Photo courtesy of ranjit at flikr.com.

If you’ve ever tried to grow asparagus, then you know it takes a lot of patience. Among other things, you can’t hoe it because the spears pop up all over; it’s hand-weed or nothing.

Luckily, there’s an easy, organic way to work around that: start by seeding your asparagus bed with Dutch clover the fall before you plant.

Photo courtesy of Huhgman being… at flickr.com.

The next spring, plant year-old crowns in a narrow trench eight inches deep. Backfill the trench halfway, and wait until the tips of the spears are peeking above the lip before filling it up the rest of the way. Then seed the bed with more clover.

You should end up with a thick clover cover, and you can easily pull any weeds that make it through just a couple of times a season. The clover will reseed itself, so all you have to do is add a little seed each fall wherever it seems thin.

Clover’s a legume, so not only will it provide an excellent green manure for your asparagus, it’ll also replenish the nitrogen in the soil.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 5:04 am and is filed under Gardening Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.