[Trebor]

I had a lucky find at the weekend – an Asparagus plant growing in the weeds at the back of the allotment. I already have an Asparagus bed, but one of the plants has shown no growth and was only put in this year.

Two(ish) questions:

First, because I haven’t seen any growth on the year 1 plant does that mean it is dead and needs to be replaced?

Second, how much weed clearing should I try and do around the plant that I found and when/ how should I move it?

[paintedlady]

(1)  Hang fire with the planted asparagus - I've had a couple that suddenly appeared after I'd given up hope, but if by midsummer there is no sign, it doesn't look too good.
(2)  As the asparagus are now in full swing pushing spears up, I don't think it is a good idea to disturb them at this time of year - can't you leave that task until winter instead?  As you can easily damage the crown trying to weed anything that gets established, it makes sense to have a weed free crown and bed from the start (I've lost an asparagus plant through tackling invading couch grass - in the end I waited until early spring just before the spears started to come up and blasted the grass with glyphosate.  It seems to have done a stirling job on it, but the key is not to get the stuff on the emerging spears!)

[Trebor]

All the new plants have one small spear each except for the ‘failure’ – I will keep my eyes open, but no optimistic.

The plant that I found is literally in a swamp of weeds. I pulled the grass down around it but have done nothing yet that may disturb the soil. It has one pretty good spear/ fern that is about 2ft tall. I was thinking to try a weed suppressant covering for the remainder of the year and then transplant in Autumn – but not sure if there are going to be further possible spears that I will suppress by doing this!