Quote Originally posted by Crow View Post
On the asparagus--female plants will produce berries this fall. You're supposed to let them grow into ferns. After the spring harvest of spears, the ferns supply the nutrients that will see the plants through the winter.

I'd pull the weeds as best I could now, fertilize it, and let that be sufficient. If it were my asparagus and it had gone many years without division, I'd start digging up a small portion each spring, dividing it, and planting it into well tilled soil and get a new bed that way. If you do that, really till the soil deep and work in a lot of rotten manure or leaves or compost. An asparagus bed can last you for 15 years or more, just don't harvest any from the new beds until the 3rd year. That way they'll have time to establish well.

Strawberries--we never mulched them. Some do, but for us the strawberry foliage was thick enough it kept evaporation way down. And for us, the mulch encouraged mold, but it really depends on what your worst problem is-- too dry or too damp. If you want to mulch them, wheat straw is good.
Oh! Transplanting them sounds like a very good idea! I'm assuming that it would be done in the spring then?

The strawberries are really just a novelty. The kids I'm sad to say are cityfied and have a difficult time eating anything that may have come in contact with a rodent or a bird. (Not much seems to touch the asparagus The chipmunks are finding it a feast and seem to gnaw on everything. Hubby will pick and cut away bad spots, but he's not convincing them. lol The straw may be helpful as it can go a couple of weeks before we can water at times and it's a very dry area of the country.

My mom used to use newpapers, maybe I can get my hands on some of those.