Growing Asparagus for Dummy Gardeners

Asparagus crowns

Each spring, our staff here at the Antisocial Network eagerly await the arrival of cheap asparagus. In the local groceries, the prices start dropping from almost five bucks a pound some time in March or April, occasionally even dipping below a buck (can you say "loss leaders," people?). Of course, it's still been harvested somewhere in Mexico and shipped hundreds or thousands of miles, but hey – it's in season! Since relocating AN HQ from the Gulf Coast to the Midwest, we actually tried planting our own; sticking some of those dried-out-looking "crowns" in a prepared bed and sitting back to wait... And wait... And wait... So, "How Long Does it Take Asparagus Crowns to Sprout,"¹ anyway? Yep, when our crowns didn't show any shoots for a while, we googled it: and we found a familiar name: Demand Media's Shala Munroe "explaining" this in her "answer" for SFGate. Well, that's what she claimed, anyway...

Apparently more than a few people are concerned after they plant asparagus crowns for the first time. The darned things look like they're dead, right? And you cover 'em up with an inch or two of dirt and then wait. And wait. Were they really alive? Did you get ripped off? When is something going to show up, anyway? So we're pretty certain we're not the first people to wonder if those things we planted were just plain dead -- and we're also not the first people to ask on Google. Shala, in order to collect her twenty-five-dollar stipend for "eddifyin'" the public, had no problem with... not telling us the answer. Nope, Munroe, despite the title of her post, did not answer the actual question! Oh, she jabbered on about the proper planting technique (which you can read on the packaging) and on the warnings about not harvesting the shoots the first year (also on the package) and leaving the ferns in place (also, etc.). What she doesn't do is tell you how long the crowns will take to produce those first precious little green shoots; the first sign that they were alive after all. This despite the title, which specifically asks how long crowns take to sprout.

Shala has sections devoted to "what is a crown?"; "when you see spears"; "when to harvest"; and "how long they last" (the antecedent of that "they" is undefined, per our house grammarian). But there is Not. One. Word! about how long before asparagus crowns sprout. Not answering the question is as good a reason as any other for awarding Munroe another (her third!) Dumbass of the Day. Guess that BA in Communications didn't teach her to communicate...

Oh and for the record, it can take two weeks to two months, depending on soil temperature, planting depth, and soil moisture level, for asparagus crowns to sprout. The plants at HQ took about four or five weeks, and kept producing spears for a couple of months.

¹ Leaf Group sent the topic to a rewrite specialist, but Shala's version can still be seen using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   

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