Asparagus is whimpy

[longwinters]

Asparagus is a whimpy pain in the neck.  It grows wild in our area, if you can find it.  But try to grow it in a garden and.....1st it takes multiple replants to get enough to produce.  Granted it could be I was getting bad plants, but I'm wondering if it freezes out easily or is just plain picky where it will grow because only about 3 out of every 10 came up each planting, except when I started it in one of my raised beds and then it was 100%.  .


2nd, I get some coming up, even had a meal of it, and then had to go on a 5 day trip.  Came back today and everything that had come up was laying over.  Mushy nasty stuff that succomed to frost.  It has to be the biggest baby in the garden.  If it doesn't kick in this year, I will plant an entire raised bed with it next year.


I typically don't have problems growing anything, but asparagus is really getting on my nerves.


Long

[Oldshooter]

My bride has told me the same thing. She said it used to grow wild in the ditches in Idaho. but it was hard to cultivate!

[Ranger99]

sorry to hear all that.
my old grannie used to grow it
with no care other than hitting
it every now and then with the hose.
same luck for me with the squash.
last i don't know how many years i've
had beautiful plants and blossoms,
they make a 1-2" fruit, then wham! !
one day i'll look and it's as is i watered
with gasoline.


this is my last go-round with squash.
it really is.
i mean it! !
i really do! !

[mcwoodduck]

My mom tried ot grow it in NJ when I was younger
We built boxes that were 16 feet long by about 2 feet wide and planted the plants in it.  We made paint marks were the plants were and then covered the bed in plastic and made a X cut in the plastic where the plant were to keep down the weeds. 
But from what I remember the first year the plants were a joke.  They wer these skinny plants that made parsley look hearty.
But the next year the stalks were a little thicker and they got thicker and thicker every year after. 
In NJ the ground froze and we got snow over the winter.  But feeding and watering the beds every years and replacing the plastic after dumping horse and cow fertlizer on top of the beds every spring and making new X's in the new plastic.  (why we put paint on the wood box)
Good luck
 

[blind ear]

sorry to hear all that.
my old grannie used to grow it
with no care other than hitting
it every now and then with the hose.
same luck for me with the squash.
last i don't know how many years i've
had beautiful plants and blossoms,
they make a 1-2" fruit, then wham! !
one day i'll look and it's as is i watered
with gasoline.


this is my last go-round with squash.
it really is.
i mean it! !
i really do! !

-
Do you spray for stem borer? Have to start when blooms start to form. Spray the plant below the blooms to the ground every day or two until you are ready to give them up. Good to spray up the stems above the blooms and the canopy leaves also. We kept them white with seven dust most of the time. Don't spray the blooms or the bees will be killed and you won't have pollination and no fruit. A borer will kill a plant overnight just like you described. There will only be one entry hole in one stem where the larva entered. The borers will hit eggplant sometimes also. ear

[Ranger99]

use sevin dust, but not all the time.
may need to keep a coat on constantly. . .

[longwinters]

Ranger99,


I'm wondering if your female blossoms are not getting pollinated.  From what I've seen thats exacly what happens, the fruit gets a couple inches long and then just wilts and dies. 


No doubt you have noticed that there are 2 different kinds of blossoms on winter squash plants, male and female.  Visually they are kind of anatomically correct.  I'm not getting weird here......take a Q-tip (1st thing in the morning before the sun hits) and rub it inside of the "male looking" blossoms.  These will have long stems and there are a lot more of them than the female blossoms.  Then rub the Q-tip inside of the female blossom.  Yep, you are artificially inseminating squash.  We have done it for years because of a lack of bees where we live.


I am not going to look up all the scientific jargon about correct names etc.....but I am telling you the truth.  No joke. Honest.


Long

[bilmac]

I have some asparagus producing now. It is the first I have tried to grow. It is 2 years old and I am harvesting my first. Yummy.

[Ranger99]

l.w. i bleeve you.
there's been plenty of bees here this
year on the blossoms on my roses and
the other flowers and the mater blossoms,
but i'll still try the matchmaker deal.
it can't hurt anything to try.

[reliquary]

I've had to play "matchmaker" with some tomato plants, early squash, and a pomegranate bush.  Bees seem to be few and far between this year and I've had to help them out for a better crop.

[longwinters]

I think tomatoes open pollinate so are you just gently shaking the bushes? 


Long

[hillbill]

I think tomatoes open pollinate so are you just gently shaking the bushes? 


Long

i believe they make a commercial tomatoe pollinating tool.i think its a vibrateing tool of some sort that you touch to the flowers or the plant.

[Ranger99]

i've yet to ever do that to my maters,
or anything else, but i'll be trying that
when the squashes bloom.
maybe the mater pollenation fairy
comes by here at night,cuz i have
thumbnail and quarter-sized little
maters right now. i wish he/she/it
would put in a word to the squash fairy.
they wear boots you know. . . .

[reliquary]

I use an electric toothbrush, holding the bloom upright and touching it to the tip of the male part.  Allegedly, that performs the same function as the bee "vibrating" its wings, which shake the pollen into the female part.
 
I tested it, doing some plants and not doing others, on opposite ends of the same row...the ones I helped have about twice as many tomatoes as the ones left to the bees.
 
A Q-tip works on the pomegranate and the acorn squash.