"Spread by Birds from Garden to Hedgerows"

The garden's asparagus harvest is well over, but the patch now features these feathery ferns with green and red seeds hanging like ornaments.

In the past few weeks I have spotted asparagus ferns growing on the edge of a bike trail near Trempealeau and on a lakeside path near Owatonna. I am re-reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle right now, a lovely book. She writes, "Dad always made it a point to notice tall stands of wild asparagus later in the summer whenever they waved in the breeze. He would stop the car, get out, and mark the location of the patch with orange flagging tape he carried for this purpose. If the highway department or winter weather didn't take down his flags, we'd have well-marked asparagus checkpoints all over the county next spring."
Keep your eyes peeled!