Jerry the problem with growing asparagus down here is the warm winters that we frequently have and the long hot dry spells that can happen in the late summer and early fall. I had a bed for about 7 years and it was fairly productive in year 4 and 5 but then we had two very mild winters and that really messed them up so I ended up removing them at the end of the seventh year.
I have a good friend who really is crazy about asparagus and he got some crowns of a variety that does better down here in the deep south. If you want I will try to find out what they are. He is still producing a lot of great asparagus. He covers the bed with about four to six inches of compost each fall. He uses his own and fresh mushroom compost that he gets from a local nursery. He also adds most of a 50 lb bag of cottonseed meal at the same time. He has them irrigated with a drip system and fertilizes them monthly all spring and summer with TTF or Urban farms Vegetable formula. He did lose a couple of his crowns after two mild winters in a row but thankfully we had some good cold weather last year. His plants have been producing quite heavily for about 10 years now after the first three years of very limited harvesting.
Bill
|