Q: I fear that my compost is not getting hot enough to kill weed seeds. I topdressed my asparagus bed and now they are full of weeds.

A: It really takes work to get ALL of the weed seeds cooked in a compost pile. My bet is that some survived and were spread to the beds. However, asparagus experts at the University of Ohio say you can harvest asparagus for three weeks, cut all spears below ground level, then spray with herbicide to kill weeds. I have full details at bit.ly/weedasparagus.