I can confirm your timing and rapid growth. I was looking at my empty garden yesterday and today. Today I saw spears, yesterday there was nothing. Now we know when to expect growth.

Since that long ago swap and now I have moved and just this winter put in a new asparagus bed. I thought I might have done something wrong since there wasn't any signs of life - then all of a sudden "Boom!" - nice little rows of spears.

Not that I'm greedy (Okay, maybe I am!) ⦠do asparagus plants spread? I sure hope so! I started out with 5 golden raspberry plants and half-dozen strawberry plants and now have oodles of both. I hope my asparagus plants multiply as well! :)

Yes they spread, not as fast as raspberries or strawberries but they spread. The main crown gets about a foot across (as big as a basketball) and when they are that big they can send up between 6 and 12 spears. You can dig the crown up and break it into pieces to spread them or you can look for seedlings which take a long time to look like more than a green thread sticking out of the mulch. While they are small you can dig them up and give them their own spot in the bed and they'll grow faster. Seedlings always seem to grow right in the shadow of their parents in my garden - they'll do better moved a foot or so away. Even though a lot of the plants are sold as 'sterile' or 'all male', the longer you have the plants the more they'll revert to male and female. You'll see the red berries in the fall, which are your females bearing fruit. You can either harvest them and break them open to get the seeds and sow them like any other garden seed or let them fall and sprout in the spring.

Wow -- thanks! I didn't even know about the red berries! I'll definitely look out for them. I'll share with my friends and neighbors, who are now interested thanks to my enthusiasm. :)

This post was edited by patskywriter on Sun, Apr 14, 13 at 12:39