Independent gardening advice for real gardens, balconies and windowsills.
Practical advice on growing food and flowers, improving soil, and making the most of small spaces. Start anywhere — the garden will meet you.
Asparagus differs from most other vegetables in that it is a perennial, and when once planted properly, in suitable soil, it will continue to produce an annual crop for a generation if not for an inde...
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...
Throughout the Middle and Northern States, spring, as soon as the soil can be worked to good advantage, is decidedly the most favorable time for planting asparagus. If it is not practicable to plant t...
The proper planting of the roots is the most critical point in asparagus culture, as upon the manner in which this is performed--more than upon other detail--depends the success, yield, duration, and...
A. medeoloides (Myrsiphyllum asparagoides), popularly known as Smilax.--For many years this has been, and is yet, one of the most commonly grown and the most serviceable of the plants used by florists...
All the cultivated varieties of asparagus are readily affected by the rust, although it has been found that some varieties, notably Palmetto, are less susceptible to its attacks than others. The most...
During the entire process of cutting, sorting, bunching, and packing great care must be exercised not to bruise or in any way injure the heads, as the gummy juice of these soon heats and spoils the wh...
As in other details of asparagus culture, the methods of planting have undergone very material changes. The formerly usual practice of digging deep trenches was not well founded--in the light of our p...
It has long been observed that all of the asparagus plants in a bed do not produce seeds, owing to the fact that the male and female flowers in asparagus are nearly always borne on separate plants. Se...
While a number of different insects feed upon the asparagus plant, there are only two species which have so far become extensively distributed and caused serious damage in the United States. Both of t...
The word "asparagus" is said to be of Persian origin. In middle Latin it appears as sparagus; Italian, sparajio; old French, esperaje; old English, sperage, sparage, sperach. The middle Latin form, sp...
The chief labor in asparagus culture is the cutting and bunching. As it is of the greatest importance that the work be done promptly and expeditiously, it is desirable to have more help than is wanted...