OLD-FASHIONED COMPANION PLANTING

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Harvest rhubarb stalks so long as they keep growing out fat and juicy, or till the flower stalk appears and leaves begin turning red at the ends. Every few years is a good time to divide rhubarb. In early spring, cut off one or two quart jar size chunks of root from the larger specimens and plant them out or give them to friends. Any plants that have lost vigor and quit producing really fat spears each spring should be removed and new cuttings planted into fresh compost in their place.

In late fall (of the year you planted the cuttings, don't let them grow a second year) after a good frost or two, is the time to harvest your horseradish. I dig up the entire bed with a garden fork, shake the roots free of soil, and lop off the leaves. Thick, well-proportioned roots are stored in the cold cellar for peeling and grating as needed. Any so gnarly as to be unusable roots or any with soft spots or other apparent rot are saved to be cut up for replanting. The soil in the bed is forked well and mixed with enough compost or top soil to replace plant material removed. I replant the saved cuttings and mulch with the leaves from parent roots just dug up. Horseradish gives a lot for very little care in return.

Damage Control

Severe rot problems can only be overcome by uprooting and burning the bed.

Disease and Pests

The best medicine against problems of all kinds is prevention. Weeds can choke out the bed and bugs will hibernate at the base of the plants, so in the spring of each year cultivate any bare ground shallowly to expose bug larvae and sprouted weed seeds. In summer of the first year, once the soil dries out, snug mulch around asparagus fronds, berry, rhubarb, and horseradish plants to keep weeds down. Hand pull large weeds that poke through.

You will see rust, malformed stalks with brown-tinged lesions around the base, on a few asparagus plants, but the stalks are still delicious and most varieties are resistant enough that it won't do significant harm. In the heat of summer some years, the fronds will host a considerable gathering of asparagus beetles—colorful little red and black semi-hard-shelled bugs that are quick to flee and hard to catch in the heat of day. In my experience, the little stinkers sleep away from home (they dig into the mulch, I'm told) and don't come looking for food till the sun is up. I've never noticed that they do much harm to fronds (that are old enough by the time the beetles arrive that they've about done their job of reinvigorating the roots for next year's crop), so I've never worried about them. However, I do compost burn the top mulch and old fronds each fall.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print