Making The Bed— For Asparagus!

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 208, 3 September 1938, Page 14 (Supplement)

Making The Bed— For Asparagus!

NEW beds for asparagus should be again forked over and be placed in the best possible condition for planting as soon as weather permits. Directions have previously been given a« to the best method of preparing soil so that satisfactory results can be obtained over a number of years, providing the beds are given reasonable annua! treatment. Asparagus may be grown for a shorter period under a more simple method of treating and preparing the soil by heavily manuring and digging the ground to a depth of 12 inches. Under this treatment, however, new beds or plantations require to be laid down every two or three years, for after two or at mast three years of hard cutting, unless growing in exceptionally deep rich, free soil and receiving liberal the plants denenerate and only weak shoots are produced.

It is in every way better where permanent beds are required to prepare the soil in a thorough manner bv deep trenching and manuring as the strength of shoots can only be obtained in proportion as the roots are kept supplied with the necessary food. One of the chief difficulties is to keep established beds free from weeds. The fact of the soil being fairly rich in manure makes weeds »row rapidly, which soon extract much of the food properties from the soil. 1 he existing beds should be cleared of all the weeds, and be given a sprinkling of nitrate of soda, evenly distributed over the whole bed. If stable or othei manures are to be applied as a mulch, it should be done at once and the manure covered with some soil from the footpath around the bed. This method also assists drainage it forms a furrow along the side of the bed. Where this method i* adopted this mulch of $oi] and manure is raked off next winter before applying another one.