Pot-grown Asparagus Plants

In the tests made at the Missouri Experiment Station, Prof. J. C.

Whitten found that it is much better to plant the seeds in six inches of

rich, sandy soil in the greenhouse or hotbed, in February or early

March, than to wait two or three months for outdoor planting. Professor

Whitten advises to "sow liberally, for seven-eighths of the seedlings

should be discarded. When the seedlings are three inches high, select

those which have the thickest, fleshiest, and most numerous stems, and

pot them. They vary more than almost any other vegetable. Many that

appear large and vigorous will have broad, flat, twisted, or corrugated

stems. Discard them. Beware, also, of those that put out leaves close to

the soil. These will all make tough, stringy, undesirable plants. The

best plants are those which are cylindrical, smooth, and free from

ridges. They shoot up rapidly, and attain a hight of two inches before

leaves are put out. They look much like smooth needles. This matter of

selecting the best plants for potting, and subsequent planting out, is

of the greatest importance in asparagus culture.



"These young plants should first be put in small pots and moved into

larger ones as soon as they are well rooted. They may need to be shifted

twice before they are planted out-of-doors, which should be done when

danger of frost is over. Started in this way they continue to grow from

the time they are planted out and reach very large size the first

season. In the case of nursery-grown plants, where seeds are sown

directly out-of-doors, the young seedlings start very slowly, are very

tender during their early growth, and if the weather is unfavorable they

hardly become well established before autumn."






Fig. 13 shows a one-year-old plant started in February in the greenhouse

and transplanted to the field the first of May. Plants grown in this way

reach as good size in one year as the nursery-grown plants usually do in

three years.