asparagus

[farmerjan]

I wouldn't get too big for the present time. You are going to be transplanting them to a permanent bed so that ought to do fine. You need a place for them to develop some and feeding them will take care of that. Crowns need a little more depth than they need width... I would use what you have and make sure they can grow down so the crowns develop a root system below them.

 

[CrealCritter]

I wouldn't get too big for the present time. You are going to be transplanting them to a permanent bed so that ought to do fine. You need a place for them to develop some and feeding them will take care of that. Crowns need a little more depth than they need width... I would use what you have and make sure they can grow down so the crowns develop a root system below them.

Thank You @farmerjan I decided the barn floor needs a cleaning so I'm just gonna use some "Barn Gold" duck poo, feathers, mud & saw dust for a big part of the kiddie pool and mix in a little peat moss and barn lime for good measure. Then hope and pray for the best.

If this works I'll use it again to sell 1 year crowns at our little community road side stand, I'm planning next year. I think it would be good to just dig around in the kiddie pool and pull out crows to sell. You know the would be good and fresh, ready to.plant

Kiddie pools are cheap and screwed to a pallet it should be the bee's knees for bare root plants like asparagus.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

Weather guessing is calling for freeze Monday overnight. Our last expected frost date is 15 April. So shortly after that it's gardening game on.

Amazing what a guy can scrape off a barn floor. Look honey, there really is cement under all that poo your ducks made, along with sawdust, feathers, leaves and barn lime

I'm going to transplant these little asparagus starts into the kiddie pool filled with barn floor scrapings and pray they take hold and grow strong like bull ox. I'll have to babysit them until fall. Then I'll transplant them into permanent home and mulch in well and pray they pop up late winter early spring.

I decided I'm going to get another kiddie pool, full it with barn scrapings and direct sow more Martha Washington asparagus seeds. I'm seriously considering building another seedling shelf and setting up a community road side stand next spring and selling heirloom vegatable seedlings. So I could fish out fresh 1 year crowns out of the kiddie pool then, if anyone wants to buy any.

I added more barn lime and drug my little kiddie pool outside. Hopefully the rain will do the some work for me

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[farmerjan]

How fresh is the barn scrapings? Might be too strong for the new asparagus... might burn them.... I would have gone with your original plans to do half and half with the peat and all on top for them to be able to reach down into the barn scrapings after they had grown a bit AND the barn stuff had had a chance to compost some...

 

[CrealCritter]

How fresh is the barn scrapings? Might be too strong for the new asparagus... might burn them.... I would have gone with your original plans to do half and half with the peat and all on top for them to be able to reach down into the barn scrapings after they had grown a bit AND the barn stuff had had a chance to compost some...

Well it was just scraped off the barn floor but, good call

I'll sample a few asparagus seedlings in there first, see how they do in there. I have some to experiment around with so it ain't no big deal. I did find that asparagus ferns turn yellow, if I applied to much fertilizer. But they quickly recover and new green growth after a few waterings of just water with no fertilizer. At this stage they are pretty fussy little buggers.

Next time I'm in town I'll pick up another kiddie pool full it with barn scrapings and peatmoss and direct seed Martha Washington Asparagus in it. This kiddie pool will become the fish out asparagus crowns, next spring.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[farmerjan]

Too much nitrogen will burn the small seedlings. Manure should be well composted before planting crowns. Fertilizing also should be done more in the fall so that it has a chance to benefit the roots of the crowns for the spring growth. To satisfy my curiousity, the U of Minn has some interesting and very thorough information on asparagus and fertilization etc.

 

[CrealCritter]

I appreciate you and your wisdom, so much @farmerjan . So I'm doing a barn floor scraping test run with 12 cells first. I'll see if it's good soil medium or not, I'll know either way pretty soon. I've read Duck poop is 2.8:2.3:1.7 NPK. I kind of would like to get a PH meter. Maybe one of these days.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

I got another plastic kiddie pool. This is a much bigger one, It's 55" diameter by 12 inches deep or about 21 cubit feet. This should grow a lot of asparagus seedlings. Same plan, screw to a pallet for ease of movement.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

The big green ones in approximately the 11:00 position, have about a week or so head start being transplanted outside in the kiddie pool. They seem to like the limed duck poop & sawdust barn scraping, so I went ahead and transplanted the rest. Picture taken the April 24th, after transplanting. I got them packed them in there pretty tight.

While researching, I found this picture of mature asparagus root system. It's pretty wild to see what goes on underground.

Credit for picture:
Asparagus Root System - Innovak Global

Good info here https://web.extension.illinois.edu/veggies/asparagus.cfm

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[farmerjan]

Glad they are doing good in the kiddie pools with the barn scrapings and all. That is really fantastic. I was so afraid they would "burn". They ought to have great root systems for when you put them out; and have some to sell. Wonderful.