Asparagus Confusion :)

[RayFromFranceMember]

Dear Charles.

I am a bit confused now when it comes to Asparagus growing.
I saw that your experiment of putting asparagus on top of a lawn did not work.
At least you tried it and helped us doing so

Since Asparagus are almost like trees,
3 years is a long way to go in case I make a mistake !

My new flat land is hard so I will put compost this fall so that the worms will work the soil and plastic on top to kill weeds.

and NO digging, okey,
However, should I not even loosen up the soil a bit with a fork ?

Then, I just put cardboard on the ground and about one foot of compost, I have to buy this time since I do not have enough yet.

It seems that putting cardboard also on top of the compost,
and plastic on top of this would be even better to kill off any weeds ?

It would probably also be good to put some wheat grass on top of the compost,
what do you think ?

When I plant my crowns in the spring,
should I dig through the compost which should have decreased by now,
and plant my crowns underneath on the cardboard/soil ?

Or

should I put the crowns on top of the “fall” compost
and add more compost on top of this 7 months old compost ?

Thank you for your help.

Raymond.

[charlesModerator]

 Ray, sorry I do not have time to go into all this in detail but basically if you mulch now with compost, card et, you can make holes in that and into soil below in the spring, as necessary, to bury the crowns at normal depth. Personally i would not loosen the soil now as worms should do that when it rains. Also you should not need more compost in the spring.

[RayFromFranceMember]

I understand but only one thing ? It does not rain under the plastic ?

[RayFromFranceMember]

If I understand right,
I should pole many many holes through my plastic mulch sheet
so that the rains get through…

[GinamcconMember]

Ray, I’m one year ahead of you. Over winter early this year I did as Charles advises and on top of very weedy ground put a good six inches plus of garden waste and topped it off with a dusting of horse manure as I didn’t have much. I didn’t use any cardboard, plastic, weed membrane etc as I didn’t have any. As weeds came through and there wasn’t many I removed them. When the asparagus arrived I dug down through the compost and sat the crown on top of the soil. Out of the sixty planted (yes, I and everyone I know loves asparagus)of 6 different varieties all are growing strongly and weed free apart from one variety that has struggled from the start (much smaller/thinner crowns) and I put this down to the variety rather than planting as all the others are doing so well.

[RayFromFranceMember]

Thank you so much for your reply. I will put green city compost this first year. I shall have to wait with the manure until next year since I have no one year old manure available. Please, where did you find 6 variaties of Asparagus ?

[StephParticipant]

Hi Ray

I am puzzled by your questions about plastic, which hasn’t been mentioned as far as I can see as a possible mulch.

I thought you were using compost and cardboard? In which case, there is no need to worry about the rain getting through.

Steph

[GinamcconMember]

I got the asparagus from thompson and morgan, only because I had some tesco clubcard vouchers . Stuff from them seams to be a bit hit and miss.
With reference to the green waste compost it soon became obvious that although it looked like black gold it wasn’t composted enough to give necessary nutrients (I think the first thing that showed it was newly planted module spinach in my polytunnel in March going yellow). So I added a dusting of manure to everything and within days everything had improved. I mention this just incase you notice the same thing and wonder what’s up. Good luck….

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