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I'm being sent asparagus crowns for Mother's Day and am considering putting them in a raised bed of good loose soil which already has some strawberries. Space in our fenced veg garden is at a premium and this would save some room. Do you see any problem with this?

I could get rid of a path, break up the compacted soil and plant them there.

I was chatting to Goodlife about this last weekend. OH doesn't want asparagus as it's a long time before we get a crop but I asked Goodlife about planting other things in the bed, she suggested salady things that don't take a lot of goodness out of the soil. We met up at Chatsworth House & walked round the fruit & veg garden, it was so lovely. I also looked in my Charles Dowdings' book & he says that if the raised bed is well drained the crowns can be planted on the flat.

Standard strawberries take quite a lot of soil so perharps will give too much competition with available nutrients and water...unless you want to put your strawberries in containers and dot those around the bed..that would solve some problems ..and leave room for something else..maybe 'few' annual flowers while the crows get going?
But then again..depending how many strawberry plants you have..few on the edges of the bed should not 'disturb' too much if the main area of the bed is left for asparagus.

I'd beware of strawberries, the plants, especially their roots, are thugs, and it's incredibly hungry, if the diseases don't get them in three or four years, then they've exhausted the soil.... Asparagus is happy enoughin biggish pots until you get somewhere to put it,  then it'll want a year to bed in as it were....

Quote..maybe 'few' annual flowers while the crows get going?

Uppsie daisy..typo.. lets hope the crows don't get going but your crowns do

Thank you everyone for your educated responses.

It sounds like you mostly agree that there can be problems with competition so I shall have to take a fresh look with new eyes at the garden. If it didn't grow so tall and shade other things it would be easier to find a spot. I might have to put some in two places in the yard, maybe hope some won't get eaten outside the fence...always risky.

Happy gardening today to you!

What size pot would you need for asparagus Chriscross?

Regards

Bluecar

Quote from: bluecar on May 13, 2013, 13:10:34
What size pot would you need for asparagus Chriscross?

Regards

Bluecar

I kept mine in 10" pots having sown them as seed in tiny modules then leaving them to suffer for nearly a year as small plants in 15-cell to a tray module packs. Amazingly I had high germination, and a large survival rate, I ended up giving away about forty plants and keeping thirty odd myself from an orginal sowing of about a hundred seeds....

No, No, No, Never. 2 years ago I interplanted my wifes prize very productive strawberry bed with club root free Clapton cauliflowers because I had simply run out of space on my allotment. Result caulis where brillant but the strawberry crop was a disaster because it was overshadowed by the caulis. In the end we had to replace the entire bed of strawberry plants and only now do they look anything like.
I also have a large Asparagus bed about 6 years old and it is currently turning spears out like there is no tomorrow. I am however careful what I plant either side of the bed ( root crops a no go ) as the Asparagus roots can go two foot and further than the bed itself. Take other members advice and find somewhere more suitable for the asparagus.

Quote from: plot22 on May 15, 2013, 06:46:51

I also have a large Asparagus bed about 6 years old and it is currently turning spears out like there is no tomorrow. I am however careful what I plant either side of the bed ( root crops a no go ) as the Asparagus roots can go two foot and further than the bed itself. Take other members advice and find somewhere more suitable for the asparagus.

Thank you. As you suggested, I did plant most of them in a raised bed but I'd already planted one side of it in tomatoes. I'm figuring the crowns won't do too much this year and next year they can have the whole bed to themselves, no tomatoes, no strawberries.
A few crowns are planted at ground level elsewhere and will probably get encroached by grass and vines by mid-summer if my weeding schedule deteriorates as usual, but probably another gardener will adopt them.