ASPARAGUS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 May 1940, Page 8

ASPARAGUS

TREATMENT OF BEDS. When the tops of asparagus are ripe cut them off fairly close to the ground, clear them away, together with any weeds there may be. The treatment of the beds in the dormant season is very important, for large quantities of roots can easily be spoiled during autumn and early winter. To a certain extent asparagus likes moisture at the roots at all times, but during the winter months when the temperature of the soil is at its lowest this can easily be overdone. From frost the plants need no protection, and if the soil is cold, protection adds further to the evil by making the- soil cold and sodden. Every autumn the question of the advisability of manuring the beds crops up. At one time it was considered the right thing to place a mulch on the beds as soon as the tops were cut off, in the belief that such protection was needed, but this has been found to be a mistake.

Cn seme gravelly and sandy soils, in which the roots are comparatively warm, very little harm is done by such mulching or topdressing, and if pretty well decayed it would crumple down bj r spring, but the roots being at rest would derive no benefit from the manure washed down, as this could only be assimilated when growth begins in spring. It is quite likely that some of the virtue in the manure is washed into the subsoil by the winter rains, but it would be very little. In the case of soils of a more retentive nature in which some people arcobliged to grow asparagus, the plant food will not be so easily washed away. On such soil a layer of manure placed on the surface of the beds quickly becomes saturated with moisture and remains so all the winter: consequently it maintains the soil in a very wet and cold condition, and at the same time excludes air. a condition that cannot be helpful to the plants.

Everything considered the best time to apply manure in any form is between the months of September and March. Tn beds that are in a good state of fertility the tops remain green much longer than when fertility is at a low ebb. consequently there must be no hurry to remove them until the tops have quite ripened off, or there will bo a clanger of the crowns starting if the weather keeps fine and warm.