O.T. Srawberries

We set out a couple beds of strawberries and asparagus this spring, and wonder, do you mow them off before winter?

My granddad raised Strawberries as supplemental cash. We allowed the leaves and vines to act as mulch. If the mowing doesn't remove the material it would be no problem. Asparagus does not need mowing, but could be knocked down and crushed onto the bed when dry and brittle. Jim

We don"t do anything to ours.

I brush hog the tops off my asparagus when it goes dormant after a frost.Strawberries I cover with straw so any freezing and thawing during the winter doesn't affect them. I have left them bare before too and didn't have a problem but that probably depends on the type of winter you get.

My strawberry bed I do nothing to and it does just fine all year round. Back when we lived in NE. my dad would do nothing ti his beds either and his bed did well

A guy I used to work for had 15 acres of strawberries. We used to mulch with straw each fall all 15 acres. He had a bale shredder we would use and grew rye as a cover crop to make the straw on other field. We didn't mow the berry tops. Depending on how you planted your asparagus you can scratch the surface with a disk harrow to get the trash chewed up a bit. That's if you planted the crowns a couple inches down in a trench and then filled the trenches in. Don't go too deep though!

We have 15yr old rasise beds in our garden. Our 4 Asparagus beds 3 at 4'x12 and one 4'x8' 0nly 4 years old, provide our extended family, with more than we can use and preserve each year. (we prefer to freezing rather than canning Asparagus. We get spears up to 1-1/4" in diamiter during the spring harvest. We harvest to about the first of June, till second week depending on the weather. From then on the crop continues to grow until this time of year. (gettd about 6' high) This year , I cut the stalks off early, about 1" below the surface of the ground, as everything was ahead of schedule. Past years, I strip off the brows with berries, (only grow on female plants) and mulched the beds with them. This year everything went into the compost pile, as the beds are full of tiney new seadling spears.
Bare in mind that in the spring, new spears grow up through old stalks, so if the old are not cut off, the new growth will struggle to emerge in the spring.
As for Strawberries, We have mulched our beds late in the fall with straw. This year I am trying something different. I have many large 12' long cardboard boxes from insolated vinyl siding. I'm going to staple the boxes to my raised bed boxes, and see what happens. Just for reference, our temps. often reach 10-F and down to 30-F on ocasions.
Loren the Acg.