Pat, your landscape timbers wont last over 4 years in the south if they are
untreated. Termites will be in them 10 days after it is warm enough for
them to get out. More North, they could last much longer. If you really
love asparagus, you might consider building a concrete wall around the area
you want your bed to live in. I have a friend here who does that for his
flowers. He has his own cement mixer and apparently all the time and money
he needs. You can even make your cement retaining walls colored by adding
coloring to the wet cement while it is still mixing.
If you decide to go with landscape timbers, I would drill at least 3 holes
in the ones that will be stacked on the top of others. Then get some screws
that are long enough to go completely though the top one and at least an
inch into the one it will be setting on. Make it at least 4 or more timbers
tall. You might line the inside of the timbers with something before adding
your dirt, to help keep the crab grass out. Thanks Genevieve, for reminding
me about that.
In the South, that crab grass takes over everything. I had to cover my
asparagus sprouts with paper cups when they were small and spray the entire
bed to kill the grass. Either that or weed the entire 75 ft bed every few
days.
Here in Kansas, my bed is taller and wider, it has solid sides and the
bottom half is packed with pure cow manure, and the rest is soil and compost
in about a 50/50 mixture.. I have to weed the top part about 5 times a
year.
This year will by it's second year, and I bought 2 year old roots. That
means this year we will be eating good. I planted it last spring and already
I have had the asparagus ferns on stems that were over an inch wide. I
ordered a Jersey hybrid that was all males (Ha Ha). Out of 20 plants at
least two produced seeds.
Have fun. Dwayne
"Pat Meadows" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 3 Mar 2003 07:27:05 -0700, "Dwayne"
wrote:
A Good solution to your problem, Genevieve, would be to build a nice
permanent raised bed for your asperagus. I did that in Arkansas with
landscape timbers, and had asparagus to give away. Watering was easy
also,
because I designed my raised bed to be as long as my 75 ft soaker hose.
Once a week, unless it was very hot and dry, I would turn the water on
for
a couple of hours, until I could stick my finger down into the dirt all
the
way and still reach mud.
I'm trying hard to be able to build raised beds this year
and I'm thinking about landscape timbers.
We can buy them locally - they're unfinished (no creosote or
other nasties). This is good.
Do you know how long they should last before rotting away?
They'll be in contact with the ground of course.
Pat
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