I planted asparagus crowns last spring. Asparagus crowns look like dried out root clumps. At the end of last summer, I started finding little shoots around where I planted the crowns. Those shoots grew plants about three feet tall with lots of fine leaves. Very pretty.

I didn’t harvest anything last year. It takes several years for a planted crown to be ready. Here’s way more detail than most people want, from the Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board:

Do not harvest your asparagus the year you plant it or the year following planting. The asparagus plant needs to grow and establish a healthy crown and it will need all of its energy to do that. The third-year after transplanting we generally harvest the field for about two weeks.

Then winter came and all the plants died. After a few weeks, the plants looked like straw. Then on Sunday I found this shoot:

I found a few more shoots in other places. This is really exciting. Only one more year to go before my harvest!

See the whole gallery here.