This morning I picked 2.3 lb (~ 1 kg) of asparagus from the garden. We already had plenty left over from the day before so I sold these 4 bundles on the local buy/sell fb page. Its one of the few things our garden is producing in abundance at the moment. We discovered that we had spotted asparagus beetles a few weeks back, but Brock spent some hours squishing them by hand and I cleared out old debris from around the asparagus.
"The spotted asparagus beetle appears somewhat later, allowing the growth of fronds on which they deposit a single green egg. Larvae prefer to feed on the berries of mature asparagus plants. Within two weeks, they drop to the ground, entering the soil where pupation takes place. Ten days later the new adults emerge. "
So, it seems like we were able to clear out the ones we had and I havent seen any of the new asparagus spears grow in the "sheperds crook" that tells you the beetles/larvas are around. I weeded around the asparagus and we planted basil nearby the asparagus in one of the patches. And even though we have 60ish tomatoe plants I will sow a couple more tiny tims around the asparagus. Asparagus, parsley, basil and tomatoes is a excellent quartet that takes care of eachother.
The basil attracts ladybugs that eats the beetle larvae and the tomatoes deter the asparagus beetles themselves. Parsley and basil underneath asparagus to help with plant vigor but also help tomatoes grow better. Basil deters tomato hornworms while helping improve tomato flavor. The asparagus in turn help keep root knot nematodes from the tomatoes. The root knot nematodes survive by feeding directly off of the nutrients pumped through tomato roots.
The basil in the pictue is one of the propagated tips! I snipped them off the first set of plants that we grown from seed (i read that by doing this we would get a bushy basil plant, and its true) and put them in water, after a week plus some days they had enough roots so that I could put them in soil. This is what the root system looked like before i transplanted them to the garden.
So, for now, 1 -0 to us in the war against the asparagus beetles. The next battle I hope to win is against the white cabbage butterfly and its green little cattapillars - I made decoys. They seem to work. But thats a story for another post.
(All pictures by me or Brock, unless source is added)