Contents
Asparagus (asparagus) is a perennial cold-resistant vegetable crop with a delicate delicate taste and many useful substances: vitamins, minerals and fiber. Growing asparagus is a rather troublesome task, so you will not often see it in the garden or in the country. You can buy fresh asparagus in the supermarket, but the price of healthy sprouts is much higher than other vegetables. Therefore, many summer residents and gardeners would like to know if it is possible and how to grow asparagus from seeds in their own summer cottage.
Cultivation from seeds
There are two ways to sow asparagus seeds: directly into the soil in the garden, and in a pot or container, followed by transplanting seedlings. Sowing in open ground is carried out in warm soil in late May – early June. Asparagus seeds germinate for quite a long time – if you do not carry out preparatory work, the first shoots can be expected only after 25-30 days.
To speed up this process, it is recommended to soak the seed in warm water (35-40 ° C), place the container for several days in a warm place, constantly making sure that the water does not evaporate. Next, the soaked seeds are laid out between two layers of damp paper or cloth, and placed in heat for another week, constantly moistening the material. Sprouted seeds are sown in prepared holes (rows), deepening into the ground by no more than 2 cm. Properly prepared seed material germinates in 8-10 days.
The second way – growing seeds in pots, allows you to sow planting material a few weeks earlier, and plant seedlings that have already grown stronger in the garden, which by autumn will turn into young plants that can survive the winter. For sowing in pots, the seeds are germinated in the same way as for planting in the garden, but the germination process itself begins earlier, around the beginning of April. The soil for growing seeds in a pot should be light and consist of the following components: 2 parts of the earth taken in the garden, sand, peat and rotted manure, 1 part each.
The germinated seeds are laid on the surface of moist soil, after which they are covered with a 1 cm layer of earth. To create greenhouse conditions, the container with the planted seeds is covered with glass until germination. The upper bulk layer of soil must be moistened daily with a spray gun, while removing the glass for ventilation.
It is better to choose small pots for planting seeds. In flower shops, you can buy special disposable pots, or use any containers that are unnecessary in the household. When deciding to plant an asparagus crop in the country, you need to understand that this will take time and patience, because growing asparagus from seeds is not so easy.
Reproduction of asparagus seedlings
Growing seedlings of asparagus is carried out from germinated seeds, which are sown in small containers in early spring (March-April). For planting seeds, it is convenient to use disposable pots or cups so that the young plant can later be removed without damaging the root system.
When the sprouts in pots grow a little, they need to be hardened off. To do this, the seedlings are taken out to fresh air and sunlight. It is common for asparagus to react quickly to the sun, so it is very important to observe the light regime – take the plants to the sun in a dosed manner, and gradually increase the hardening time. Otherwise, the young plant may stretch too much.
Asparagus is considered a seedling not only during the period of transformation of seeds into young sprouts, but also in the first year of its life. This is a perennial crop (the bush lives 10-20 years), and the plant will become an adult only by next spring. After planting seedlings in the garden, the bush is formed until the fall, after which it is cut off in the fall, and the next spring it is dug up again and transplanted to a place of permanent growth.
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Demonstrative video for gardeners and gardeners.
Landing in the ground
It is possible to plant strengthened seedlings in open ground in the first half of June. Growing asparagus in a country house or garden plot should take place in light, loose and nutritious soil, which must be prepared in advance. It is desirable to allocate the most fertile site for planting, since the culture is quite demanding on the soil. In addition, in the fall, manure or humus must be added to the soil, and in the spring, before planting, compost or superphosphate 0,4-0,7 kg / m XNUMX. sq., as well as potassium fertilizer.
In the garden, young seedlings are planted in holes arranged in rows. The distance between the rows should be 20-25 cm, between the holes 10-15 cm. Next year, when the young bush will be transplanted to a permanent place, the distance between the rows will need to be increased to 50-70 cm, and between the holes up to 40 cm.
