24 Apr 2004 07:21:09 -0700 Mike Lyle wrote:


I assume the roots are allowed their full natural spread in the ground
outside the blocks. You mention mowing around the blocks: does this
mean you let other plants grow over the area where the asparagus roots
are seeking water and nutrients? Do you find that under these
conditions your plants are as well-developed as those grown more
conventionally? Of course yours aren't old enough to give a proper
crop yet, so maybe it's too soon to judge.

MIke.

Well 3 years ago the block served only as to locate the asparagus amongst the grass and weeds so that
when I mowed I did not mow the asparagus. But now the block serve as a sort of large pot via the 2
holes in the block. And of course their roots are in no manner hampered and should the asparagus
spread further out of its block region I can either cover them with additional block or dig up some
roots and transplant to a newer spot.

Conventional asparagus growing requires too much time and labor to maintain. Whereas my block method
allows much more freedom from care and maintenance. I remember one year where I utterly neglected the
asparagus other than mowing around the blocks. And the ditches where they are growing is infested with
quackgrass and brome grass that is so dense and matted that my spade is slow to cut through.
Conventionally I think one cannot ignore their asparagus for a full year in such conditions and that I
would have lost them all if not for the block that suppresses the grasses in the holes.


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