Vol. 140 No. 11

AGRICULTURE

Jeneen Wiche
Tips from the weekend gardener

I don’t drink green beer on St. Patrick’s Day but I do use the day as a marker of sorts: get ready to plant asparagus, potatoes, onions, leeks, peas, Brussels sprouts, kale and other greens and lettuces.
Turnips, carrots, peas, greens and lettuces can be directly seeded into the garden as soon as the soil is workable and warms to about 45 degrees. Other cool season crops like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts do better set out in the garden as seedlings. Leeks, potatoes and asparagus are easiest to get started if you have some plant parts to begin with: respectively, in the form of slips, seed potatoes and crowns.
Leek seedlings can be found at specialty garden centers and through mail-order catalogs. Prepare a 6-inch deep trench for planting and amend it with plenty of organic matter. Space the seedlings about 15 inches apart (unless you plan on doing some early harvesting, which I like to do, then space them about 8 inches apart and harvest every other plant when you want some young leeks).
I love planting potatoes. Start with “certified disease-free” seed potatoes; cut the seed potatoes into sections, making sure each section has a healthy bud or “eye.” Each piece must have one bud (I prefer two buds) because this becomes the stem and the roots of the potato tuber. You should get four good pieces from each seed potato.
Potatoes are planted in long furrows, about 36 inches wide so you can cultivate and harvest easily. Plant the seed potatoes 12 inches apart and about 3 to 5 inches deep.
Potatoes grow best in rich well-drained soil so work compost into the furrows. Mulch the area with straw to control weeds and shade the developing tubers from the sun. Some people “hill” their potatoes by occasionally adding soil over the plants with the intention of keeping them covered in soil and thus shaded from the sun. I find this is not always necessary if you have rich, well-drained soil and use a layer of straw. Add composted manure mid-season and use fish emulsion as a foliar feed (and insect control) several times throughout the season.
You can harvest small potatoes (called “new” potatoes) after the plants finish blooming in the summer. For larger potatoes suitable for storage allow plants to reach maturity. Harvest potatoes for storage about three weeks after the tops of the plants have completely died back.
Rotating your crop is essential for potatoes (and other vegetables in the nightshade family, like tomatoes) if you want to avoid pest problems. Hand pick pests on a regular basis in order to protect the potato crop and use floating row covers as insect barriers early in season to protect plants from Colorado potato beetles, leaf hoppers and flea beetles.
Asparagus is a perennial so be certain about where you plant and be serious about preparing the planting bed. Asparagus will continue to produce for twenty years or more if it is properly maintained. Prepare a 10-inch trench adding lots of organic matter. Space the crowns about 18 inches apart; take several weeks to gradually add the soil back into the trench, covering the crowns little by little each time the new shoots poke above the soil surface. Keep the plants evenly moist during this time.
Do not harvest asparagus from the first season’s growth. Next spring harvest for a couple of weeks only; the third spring you can increase harvest length to about a month. Also, don’t cut asparagus tops (the ferny growth) back until it has naturally died back; the plants need to store energy throughout the summer and fall through their foliage for a good crop the following spring.