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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] RE: Asparagus and Weeds

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  • From: "Marlin Burkholder" <glenecofarm AT planetcomm.net>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] RE: Asparagus and Weeds
  • Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 00:40:05 -0400

It seems strange to give advice on this subject; as we have been trying to
make our asparagus patch productive for 10 years. The weeds have gotten
ahead of the asparagus too many years, but I am fighting determined to get
that patch multiplying one of these years.

Some old timers who garden have told us to put salt on the asparagus to help
kill the grass and feed the asparagus. This year I am taking their advice
and scattered salt in the asparagus row and am mulching heavy with hay
between the rows. Wood shavings from a neighbor's horse stable are to be
put right in the asparagus row also. (One clump, where I had mulched heavy
with the shavings last summer, had many spears this spring.)

We do put our "egg mobile" and chickens on the patch for at least a week in
the early spring. One spring, however, when the ground was so wet the
mobile and/or the chickens packed the ground so much that some asparagus
died out.

Working the ground and digging weeds out in early spring has been helpful.
One year we burned the dead asparagus canes with success. This year the
ground was dry enough that Marlin disked over the patch twice before
asparagus shoots grew.

Christine Burkholder





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