The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: Rosemary on August 24, 2011, 01:42:34 pm

Title: Asparagus
Post by: Rosemary on August 24, 2011, 01:42:34 pm

I'd like to grow this. Would it be better outside or in the polytunnel?

Thanks.

Title: Re: Asparagus
Post by: Fleecewife on August 24, 2011, 04:42:03 pm

I would love to grow it too but I know it would be swamped with weeds within a year or two here :(

Title: Re: Asparagus
Post by: pgkevet on August 25, 2011, 11:29:54 am

Quote from: Fleecewife on August 24, 2011, 04:42:03 pm

I would love to grow it too but I know it would be swamped with weeds within a year or two here :(

A more robust plant than folk think. My mum just finds them growing 'wild' around her garden and gets enough for a single person every few days during the season just on a potter around on her sticks (she's 93)

Title: Re: Asparagus
Post by: Rosemary on August 25, 2011, 11:41:05 am

OK. Outside it is - we're quite sheltered here (well the garden is). Just need Dan to build the bed now  ;)

Title: Re: Asparagus
Post by: Plantoid on August 26, 2011, 11:42:05 pm

Quote from: Rosemary on August 24, 2011, 01:42:34 pm

I'd like to grow this. Would it be better outside or in the polytunnel?

Thanks.

 grow either from seed or three yr old crowns in a well raised bed approx six feet actross ( 1,78 mtr )  . my asparagus is enclosed in a 2foot ( 600 mm ) high wall built on a concrete foundation , the mound  rises aboujt  6inches higher then the wall ( 150mm ) the plants are 300 mm ( a foot ) apart.

I've not seen it grown inside a poly tunnel ..perhaps because it always occupies the same spot for the 20 years or so that a bed is viable.
  This is the fourth raised asaparagus bed I've built in my 61 years.
 Because the bed is raised and well contained it is so easy even for a disabled guy like me to sit on the solid wall and gently weed it for a few minutes at a time .
 This latest bed was from seed sown on May 1 this year and planted out  with the 12 plants that grew on the 24 July .

 Thankfully I put a 12 inch long  seed row markers adjacent to each crown for when we returned on Sunday 21 August four weeks later after a brill hol , the whole garden was knee deep in  chard,grounsel and fat hen etc.
Those long markers which are cut from some old white guttering were/are a godsend .
 I've dressed the bed with a couple of hands ful of Growmore & scratched it in for a winter dressing as I don't have any six year old composted horse muck anymore. (I've used it all )