Sowing The Seed Where The Plants Are To Remain

Growing asparagus without transplanting is gradually finding many

advocates among those who raise only the green article. It is not only a

cheaper but in some respects a better method than the raising of the

plants in a special seed-bed, from which they are transplanted after a

year or two. "The plan is very simple," wrote Peter Henderson in

American Agriculturist, "and can be followed by any one having even a

slight knowledge of farming or gardening work. In the fall prepare the

land by manuring, deep plowing, and harrowing, making it as level and

smooth as possible for the reception of the seed. Strike out lines three

feet apart and about two to three inches deep, in which sow the seed by

hand or seed-drill, as is most convenient, using from five to seven

pounds of seed to each acre. After sowing, and before covering, tread

down the seed in the rows with the feet evenly; then draw the back of

the rake lengthwise over the rows, after which roll the whole surface.



"As soon as the land is dry and fit to work in the spring, the young

plants of asparagus will start through the ground, sufficient to define

the rows. At once begin to cultivate with hand or horse cultivator, and

stir the ground so as to destroy the embryo weeds, breaking the soil in

the rows between the plants with the fingers or hand weeder for the same

purpose. This must be repeated at intervals of two or three weeks during

the summer, as the success of this plan is entirely dependent on keeping

down the weeds, which, if allowed to grow, would soon smother the

asparagus plants, that, for the first season of their growth, are weaker

than most weeds. In two or three months after starting, the asparagus

will have attained ten or twelve inches in hight, and it must now be

thinned out, so that the plants stand nine inches apart in the rows. By

fall they will be from two to three feet in hight and, if the directions

for culture have been faithfully followed, strong and vigorous.



"When the stems die down (but not before) cut them off close to the

ground, and cover the lines for five or six inches on each side with two

or three inches of rough manure. The following spring renew cultivation,

and keep down the weeds the second year exactly as was done during the

first, and so on to the spring of the fourth year, when a crop will be

produced that will well reward all the labor that has been expended.

Sometimes, if the land is particularly suitable, a marketable crop may

be secured the third year, but as a rule it will be better to wait until

the fourth year before cutting much, as this would weaken the plants. To

compensate for the loss of a year's time in thus growing asparagus from

seed, cabbage, lettuce, onions, beets, spinach or similar crops that

will be marketable before the asparagus has grown high enough to

interfere with them, may be planted between the rows of asparagus the

first year of its growth with but little injury to it."