Asparagus for the Home Garden— By Francis Hope e 



HOW TO CROP FOR TWENTY YEARS— STARTING BEDS FROM SEEDS OR ROOTS— A 

 PROFITABLE VEGETABLE FOR THE AMATEUR ON ANY ORDINARY GARDEN SOIL 



ASPARAGUS is one of the best vegetables 

 for the amateur's home garden. It is 

 perfectly hardy, never fails to produce a crop, 

 is one of the very first vegetables ready for 

 spring and yields through June. It grows on 

 any ordinary garden soil, but is surprisingly 



220. A winter luxury— canned asparagus tips. The 

 butts are awkward to cut on toast or in salads, but 

 are less objectionable in soups. Canned asparagus 

 may be had from any good grocery but there are 

 thousands who have never heard of it. May be 

 canned at home 



improved by high cultivation and heavy 

 dressings of rich manure. The crop is 

 earliest on sandy loam. It is not suited to 

 land which is very wet. 



There are two methods of starting a bed 

 of asparagus, either from seed or from roots 

 one or two years old. A good one-year-old 

 root is very little different in appearance 

 from a poor two-year-old one, but very 

 different in productiveness, so don't look 

 for bargain sales when buying. 



If you use the former method start with 

 good seed, make the bed of the desired 

 dimensions, fork it quite deep, work in a 

 plentiful amount of fine, well-rotted manure, 

 be sure the earth is made fine and friable, 

 and, above all, see to it that it is well drained. 

 Then sow the seed in rows fifteen inches 

 apart, and bury them one inch and a half 

 deep. Do not sow too thickly, for the plants 

 must not stand, after thinning, closer together 

 than three inches. It is a seed of slow 

 germination, so it is well to plant radish 

 seed in the same row — they will mark the 

 row so that weeding can be done, break the 

 surface of the soil to prevent baking, and 

 give you a crop of radishes as a sort of extra 

 dividend. Take good care of the young 

 plants, keeping them free of weeds and the 

 soil loose and mellow. In the fall, when the 

 feathery leaves have turned yellow brown, 

 cut the stalks off at the ground, dig up the 

 bed to a depth of three inches, whiten the 

 ground with salt, and put over the entire 

 surface four to six inches of fresh, loose, 

 stable refuse, filled with straw. 



The following spring rake off the coarsest 

 of this manure and dig the balance under. 

 The young shoots appear early and if you 

 have never seen them before, you will have 

 to look closely for them. Asparagus may be 



forced, by lifting the roots carefully in the 

 fall and placing them in a hotbed, or green- 

 house. The roots should be covered, first 

 lightly, then more heavily, until a depth of 

 four to six inches has been obtained, using 

 for this covering either well-rotted manure, 

 or old tan bark. 



Spring is by far the best time to make a 

 new bed from roots. Do it any time from 

 now till the end of June. They should be 

 set in rows, the top of the stalks, or buds 

 upon the roots, six inches below the sur- 

 rounding level. It is wise to dig trenches 



221. How to buy asparagus. Many slender green 

 pieces are better than the few thick white ones. 

 They do not look as pretty, but they taste better. 

 Green Palmetto asparagus from the home garden is 

 cut nearly level with the bed after the head has 

 grown six inches above 



for the roots, and to put in drainage, if the 

 natural drainage is not good, then some well- 

 rotted manure, a little bone-meal or complete 

 fertilizer, and a layer of well-powdered loam. 

 Mix all thoroughly, set the roots on this 

 foundation, and fill the trench. 



The cultivation of the roots is exactly the 

 same as for seed-grown plants, only you do 

 not need to sow radish seed, as the shoots 

 are all ready to push up out of the ground. 



The three best-known and more generally 

 cultivated varieties for table use are Con- 

 nover's Colossal, Moore's and Palmetto. 

 The first produces large, white stalks, the 

 last smaller, green stalks. We prefer the 

 Palmetto. It is best not to cut any heads 

 the first year. The second year cut lightly. 

 In the next, or second cutting season, cut 

 every day up to June, allowing none to run 

 up into stalk. The following year lengthen 

 the cutting season, so that the harvest time 

 may be a little longer, and increase each 

 year until the season extends to eight weeks. 



177 



After this period is reached, start over again, 

 and the following year cut comparatively 

 lightly, progressing in like proportion each 

 succeeding year. This gives the roots a 

 chance to recuperate. If you have two 

 small beds, cut heavily in alternate years. 



After you have ceased cutting, work over 

 the ground a little and give the plants some 

 food, for it is from this time and throughout 

 the rest of the summer that the roots are 

 storing strength for the coming season's 

 crop. Liquid manure or nitrate of soda, 

 one ounce in three gallons of water, is 

 particularly beneficial during the cutting as 

 well as during the growing season, and most 

 satisfactory returns are certain. 



Asparagus enemies are rust, root-rot and 

 beetles. Rust comes on this plant as it does 

 on beans. Brown specks appear and the 

 leaf shrivels up and turns yellow. If rust 

 appears, a fact you will soon remark, cut off 

 all affected branches close to the ground and 

 burn them at once. Early in the autumn 

 do not fail to burn all the branches, so that 

 the disease may not spread. Spraying with 

 Bordeaux mixture and Paris green after 

 cutting has ceased for the season may help 

 somewhat and certainly cannot do any harm. 



There are two beetles that feed upon this 

 plant. One is known as the asparagus 

 beetle, the other as the twelve-spotted beetle. 

 They both feed on this plant alone. 



222. What the millions buy and the connoisseurs 

 scorn— thick white asparagus Blanched asparagus 

 has less flavor than green. The big, white, showy 

 stalks are gotten by cutting far below the surface 

 with a special knife. Don't eat cordwood : eat home- 

 grown asparagus. (Conover's Colossal, good — to sell) 



