Asparagus alley six months later
Half a year after
planting, asparagus
alley already has a
major success and a major failure under its belt.
What worked? The
seeds I saved from the one female in my "all-male"
asparagus planting
do seem to be producing nearly all male plants. Only about half
the asparagus seedlings got big enough to bloom this year, but every
flower I picked apart is full of stamens with no pistils.
On the downside, I think
locating a row of asparagus against the pasture fence wasn't the best
idea. Yes, the plants will probably provide some much-needed
summer shade for our chickens, and the chickens will likely eat up any asparagus
beetles that come to
call. But it's hard to weed the side of the bed against the
fence, so grasses seem to be taking over.
I've dug out roots and
kill-mulched once already this year and think I might have to do
something more drastic, like put some kind of root barrier between the
asparagus and the fence. Ideas?
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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I read in my Gia's Gardening book that 100% wool rugs could be used as a weed barrier. It is biodegradable and allows water to filter through. So you may want to advertise for old wool rugs that people are throwing away.
I use straw on my asperagus piles and it keeps the weeds down. I do have green straw coming up during spring. I just pull those up and feed them to the goose.
You could always grow 1 crop of white asparagus each year like they do in Europe
Basically cover the asparagus with black plastic in the spring before any comes out once the grass is dead pull it all back and let them grow like normal
Mona --- Cardboard does the trick very well too, but unfortunately running weeds can sometimes become problematic, especially if they have a reservoir you can't get to, like a fenceline.
BW --- Interesting solution. That's definitely thinking outside the box!
De --- Our chicken pasture fences have been problematic in several spots. I was actually just thinking yesterday that it might be worth pulling the bottoms up, laying down a heavy kill mulch, and then planting comfrey. Great minds think alike.