My neighbors use cattle salt to kill weeds and grass in their asparagus bed, what is your answer?
By B. L. K.
When I had asparagus, I pulled the weeds by hand. If you start early in the season, its easy to keep up
Salt kills the plant too. Remove the weeds by hand.
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It is way too late to worry about weeds in my asparagus bed for this year, but how do other people fight the weeds? Mulching early spring doesn't seem to do it. My husband thought he read salt would work. Thanks
By Jane
I don't know about salt most of the time salt kills. My pal always used horse manure aged.
We have used softener salt on our asparagus bed for years and it does keep the weeds down and it doesn't hurt the plants. This year we have more problems with deer eating them.
Salt will kill plants! Using chemical free grass clippings is one idea but no salt.
For Asparagus, salt will not kill it. It is one of the plants that can handle a salty soil. My grandfather used to have our asparagus beds covered in salt when I was a child and we had massive amounts of it every year.
Hardiness Zone: 5b
Thanks for your help.
Kenn Ziebell from, Germantown, WI
A: Kenn,
The best way to control weeds in asparagus beds is to make sure the bed is completely weed-free before planting it. Once asparagus starts to grow, it becomes much more difficult to keep weeds under control. Established beds should be mulched with a weed-free straw or some other type of organic mulch in the early spring, just a shoots are starting to emerge. The few weeds that manage to grow up through the mulch can then be pulled out by hand. If your spears are all cut down to just below ground level, you can try spot spraying a topical organic weed killer on large weeds like dandelions and quack grass.
Ellen
