transplanting asparagus

[jerry_friedman]

I want to transplant "wild" asparagus from near my house into my garden. I was planning to move some 2-4 weeks before the expected last frost (end of April here), which is when you're supposed to plant commercial crowns, but with the recent high temperatures in New Mexico (including some records this past week), what do I see but little spears? Does that mean it's too late to transplant till fall?

(I did move a couple of plants during a warm spell in winter, and you'll be happy to hear that at least one of them is sprouting. I wonder where I put the other one.)

-- Jerry Friedman

[Val]

Here's some info that's probably more than you ever wanted to know but the detailed instructions may just be useful to you.

[jerry_friedman]

somewhere. It doesn't answer my question, though. Apparently anyone with any sense transplants asparagus while it's dormant. I was hoping someone around here had made the same mistake I made and had some experience with transplanting asparagus that had just broken out of dormancy.

-- Jerry Friedman

[Val]

I "Googled" transplanting wild asparagus. Got thousands of hits and there's loads of info, much of which was about moving non dormant plants. The internet isn't just for newsgroups anymore ;) To sum it up in easy to understand vernacular..........don't. If you've already moved it wait to see if any survive, if they don't try it again at the proper time.

Val

[jerry_friedman]

You must have a lot more patience than I do, since I just tried your search and looked at a number of pages without finding anything so explicit. (Naturally, I'd looked before, though without the word "wild".) Anyway, I've followed your retroactive advice, and I can tell you the one in my garden hasn't died yet. :-) (Some others are in a friend's garden.)

Incidentally, some of the pages say this is really hard and you have to get roots at least a foot long and stuff like that. But the plant I moved in winter that sprouted probably didn't have roots even six inches long after I dug it up in my usual clumsy and impatient way. On the other hand, the other one I moved may have died. Maybe a 50% success rate isn't good enough for some people.

Anyway, thanks for looking!

-- Jerry Friedman