Time Of Final Planting

The best time for the final removal is the end of March, if the soil is dry, and the season warm and forward; otherwise it is better to wait until the commencement of April. A very determinate signal of the appropriate time for planting, is when the plants are beginning to grow. If moved earlier, and they have to lie torpid for two or three months, many of them die, or in general shoot up very weak.

Construction Of The Beds

In forming the beds for regular production, have them three feet wide. The site of the bed being marked out, the usual practice is to trench the ground two spades deep, and then to cover it with well-rotted manure, from six to ten inches deep; the large stones being sorted out, and care taken that the dung lies at least six inches below the surface.

Mode Of Planting

The plants being taken from the seed-bed carefully with a narrow-pronged dung-fork, with as little injury to the roots as possible, they must be laid separately and evenly together, for the sake of convenience whilst planting, the roots being apt to entangle and cause much trouble and injury in parting them. They should be exposed as short a time as possible to the air, and to this end it is advisable to keep them until planted in a basket covered with a little sand. The mode of planting is to form drills or narrow trenches five or six inches deep and a foot apart, cut out with the spade, the line side of each drill being made perpendicular, and against this the plants are to be placed, with their crowns one and a half or two inches below the surface, and twelve inches asunder. The roots must be spread out wide in the form of a fan, a little earth being drawn over each to retain it in its position whilst the row is proceeded with. For the sake of convenience, one drill should be made at a time, and the plants inserted and covered completely before another is commerced. When the planting is completed, the bed is to be lightly raked over, and its outline distinctly marked out.

Care must be had never to tread on the beds - they are formed narrow to render it unnecessary - for everything tending to consolidate them is injurious, as, from the length of time they have to continue, without a possibility of stirring them to any considerable depth, they have a natural tendency to have a closer texture than is beneficial to vegetation. Water must be given in dry weather daily until the plants are established. The paths between the beds are to be two and a half feet wide.

Mr. Beaton says, that "By far the best way of growing asparagus is in single rows three feet apart, and nine inches plant from plant; but if the ground is not deeper than two feet or thirty inches, or if room is scarce, the rows need not be more than thirty inches asunder.

"I have grown asparagus this way for the last fifteen years, and give them no dung in winter, merely clearing off the stalks and weeds in October, and pointing over the surface about two inches deep with a fork, and leaving it as rough as possible.

"Early in March, when the surface is quite dry, it is raked down, and about two inches of soil drawn over the crowns from each side of the rows, which gives the ground something of the appearance of a plot of peas earthed up for the first time. When the gathering is nearly over, the ground is stirred again, to loosen the tramping made in gathering the crop. The hollow between the little ridges is then filled up with a powerful compost, consisting of equal portions of sandy soil, leaf mould, and pigeon's dung; the whole is then drenched with liquid manure from the stables, cowhouses, or laundry, and the foreman of the kitchen garden gets carte blanche to water the asparagus any day through the growing season, when he can best spare his men, or at all events every fortnight, and always with liquid manure if possible. As to the quantity of water, the only instruction he gets is that he cannot drown them. This is cultivating the asparagus in summer." - Gard. Chron.