I was looking at this
thread with interest because in July my wife called my attention to a Walmart clearance sale of some bagged asparagus crowns that were entirely dried out and very very dead-seeming for $.75 per bag of 4-5 crowns per bag. I was very skeptical that the dried-out crowns had any life or that I could bring them awake in high summer, but she was interested and the price was right and so I bought about a dozen bags and planted them densely in three of my container-garden containers made from old insulated plastic coolers. (To not waste effort and
water I also surface-planted the containers with cilantro.)
Damn me if I didn't get a dense stand of asparagus and cilantro both by mid-August, which has been happily co-habitating (given the tally wispy frondy growth habit of the asparagus) ever since. (Although the cilantro is getting pretty bolty by now.) My assumption has been that I would let the asparagus grown until the fronds died back, then
root the crowns out of the containers and fall plant them into a permanent bed, but I was very much guessing. It's nice to see that confirmed.