Have you ever grown asparagus from seed? I just read that it can take up to 10 weeks for these things to germinate!
/johnny
I’ve started it before (once it was up, it had a horrible accident involving my car, we won’t go into that now...) and I don’t remember it taking that long. HOWEVER, I soak it overnight in warm water prior to putting it in soil. It might depend on the variety too.
We’ll see, I’ve got 3 varieties to start tonight. I’ll try to remember to update if you wish.
It does take forever to sprout but once it’s started, it’ll reseed itself so you’ll have little sprouts popping up here and there.
Ok, update wrt the asparagus seeds.
I got ‘Purple Passion’ from here:
http://kitchengardenseeds.com/cgi-bin/catview.cgi?_fn=Product&_category=113
I soaked the seeds in warm (95ish) water overnight in a small cup. The water cooled to room temp by morning. I had it over my dishwasher that runs after dinner each night and in a corner out of the breeze/draft. So it stayed warmish all night. Next afternoon I drained it and then spread it out on a wet paper towel. Put that in a plastic ziploc sandwich bag and carefully laid it in the same out of the way spot.
Left it there for 5 days. Opened it up this morning and all of them (ok 4 were non starters) had little roots anywhere from just a nib to 1”. If I’d known they’d start sprouting so quickly I’d have checked on them earlier. Spent the better part of the afternoon transplanting them into their own 12oz drink cups.
Did the same with these:
http://parkseed.com/asparagus-jersey-knight-hybrid/p/05005-PK-P1/
Had approximately 90% germination with these too. Not as rapidly though. They might be more slow starting from seed.
I’ll let you know how they progress going forward. It did NOT take ten weeks for germination. Maybe that was for a cold environment or something?