[Benandbill]

I went into my lokal B&M (old Woolworths) this morning and was surprised at the variety of onion sets and potatoes available, definitely worth another look.  Anyway, I've started eating asparagus lately as it's delicious and very healthy and was chuffed to see they sell seeds of it in B&M.  However the seeds look like a bizzare mixture of funny pale brown flakey stuff and little thin green stems.  The instructions on the packet are rubbish as well which doesn't help.  I wouldn't know where to start planting it.  Has anyone reading this had any success with asparagus?  It doesn't even say which bits you plant or what time of year.

[JayG]

Not at all sure what you've been looking at - you can buy asparagus seed but growing from seed means it will be an extra year before you can look forward to a harvest.

Given that you can't usually see inside a packet of seeds I'm guessing you were looking at crowns, which are slightly spooky looking spidery things in plastic bags. The flakey stuff is probably compost (a token amount is usually put in to help keep them moist - the shoots will be baby asparagus shoots, which at least means they are still alive.)

Now is a bit early to be planting crowns, especially given the cold soggy soil most of us have got at the moment.

[Goosegirl]

I'd guess at crowns too, and think it it way too early for them to be shooting, which is why there are little thin green stems there which, if planted, may succumb to dying. Make yourself a big raised bed with lots of compost, grit and manure and leave it to settle a bit. In April-ish, get some crowns from a good supplier nursery and dig about 9" down,then make a little mound for their roots to go over, then cover with your bed stuff. Keep it weed-free, harvest one spear from next year's growth, then go for it the third year!

[Baldy]

I bought some asparagus seed back in Sept/Oct - only because the local gardening centre was selling off its old seed stock - it was cheap as chips. Timings were all out but thought I'd risk it - and by late November there was a v. small 'crown' for many of the seeds that I'd sowed. Whether any have survived the last couple of months is yet to be proven but I'm hopeful. 
2 weeks ago the same place had buy 3 for £5 on various things - so got a couple of onion sets and a paket of 2* asparagus crowns - again I think that the timings are a bit out for the crowns but I'll stick them in to fill spaces in a few weeks time - I've got to balance out the risk of it being too wet/cold vs the crowns drying out. I don't think they like to be disturbed so I'm guessing that putting them in the greenhouse beds temporarily probably is not a good idea?

Cheers,
Balders

[DD.]

Not a good idea as the elevated greenhouse temperatures could well spur them into premature growth.