ASPARAGUS BEDS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5566, 15 May 1896, Page 3

ASPARAGUS BEDS.

(J. C. in "The Field.") Although a large number of asparagus beds are ruined intheirinfancy by heavy wet mulchings of manure applied in autumn or winter, the exclusion of sun and air, and impoverishment by an accumulation of weeds on the surface or by a too free-use of the knife continued late in the season, there is practically no limit to the period beds will remain in a healthy andprofitable condition, provided the soil .is fairly rich and sustaining and the subsoil porous. Owing to the formation of two new beds several years ago and which now yield full cuttings of good grass, a bed on another site is being disposed of by forcing the roots a few score at a time, the ground being required for • other purposes. Probably this bed is thirty years old, and yet for all this every root is healthy and strong and well furnished with heads ready for. starting away into growth, the exceptional mildness having induced the formation of hundreds of new white fibrous rootlets. I have nothing to say against raising asparagus beds where the situation is at all low and the soil of a non-rporous character, but I am. confident that the foolish plan, practised even nowadays by some gardeners of annually laying on a ■ thick mulch of rotten manure, say in November and December, and afterwards surf acing with several inches of soil from the intermediate trenches injures and even rots many of the best roots, the produce being both scanty and poor. Autumn mulching with heavy wet manure is fa*st being discontinued, the more rational system of sprinkling some . approved artificial fertiliser over the surface in spring, and covering it lightly with leafy compost, finding more favour. Doubtless one of the most fertile • causes of asparagus beds deteriorating is. not insufficient manure, but neglect in keeping them free at" all : times from weeds and rubbish. I have ' sometimes seen, during the autumn, a L couple of women employed for a consider- > able time in weeding asparagus beds which, * by a judicious application of salt^ at ► intervals during showery weather might • have been avoided.