Allotments 4 All

For this year, anyway.

I'm extending the season until Wednesday 21st because I want to give a treat to my Spanish class: asparagus tips wrapped in serrano ham, and some others with homemade mayonnaise. Plus globe artichokes trimmed to nearly nothing and more mayonnaise. Or possibly hollandaise if I can make it. And sangria.

It's our last meeting of the year, the first after our exam, and our Basque tutor has decreed a "fiesta".

I don't think asparagus will suffer from this last cutting, do you? It is in its 4th year and v prolific. Love your photograph.

Am chasing asparagus beetles, cunning things that dodge round the back of the stems as you approach, or drop to the ground and hide.

Lucky them!

if you put a light coloured cloth on the ground before hunting the beetles, they drop onto that & are easy to spot.  (works the same for pea & bean weevil which is an equally cunning pest).

Do agree that asparagus beetles are cunning b****ers!
I do the thing with cloth, but they really are quick, if you get any on the soil they hide in a split second. The other thing is that they have really tough shells - often I've thought that the crushing between finger and thumb had done the job, only to see them apparent revive and scamper off!

Say no more - I'm afraid I never look - & wouldn't know what I was looking for & why & when!!

Oh Tim, you are lucky if you don't get them! Around now, when it warms up, they eat the young shoots and the foliage and reduce it to tatters  :( The up side is that picking them off does seem to work, or at least it reduces the problem a lot.

And they poke their black eggs horizontally in rows into the spear so that they look like little ladders, hatching out into grubs that eat up the developing foliage!

Fabulous Tim!

I am going to have to invest in some more crowns for next year.  From my original 12 plants, only 6 really grew, and they are quite poorly really.  Am going to dig up the crowns in autumn (do you think that is the right time?) and replant in a new position in the sun (they are currently in dappled shade) and invest my birthday money in another dozen crowns.  Only had a couple of feasts of asparagus, and I doooooooo lurve it!

Only took a couple, well ok about six, cuttings off mine as I am still building up the roots after a transplant. Saw a couple of small birds fly across, land in the fern and snaffle some beetles...before flying off again, goosd to know some of them are on our side!
;D

I bet its all gone now, well it would be in our house, looks fantastic Tim, and my tummy is calling out for asparagus now  ;D

What a meanie putting those ideas in my head at this time of night  :P

Tim,

How many plants do you have?

D

How many plants? I have 20 in 2 rows of ten, more than enough for a good picking every 2 or 3 days.

Me? Had 20, now down to 10. But we get something like 15 12oz pickings.