[Sassy Lassy]

Last year was my first year on the lottie and was extremely pleased to see some asparagus growing.  However the area is choaked with grass.  I understand it would be too late to try and remove all the grass or spray as the asparagus season is almost here.  I imagine the plants are quite old and established but completely neglicted.  My problem is keeping the grass short but not disturbing the new shoots.

I have a feeling I will need to re-do the bed at some point.  Another lottie holder suggested spraying in the winter with "round up" as it becomes inert with contact to the ground and the asparagus would be dormant by then.  Does round-up kill the grass completely or just the leaves?  Would it be best to dig over the area at the end of the year - lift the asparagus as best a possible and re-do the bed?   :?

Sorry if you have all fallen asleep.  Its keeping me awake!!

Sassy Lassy

[gobs]

How about moving your bits and do some weeding?

[Sassy Lassy]

Sorry gobs, same thing applies here as with the raspberries.

Sassy

[Yorkie]

Spraying with round-up in the winter is unlikely to be effective.  The way it works is that the plant absorbs the weedkiller through its leaves, and takes it down into the roots so it kills the whole plant (in theory).  However, this needs the grass itself to be actively growing to work, and most plants are not actively growing in the winter.

I'm not familiar with the growing habits of asparagus but I'd have thought that while any parts of it are visible above ground you are running a serious risk of killing it if you use round-up.  I wouldn't be confident about using it in the asparagus bed at other times of the year - but others with more experience may know better.

In the short term I'd have thought that using garden shears to keep on top of the grass may be your only option?

I do know that asparagus is a plant which doesn't really like being disturbed - but if you do have to dig it up in order to remove the grass roots, there will be a best time of year to do it - again, over to those who know what they're doing with this plant  :?

[John]

Tricky to say the least - glyphosate is absorbed by the leaves and taken to the roots, killing them, as part of the growing process. So to be effective, you need the weed to be growing.

If, however, any glyphosate gets onto growing asparagus, you've lost the crop.

I'd weed carefully by hand, try to pull the grass roots without messing up the asparagus. If it's really bad you could try re-planting in winter, but I doubt you'll succeed.

Some things don't have an easy answer, I'm afraid.

[woodburner]

Spraying is not 100% effective, but it's what at least one commercial grower does. I used to work in a garden that backed onto an asparagus field, and one day early in the year I noticed everything had gone brown and died. The weeds gradually came back through the year though.
People on here don't seem too keen on growing asparagus as it takes up a lot of space. I'm determined to grow my own though, and without resorting to weedkiller.
Doing some research recently I came upon a different way of growing asparagus. Instead of limiting your harvesting to keep the plant growing, you basically harvest the plant to death :!: after 4 years, having sown seed each year while it was growing to provide future years harvest.
More info here

So you could try hand weeding and deep mulching to control the weeds, and stop harvesting by mid June to try and recover the bed or you could just get as much as you can from amongst the weeds while starting again elsewhere.

[Sassy Lassy]

Thanks everyone, seems a bit of hard work is in order.  Once I know where the asparagus is coming up I can locate the plants and try to weed round them - I visit the lotti later in the week with the camera and lt you see the problem.

Sassy