Raking the mulch off the asparagus beds in early spring and giving it to the chickens (combined with twice weekly bug picking early in the season) does seem to have knocked my asparagus beetle problem back.  Unfortunately, I neglected to deal with the bare soil, and by early May, little plantain and ragweed seedlings were popping up all over.  Not only does asparagus not like its roots to be disturbed, I found the idea of pulling each of those weeds very daunting.  What to do?



Make a kill mulch, of course!  I dealt with the weeds right around the base of each plant, layered small sheets of cardboard on the ground, and topped the kill layer off with compost and straw.

Three weeks later, the bed is still weed-free and the asparagus is thriving.  Kill mulches really are a great tool for the lazy gardener.  (Check out the May edition of Weekend Homesteader for more tips on kill mulches.)

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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