Kitchen Garden Forum

Following Johnboy's advice, I acquired 25 asparagus crowns from Moles at a very good price. They arrived today, Saturday, but the bed they will go in won't be ready until mid-next week. I also don't think I will be able to get all of them in the one bed, so will have to build a second, but that will take even longer. Question: how long can you keep bare-rooted crowns out of the soil and still have them survive? I ask because garden centres and the like have plastic bags of them on display for ages. Are they really in a state of suspended animation?

Hi Barry. Don't know about asparagus - never grown it - but anything else I buy that can't go in the ground ASAP goes into large enough pots or troughs or even gro-bags until I can get them in the ground. Hope this helps, even though it sound like a lot more work, and then there's the amount of space you would need to store the plants in pots, but I would say that it's better than losing your plants through them not being in the soil.