Replanting Asparagus

Q. I live in San Diego. Last year I bought a bundle of 5 U157 asparagus crowns. Immediately afterward I moved to a new home and was not able to plant them in the ground. Instead, I planted them each in 2 gal. pots using Sunshine potting soil. They seemed to grow just fine and I didn’t harvest any spears from the plants. Now I want to build a raised bed to plant them, but I don’t know if I should remove the crowns from the soil or just plant them from the pot. One of the plant has already sprouted, but the others have remained dormant. Do you have any suggestions? Also, is there a type of soil that you could suggest I fill my raised beds with (2x6x1)?

A. Dig a trench, about one and a half feet deep and one foot wide. Dig bone meal, aged manure, and organic vegetable fertilizer into the ground on the bottom of the trench. Fine in this case to just purchase bags of manure. Slide the plants out of the containers and stand them into the trench. Fill in around them to the top of the soil line with the soil from the trench mixed with several bags of aged, organic soil amendment, so you are making a good organic soil. As the plants grow up, fill in around them. For additional help read the step-by-step instructions for growing and planting asparagus in my book. Follow what it says in the box on planting asparagus on page 106 in my new organic edition. It should say “organic” fertilizer there. I know I made that change in this edition but for some reason not there! Just use organic fertitlize it will be fine. Hope folks understand that if that word is left out here and there, not my doing!  🙂