Asparagus-knives are of special shape. There are several on the market, and they will be found advertised in all seedmen’s catalogues. The average price is fifty cents.
Rust, a fungus disease, has become very prevalent during the last few years, attacking both young and old beds. As the name implies, it looks like rust on the stalks and spoils the appearance for market, besides injuring the plant and materially affecting the crop.
It has been suggested by many who have studied the subject that rust originates on decaying stalks. For that reason it is advisable to burn the dead stalks as soon as they are cut away in the fall, instead of allowing them to decay on a compost-heap, as one does with other garden trimmings. Spraying with Bordeaux mixture after the cutting season each year has been recommended as a preventive. Once established, there seems no remedy. We have a neighbour whose beds were seriously affected seven or eight years ago. He tried a number of ordinary washes and powders, but they seemed useless. Six years ago he started new beds and adopted our plan of alternating commercial fertiliser with barn-yard manure as we had never had any sign of rust, and he attributed it to the ashes in the mixture we used, thinking that they purified the ground.
Another enemy is the asparagus-beetle—an attractive-looking insect, jet black, with red, yellow and blue markings. It remains hidden in brush or rubbish through the winter and comes out in the first warm days of spring to lay its eggs, always choosing the young, tender sprouts for their resting-place. In a few days the young grubs hatch and feed on the asparagus, boring small holes, entirely ruining the appearance of the stalks, and occasionally descend to the crown of the plant itself. It only takes the grubs a month to pass through the several stages which bring them to maturity, so that if only one or two beetles survive the winter, there may be an army by the time the beds are bearing fully. Allowing poultry to run on the beds in the fall and winter is about the safest and easiest way of scotching the pests, though dusting with air-slaked lime in the early spring is recommended, and some authorities suggest the cutting of the beds as soon as shoots develop in the early spring, hoping in that way to destroy the eggs. This is rather an expensive remedy, as it means burning up the early market crop, which brings the best prices.