Start Your Garden Chores
If you planted a cover crop of winter rye or wheat last fall, most likely the grass is six to 12 inches tall by now. Use your lawnmower to mow the grass as close to the ground as possible. Mowing saves you time in tilling the soil and helps to dry it, making it easier for the tiller.
Ground left bare will by now be covered with a carpet of chickweed and henbit. Use horticultural vinegar to kill these winter weeds now before they drop their seeds. For maximum control, spray the vinegar on the foliage during a bright sunny day. Within 24 hours, you will see the weeds turn yellow-white with the leaf margins going brown. Friends report good results with a mixture of one gallon of distilled white vinegar with one-quarter cup of Palmolive dish detergent.
If that bare ground is your asparagus bed, once the weeds have died down, rototill lightly, delaying if the soil is very wet. Before tilling, you can easily remove old stems because most have rotted at the base. Allow the tines of the tiller to penetrate the soil no more than three or four inches so as to not disturb the roots of the asparagus plants, which will soon be sending up shoots
Readers have asked how to grow white asparagus, which are tenderer than green asparagus and have a milder flavor. White asparagus are grown in the dark. The old method was to hill the beds with soil or sawdust as the spears appeared above ground. The modern method is to build a lightweight frame of wood and cover it with black plastic or roofing paper. As soon as the spears appear, place the covered frames over the beds, lifting every two or three days for harvesting.
If you have not had your soil tested in the past four years, now is the perfect time to submit a good representative soil sample for testing.
I recommend sending the soil samples to A&L — now Waypoint Analytical — in Richmond (www.soilandplantlaboratory.com/services/soilsampling.aspx).
If your soil is a sandy loam or loamy sand, have it tested for all trace elements especially for boron (B). However, if your soil is a loam, silt or clay loam, the general soil test will suffice.
If you have been growing multiple crops each year, you most likely will need to apply limestone. If you want me to make the recommendations, don’t specify a crop (a savings of $3-$5) and include my email so I’ll get your results: [email protected]. Once I have them I’m happy to consult you.
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