SOOj sylvania 



Making an Asparagus Bed-By h. e. wii 



IF YOU MISSED YOUR CHANCE THIS SPRING YOU HAVE ANOTHER CHANCE THIS FALL, 

 SO PLAN NOW FOR NEXT YEAR— PROPER SETTING OF ROOTS THE SECRET OF SUCCESS 



AN ASPARAGUS bed is a gilt- 

 edged investment if you own 

 your property and a good gamble 

 even on a hired lot. Every 

 property owner should build and plant 

 for the future and most renters who have 

 the garden fever are never transients except 

 through sheer force of necessity, or through 

 the lure of a bigger and better garden. 



Success with asparagus is mainly a mat- 

 ter of getting started right. First, give 

 proper attention to preparation of the bed, 

 second, buy good roots, for it is assumed 

 that you do not consider it economic to 

 undergo the delay necessary in raising 

 your own plants from seed, and third, really 

 "set out" the roots, not just throw them in 

 a trench. The rest is merely a matter of 

 following a few simple rules as to harvesting 

 and cultivation. 



HOW MANY ROOTS? 



Make up your mind at the start how 

 many roots you will need. Two hundred 

 and fifty is fully enough for a family of 

 eight; but a bed of this size would take up 

 too much room throughout the year in the 

 ordinary home gar- 

 den. One hundred 

 roots should be suf- 

 ficient for any ordin- 

 ary family, and it 

 would be unwise to 

 set out more if the 

 garden dimensions 

 do not considerably 

 exceed 50 x 50 feet. 

 Having decided on 

 the number of roots, 

 and the kind — this 

 being largely a mat- 

 ter of personal choice 

 — the next step is to decide on the location 

 for and the extent of the bed. 



An asparagus bed being a permanent in- 

 stitution when once established should of 

 course be out of the way of all transient 

 plantings, preferably on one of the outer 

 boundaries of the garden. A southern 

 exposure is best. In any case, see that the 

 bed gets plenty of sun during most of the 

 day. The ideal soil for asparagus is one of 

 sandy composition, well drained. This 

 explains in part the success of the South 

 Jersey truck growers with asparagus. If 

 the only available site is inclined to be 

 soggy, heavy, and wet, then artificial drain- 

 age must be supplied and fall is the proper 

 time to do this. 



If you do not care to set out the roots 

 this fall but intend to do so next spring, 

 plow or dig the ground deeply, spread 

 stable manure on it freely and leave it that 

 way over winter. This will materially 

 facilitiate a good start early in the spring. 

 If the plot you dig up for the bed is covered 

 with grass, chop the sod finely and put it in 

 with the manure at the bottom of your 

 trenches. If there is no grass on the plot 

 and you dig it up in the fall it will be an 



excellent plan to sow winter rye, broadcast. 

 After it has got a start no harm will be done 

 by putting on manure right over it, if you 

 take care not to smother it. In the spring 

 turn under the rye and manure just as 

 deeply and throughly as possible. 



FALL OR SPRING PLANTING 



You are now ready for the actual making 

 of the bed. Fall planting time, latitude 

 of Philadelphia, is from the middle of 

 October to the middle of November, and 

 Spring time from the middle of March to 

 the middle of April. Dig trenches 12 to 

 15 inches wide and at least 18 inches deep. 

 If you have plenty of room, place the 

 trenches four feet apart, but trenches two 

 feet apart will answer the purpose and will 

 be a more economic arrangement in the 

 ordinary kitchen garden, as it will save 

 space and yet not unduly crowd the roots. 

 Now half fill the trench with stable manure 

 and chopped up sods, although the latter 

 are not necessary, particularly if you have a 

 good crop of rye turned under. If you have 

 difficulty in getting good, well rotted stable 

 manure, buy any of the trade-marked 



g^ESa ^lA i ,-|i gL 



Trench dug ready for man- 

 ure 



Sheep manure spread on Roots laid in on fresh soil 

 bottom 



brands of pulverized sheep manure so con- 

 veniently put up in 100 pound bags and 

 200 pound barrels. It has been claimed 

 that one of these barrels is fully equal to a 

 large wagon load of ordinary stable manure 

 and from my own experience, I believe it. 

 A small cart load of stable manure should 

 do for a bed of 100 roots to begin with, 

 although you cannot get the ground too 

 rich for asparagus, and for the same number 

 of roots a 100 pound bag of sheep manure 

 would be ample and be easier to handle. It 

 is important to get in plenty of manure 

 at the start, to be sure, but even more im- 

 portant to keep up constant fertilization. 

 I know of instances where chicken manure 

 has been used with success, but personally 

 prefer the sheep or stable manure. 



Sheep manure will not require such deep 

 trenching as stable manure since it takes up 

 less room but deep trenching will be no dis- 

 advantage even in that case. 



Cover the manure with two or three 

 inches of soil. You are now ready for 

 setting out the roots, and this is the most 

 important operation of all. If your roots 

 arrive before the bed is ready the best thing 

 to do is to spread them thinly over some 



44 



unoccupied portion of the garden and cover 

 them with three or four inches of loose soil. 

 This will keep them moist, which is import- 

 ant. Allowing the roots to dry out before 

 planting and careless, rough handling cause 

 many failures. In setting out the roots, 

 spread them carefully. This is very im- 

 portant indeed. If economy of space 

 demands it, they may be placed only one 

 foot apart but 18 inches apart is better and 

 even 24 inches from crown to crown would 

 not be overdoing it if you have the room. 



Care should be taken that the roots do not 

 dry out while you are putting them in. 

 If it is hot and sunny, or windy, keep the 

 roots under a burlap bag or something of 

 the kind or covered with loose dirt right 

 up to the minute of planting. It would 

 not be a bad plan to water each root as 

 you set it out, firming a little earth over the 

 ends of each root to hold them in place until 

 ready for the final covering. Now put on 

 about three or four inches of fine, loose, 

 rich soil. This will leave six or more inches 

 of trench to be filled in gradually with earth 

 as the stalks come up until the surface of the 

 bed is level where it should remain. 



If you set out the 

 roots in the fall, cover 

 the trenches with 

 leaves, straw or litter 

 and then make a 

 mound of dirt over 

 the whole. This is to 

 shed water. In the 

 spring remove first the 

 mound of dirt, then 

 the litter and as the 

 stalks come up fill in 

 the trenches gradually 

 as noted. 



The picture on the 

 right shows the finished trench awaiting the 

 appearance of the sprouts above ground. 



The exact shape of your bed of course 

 must depend upon the general lay out of 

 your garden, but a rectangle is best. The 

 one illustrated here has 7 rows, averaging 

 about 1 5 feet in length, and two feet apart. 

 An easy way To make the bed is to dig, 

 plant and cover one row at a time. This 

 solves the problem of what to do with the 

 surplus dirt which has a tendency to tum- 

 ble into the trenches. If you pile it up 

 between the trenches and leave it there the 

 rains will wash it in if the rows are only two 

 feet apart. By making a row at a time you 

 can easily rake the surplus dirt to one side. 

 When the last trench is completed you will 

 have a handy pile of well raked dirt which 

 can be used for the filling in operation as 

 needed. 



A back breaking job? Well, that de- 

 pends on your back. Looked at in the 

 right light it is a back making job and if 

 you do not care to take chances on making 

 or breaking your own back there are plenty 

 of men in any locality who will take those 

 and longer chances for two dollars a day or 

 less. 



Awaiting the shoots' appear- 