With proper care, young seedlings turn into a bush 20-40 cm high with 4-5 shoots by autumn. Before the onset of frost, the ground part of the bush is cut so that about 10 cm remains on the surface. In this state, asparagus will winter. In the spring of next year, the seedlings are dug up, poorly developed roots are separated, the remaining ones are shortened to a length of 3-5 cm, and placed in new holes. The roots are buried in the ground by 6-10 cm, the soil is compacted, and then watered well.
You can also not dig young plants in the first year, but leave the transplant in the spring of the second year of life. Such bushes will be stronger and larger. When planting already overgrown asparagus in the country, the trench method should be used, in which the rows are located at a distance of 1 m, and the recesses reach a width of 40 cm. Under each bush, you need to put a little compost or humus, straighten and lay the roots, fill in part of the soil, compact it well and then fill in the rest of the soil.
How to look after
After planting in the garden, young plants need to be properly cared for. In summer, it consists in watering, timely top dressing, weeding between rows and loosening the soil. Autumn care involves cutting stems and wrapping bushes for wintering.
Watering should be carried out as needed, systematically, in small portions. It is necessary to maintain normal moisture in the soil, since excessive drying, as well as excess moisture, does not benefit plants. It is necessary to loosen the soil after each watering or weeding. If the seeds were grown in open ground, then the first weeding should be done as soon as the first 2 leaves appear on the plants, while removing the weakest shoots.
In the autumn, before frosts, the shoots from the asparagus bushes need to be cut off, and the garden bed should be sprinkled with a layer of organic fertilizers: humus, compost, peat, after which everything should be covered with dry foliage. This process is repeated every year. In order to make it easy to find a bed in the spring, the rows are marked with stakes. In the third year in spring, the plants need to be spudded to a height of 20-30 cm, the top layer of the ridge should be slightly compacted – the cracks that will form on the surface will indicate where the shoot sprouts.
Growing asparagus in the country is impossible without regular feeding. You need to fertilize asparagus plantings several times a season:
- a month after sowing seeds or planting seedlings, the garden bed is fertilized with saltpeter 20-30 g / m. sq., or liquid mullein at a concentration of 1:8;
- then 40 g of superphosphate / bucket is added to this solution, and watering is carried out 1 time / month;
- during flowering, plants are treated with insecticides for preventive purposes;
- in July, shoot growth begins to gradually recover, so another top dressing is required, for example, with bird droppings 1 part / 10 parts of water;
- the last top dressing is carried out before the onset of frost, at the end of October – superphosphate and potassium chloride 30 g / m. sq. stop the growth of shoots and help survive the winter;
- in the spring, in the second and subsequent years of life, asparagus is fed with a mineral mixture containing nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus until the vegetation begins.
Before the onset of winter, the soil in the aisles is dug up. In the first years, while there is still no harvest, it is possible to grow vegetables in the aisles: radishes, beans, salad greens.
Harvesting
The asparagus crop is young asparagus sprouts that are underground, or have recently made their way to the surface. Since they lacked light, their stems are light in color, especially fleshy, and therefore suitable for consumption. Harvesting begins in early May (this is the earliest vegetable in the new season), and lasts 1-2 months. Throughout May – June, you can collect young useful sprouts once every 1-2 days.
To get an earlier harvest, it is necessary to plant early-ripening asparagus. There are not many varieties of this culture. For our latitudes, such early ripening varieties as “Arzhentelskaya early” and “Early yellow” are suitable. These varieties are distinguished by faster vegetation, white or greenish large juicy shoots with a mild taste.
The first crop can be harvested from a plant that has reached 3-4 years of age. In the spring, after hilling the bush, you need to monitor the condition of the soil. When cracks appear in the ground, this means that the asparagus sprouts begin to sprout, and it is time to harvest. The earth and mulch must be carefully removed, and the young shoot cut off at the place where its growth begins. Then the asparagus bush is again covered with mulch so that new shoots sprout in it. At the end of June, the growth of shoots stops. The plant must be freed from mulch and poured soil, and then fertilized with organic and mineral fertilizers: liquid humus, ammonium nitrate
When raking a bush, you can find stumps left over from cut shoots. They must be removed, as sections can rot and lead to infection of the entire bush. After fertilizing, the roots should be covered with earth, and the surface should be leveled. The plants are now ready for the next season.
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