Asparagus Spacing Confusion

[Alison]

Now I know there are already several threads running about asparagus but I thought I'd start a new one just to discuss spacing etc.

Basically, I have some one year old crowns which I grew from seed last year which are looking very healthy. The plan was to have prepared a bed for them by now and plant them out next month and wait for lovely asparagus in years to come. However I never got around to digging the bed and am now getting confused about the spacing requirements. Basically I have two questions:

1 - If I don't get chance to prepare the bed properly in the next few weeks, am I better to leave the crowns in their pots for another year OR should I make do with a badly prepared bed - am tending towards the first option but not sure

2 - What spacing is best, most sites seem to say about 3' between rows and 1-1.5' between crowns but the RHS site says that you only need 18" between rows so long as they are staggered - is the 3' really necessary?

[Nicos]

I did mine 3 feet apart as the roots spread about 3 ft sideways eventually.
BUT- when chatting to a guy who had his own asparagus farm, he said that his were planted in double rows ( whatever that means)
I'm presuming alternating zig zag on a 2 ft wide bed?
I could see that that would work well.

How small are your plants?
I would have thought that if only 1 year old, you wouldn't be able to plant them at their correct depth this year???
( I may well be wrong though as I've only ever planted out 2 yr old plants before)

[Alison]

Plant size - they're not a bad size (think they're pretty much filling pots about 7" deep) and the seed instructions said to plant out after the first year but to be honest I'm tempted to keep them in pots for another year so that I can properly prepare the bed, just want to be sure I'm preparing a bed that's the right size!

[selfraising]

I've got twelve crowns in a metre square raised bed. They are planted in a zig zag. Probably too close but they did alright last year and as I have no more space they have two chances!

[Jeanied]

I've just bought a bag of 2 Purple Pacific crowns - the instructions suggest planting 5" deep and 12" apart in double rows. Seems a bit close together to me.

[Paulottie]

1.I can't stress enough how important it is to prepare the WEEDFREE bed well, lavish it with muck and seaweed...they are there for a long time and your life will be much simpler and your yield more successful.

If you are growing in pots it is not really as important when you plant them. More to do with if you are lifting them from nursery beds.....I replaced several last year in summer. A few things I would say though about plants in pots:

Once they are in fern it is more and you set out you should cane each plant individually. to avoid them blowing over as they have a rootball rather than a nice spidery spread as with bareroot crowns in spring.

They should be potted on now with a portion of fresh compost as they are hungry plants...they are more demanding to keep constantly watered and fed in year two....It may set you back a year till a decent harvest.

2. Traditionally an asparagus bed has three staggered rows. It is four foot wide with a couple of foot of path all around it. Rows are therefore about 18" apart +6" to edge) a foot to 15" between plants.