Walmart Asparagus

[Lord Bergamot]

The last three springs I've bought Asparagus crowns from Walmart. The first time, none grew. Last year two of twelve grew, but died during winter. This year it looks like one will grow. When will I learn not to buy from Walmart? It must dry out in the packages.

Twenty five years ago I ordered Asparagus from a mail order company, and they all grew. I've been harvesting plenty of Martha Washington every year, but I wanted to try some purple. Maybe it's not too late to order some and plant this year. Maybe I'll order some white too.

Seeds from the Martha Washington blow around and germinate. Asparagus can usually grow like weeds once they get established. The purple are supposed to turn green when cooked. I'm getting hungry thinking about it.

[songbird]

you don't have any reliable garden places or greenhouses around?

songbird

[Terry Coombs]

We do here , thankfully . After last year's debacle with Walmart seeds (Rutgers and Beefsteak , allegedly> that turned out to be mostly cherry toms plus some mutts , the only thing I've bought there is cow manure . Add 3 separate times I got strawberry plants that didn't grow and flower seedlings that were crap ... and after the latest batch of manure , I won't even buy that . My go-to place now is the nursery at a local grocery , they have a degreed horticulturist on staff , and Melissa really knows her stuff .

[Gary Woods]

Since you've already got asparagus, why not buy seeds and grow your own? Lots of all-male types available, only takes an extra year (start in plug flats early>nursery bed 6"X6" for a season>permanent bed. My Jersey Knight crowns ALL transplanted well (I also bought a 25 roots of another type mail order; they sent me 27; 24 grew and all survived an upstate NY winter in a raised bed.

[George Shirley]

We do much the same, local Kroger Marketplace has an outdoor nursery with Bonnie plants. Same with both the local Lowe's. Sometimes run into a problem where some joker has switched the labels. Our favorite nursery is just that, a humongous nursery about six or seven miles away. Have bought most of the fruit trees, etc. from them as they guarantee their stock.

We don't buy much of anything at Walmart, I would rather go to Big Lots or Dollar General. I did buy a battery for wife's car at Walmart, took it home put it on the charger, wouldn't charge, took it back the same day for a refund and went to an auto supply joint.

We received almost three inches of rain overnight. I'm afraid to check the zucchini patch, there may be a canoe hiding in there.

[Terry Coombs]

It won't be a canoe until you hollow it out ... I haven't got any zuke seeds to germinate yet , but won't really miss them if we don't get any this year . We still have bags of shredded in the freezer from 2013 ...

[George Shirley]

I can feel your pain, took out a package of chard from the freezer last night and it is dated 2010. Tasted okay so no problem. Found packages of frozen chard, kale, broccoli, and cauliflower from 2011 to 2014. Did rearrange them so the eldest packages are on top now.

Just noticed the fridge badly needs cleaning up and I need to rearrange the side by side freezer there too. A house husbands job is never done. I don't do ironing though.

The last nine years before I retired in 2007 I was the house husband and worked from my home office and wife went off to teach school every day. I did my work stuff from 0700 to about 1000 and then became the housekeeper, gardener, lawn boy, and whatever else needed doing. Generally getting done by 1300 and then nap a bit, do some tech writing, then start prepping for dinner.

Nowadays things have reversed a good bit due to my walking problems, wife mows, I cook, she cleans, we both do laundry, we both garden, she walking, me on the garden scooter. It works well for us.

The dawg went for her reeval on her surgery today and has been released to run free. She's napping in my office recovering from the trauma of the vet's clinic, where she shook like a leaf for a half hour. Her universe is back.

[songbird]

George Shirley wrote: ...

time to switch that space to a different crop?

songbird

[The Cook]

The only time I buy at Walmart is when we need something now and I can't find it anywhere in our small town. I decided that I would not buy groceries there when I looked at the label on a chuck roast and it listed ingredients. I buy from locally owned businesses when I can. That includes the farmers market.

Wish you could have sent us about and inch of that. It is getting very dry here.

We picked some of our strawberries yesterday afternoon. Just baked a cake (box) for shortcake. Strawberry ice cream also sounds good. Rhubarb custard cake when the shortcake is gone. I already have about

28 cups of chopped rhubarb in the freezer. Need to get the pepper plants into the ground soon.

[George Shirley]

I have suggested that to SWMBO but she's against it. I just picked three cups of green beans to go with our dinner and found three more zucchini's hiding under the leaves. One weighed nearly three lbs, the others weren't obvious giants but were on their way to that stature.

Seems the green beans liked the rain too as do the cukes and sweet chiles. Picked two nice cukes that were resting on the ground. Around here if you don't get the low lying fruit the slugs will, I won this time. Mosquitoes are terrible this afternoon, had to get the anti-itch stuff out of the medicine cabinet I got bitten so many times. If we get a couple of dry days the birds will start eating up the skeeters. We have two types of swallows, purple and black martins, and what we call bull jars, birds that eat insects at night and look a lot like a bat. And we also have small bats here. Day time all the local birds eat mosquitoes, even the seed eaters like skeeters. Thank goodness for all of them.

We didn't get any tornadoes but a few small ones came within fifteen miles of us, that's close enough for me.

[George Shirley]

Some years ago I happened to be in a Walmart grocery and noticed the label on beef, said "beef, and water." I never bought any of it but a friend kept talking about the beautiful steaks at Wally World. She had obviously never read the label so asked her to do so. She never bought food there again. If there isn't a law against "plumping" the meat there should be. Plus they always use the lowest priced provider.

I would gladly send you some water but I ran out of rubber envelopes. We were thinking of putting catch barrels under our downspouts until it started raining for days here. I guess the great Texas drought has moved to California.

[Lord Bergamot]

Nope, just Walmart, Kmart & Home Depot. It seems like they all get supplied from the same place.

[Lord Bergamot]

I've grown Asparagus from seed from my plants, but have never seen seed advertised in seed magazines, at least as far as I can remember. I'll look tonight.

[Gary Woods]

Don't know about magazine ads, but any good seed catalog will have asparagus seed- the conventional wisdom is that the "all-male" hybrids are a little more productive, and you don't have plants coming up in unwanted places from dropped seeds.

[Lord Bergamot]

So your saying I should be able to buy male seed?