Yep. It’s blanched. You have dark covers over it.
Yeah I think that’s the norm, not sure how this one survived. Think she wanted me to have an asparagus plant my grandparents planted out of sentimentality but it somehow survived.
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To me, blanched means dropped in boiling water for a very short time.
That’s how I like my broccoli. 
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Forget the, “old way” of planting asparagus, this works great: Growing asparagus in home gardens | UMN Extension
With daughters market garden we have 500 plants. Just for idea, here in ec Sk off the 500 plants peak season we get about 10lbs/day. Once getting close to July 1st we let any spears that want to bolt do so, and quit cutting all together 1st week in July.
Spring soon as the snows off weed whip the plants to the ground and dispose of the trash. Any last yr shootstubs left above ground will make cutting new spears a real pain in the butt.
To cook we just lay spears on a cookie sheet drizzle with olive oil, salt/pepper, into a 350 oven for 25 minutes. Excellent. (except of course for eggs benny which we steam them 
)
Pickled asparagus with lot’s of dill is unbelievably good and sells as fast as fresh cut.
edit: we soak the crowns in water for at least an hr before planting into a wet trench. Water daily and be patient, they take longer to come up than you’d think.
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WOW. Thank ya’ll for respond. I read all of everyone’s response, and it is really helpful for me
When i bought them, they were 5$ for 10 crowns. Now the same place sells 4 for 10$. Price and time wise, it makes sense to me vs waiting and having it double for half of the amount. My goal was just to be cheap about it and keep it alive for a few years until i was able to get them in ground
I’m excited that this will be my 3rd year with my purple asparagus in the ground and my first taste!!
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Are you putting them in the ground this year since you have moved to your dream property?
Yes!!! I bought beds specifically for them as well
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I heard that you have better success transplanting them if you do it while they’re dormant.
I was going to take my flimsy tree pots, cut the bottom off, set them in the hole and then cut around down the sides of the tree pots and hope they don’t even notice they got transplanted lol
I’m using the same technique for paw paw seedlings.
I figure someone dug them up to sell them to me and they grew spears here, so it must be possible.
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Exactly. I’m not sure who’s saying that you can’t transplant them or why, but as long as they are transplanted to an appropriate place while they are dormant and no chance of them freezing, there shouldn’t be any issues.
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Well, I have another question fro ya’ll. This fall, my grandfather is inviting me over to his farm to plant a cover crop. He’s letting me decide, but I can’t choose which one. Can anyone of ya’ll give insight on a good cover crop for farmland?
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My Asparagus crowns from Nourse were beautiful monsters. I ordered Millennium the first year and Purple Passion the next year. I highly recommend ordering from there for crowns.
I double dug, so, dug a little deep, took the grass out, planted them. Purple Passion a little closer than Millennium. Nothing else. No fertilizer, nothing, for years. Subpar soil for sure but not my normal 100% sand like elsewhere I grow. No irrigation. Creeping Charlie is winning the battle of ground covers but I haven’t seen it be an issue. I cut the ferns down in Spring and pile them in the walkway and walk on them, and I rake nearby leaves on the beds in fall, if I remember.
My Millennium is all male. My Purple Passion seems mostly male, but a few females sprinkled in that I leave. My Purple Passion yield a lot less.
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Sweet cheese-it’s ya’ll… I’m checking the prices of asparagus now and I’m seeing an average of 25$ for the good sized 10 crowns 
dang… Last i ordered before yesterday’s stark order was 5$ for 10 big roots
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The website I order my fruits, vegetable, trees from is called gurneys. the price for 10 jumbo plants of asparagus is about 80 dollars
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I really like Nourse Farms, Gurney’s not so much. But…
I will say that Gurney’s (a subsidiary of Gardne’s Alive) does a lot of trialing and research (or they used to) before selling what they sell in their catalogues. I actually worked for one of the subsidiaries of Garden’s Alive at one point and I have a lot of great material from them. They have a bad track record when it comes to ordering and receiving what you actually ordered w/o things being b/o-ed or them not having it at all. Also, they tend to ship tiny plants and they are expensive w/o a coupon.
Anyway, I also bought my crowns from Nourse 4-5 years ago and I was super impressed with what I got, as usual.
I bought some from Gurney’s about 10 years ago, and I’m not really sure what they are doing because my husband decided to have a bunch of wood dumped back in that spot about 6 years ago. I saw some activity a few years ago in the form of ferning, but it wasn’t a ton and I couldn’t get to where it was coming from. He moved some of the wood a few week ago and I believe the spot might be clear now, so I’m excited about potentially finding some there.
Does anyone have a pic of the crowns that Stark Bros is sending out? Their sale looks really good, but it’s only good (imo) if the crowns are nice.
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Ah. Thanks for that information. No, I don’t have any images of stark bros crowns. BTW, is that a fig as your profile picture? I have a few fig trees at my granparents house, that I’ve grown. They look like your profile picture
Yes, that’s a pic of a Chicago Hardy fig.
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I’ll advocate for starting asparagus from seed if you’re not in a huge hurry. If you’re middle aged like I am, what’s one extra year when you’re looking at potentially decades of production? They’re easy to start, there’s no fiddling with planting depth, and they’re tough plants. I did have a major invasion of asparagus beetles last year, but it’s still worth growing.
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Did you start them directly where you wanted them outside?
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