Four raised beds are being prepared. Two already have seedlings of Mary Washington planted out, in two tranches - the first, about 4 months ago, and the second about two weeks back. After winter, when the fronds died off and nothing much came up, it looked as if there were gaps in the first planting. I started replacing them but found on digging that many of the original plants were actually OK - they just hadn't yet broken the surface.
Above is a 4 month old seedling (right/upper right) and a two week old newly planted one (leftt).
When the shoots first come up, they're perfect but miniature asparagus spears, which grow very quickly into fronds. More tiny shoots will come up near the base of the first.
Above is a better established 4 month old seedling, which is starting to put out more and sturdier shoots. One can clearly see the maturity of the plant reflected in the size of the spears, and presumably it'll take another year or two before they reach an edible size. I'm pleased with their progress, which is more rapid than expected. They also seem to be tougher plants than I thought.
Big thing is to keep the patch weed free, and watered. Also to keep an eye open for female plants, and pull them out as they are identified.
The other two beds are still settling down - filled with leaf litter and a fair amount of left over builders sand which is very slowly (too slowly?) decomposing. In effect these are two shallow compost heaps which are being turned, but nothing is being added to them. They don't look very fertile.
I'm raising my own seedlings for these two, using something called F2 UC172. I've searched Google in vain for this cultivar, and come up with no real information, quite a rare occurence in this day and age. There's a handful of hits returned, and I still know nothing about it, other than it's available for sale.
Update 2015/10/22:
The larger, more established, seedlings are from my first attempt, and sprouted in mid winter after being sown in autumn. I was surprised.
This spring, nothing further came up, so I replanted, and extended the number of trays.
The latest seedlings - three so far - have come up after about 7 or 8 weeks. Hopefully I get many more.
Update 2015/11/01:
The two beds of Mary Washington.
Update 2015/11/02:
F2 UC172 seedling count is 14 total. They're really slow to germinate, but seem quite hardy.
Update 2015/11/12:
Slow but steady progress with the Mary Washington. One of the seedlings is really established and sending up thicker and thicker shoots. The other seedlings seem pretty well settled, but just starting to push up multiple but still thin shoots.
Update 2016/02/07:
Update 2016/02/21:
Doing nicely.
Weekly status of tyre garden - update 27
Update 2016/02/27:
Seedling of UC172 showing miniature spears coming up. This is the most developed, and could probably be transplanted... but I don't really have a bed completely ready for these yet.
About 14 of the seeds have sprouted over the last nine months, and are doing OK. A whole lot didn't sprout at all.
While there are few to no Google hits on UC172 there are lots of Google hits on UC-72, and as many on UC-157. I wonder if this UC172 isn't some sort of mis-labelling or typo for UC72? In any case, both these seem to be variations of Mary Washington - deal better with high temperatures, earlier bearing, more prolific.
Update 2016/02/28:
bush bean
The Mary Washington transplants.
Update 2016/03/20:
Newly sprouted seedlings of F2 UC172. They've taken a really long time. Strange they've decided to sprout when the weather has cooled down - evenings are now consistently about 12 to 13 deg C.
Another lot - there are 18 new seedlings altogether. This means I have in total about 32... there are about three doing really nicely that could be transplanted, but still nowhere really to put them yet.
The way these plants - including the more established Mary Washington - are pushing up new shoots invites some speculation as to how long the picking season could last... it's now really into autumn, after all.
Update 2016/04/10:
Still sending up spears, even though winter is just around the corner. Need to start thinking of a weed free mulch. Freshly fallen leaves form a sort of solid surface until they break down, so probably won't let the new spears through at this early stage.
Update 2016/05/01:
Seedlings of F2 UC172, which, after repeated sowing to fill in the gaps seem mostly to be coming up. Not sure what I'll do with them all!
Shooting and sprouting despite (because of?) the quite chilly night temperatures.
The Marty Washington beds under their winter blanket of fallen swamp cypress leaves - selected because they're mostly free of weed seeds.
I didn't cut the asparagus fronds, which are still green and growing.
No comments:
Post a Comment