Deanna, I, like you, have had the worst luck getting spinach to germinate and have tried all of the tricks: different varieties, direct sowing at different times of the year, soaking, soaking in combinaion with chilling, yada yada yada. If it's been recommended in print or on a gardening forum, I've tried it. This past fall/winter (the best time for us in lower Alabama to grow spinach) I got a dozen or so plants after sowing (no joke) about a hundred seeds. :( This spring I'm trying a Japanese variety meant for summer harvest--Okame from Kitazawa Seed Co. I sowed WAY more than I'd hoped to germminate (based on past experience) and I believe every last one of them has germinated! As for spinach in the garden, mine this past season got a good dose of home made compost and biweekly fish emulsion and did fine. And not only did they transplant well from cell packs to the garden, when it came time to plant corn about a month ago, the spinach was still going strong so I moved it to another bed. A small hiccup in growth but it recovered really well and I'm STILL harvesting. Good luck and below is a link the the Okame if you're interested.. Here is a link that might be useful: Okame spinach

"Asparagus is one of the very few crops that is never bothered by wildlife." I'm not sure about this. Some folks reported that deer has eaten some of the asparagus ferns. There are also reports on wild life taking on the spears. If I can decide on where to set up my asparagus bed, I can mix the soil with some fully composted wood chips and sawdust and let the soil over-winter. If I dig up the beds in spring, I can only use them as mulch. But I can still mix with peat moss.

There's a ton of info on about brussels here on the vegetable forum. Some people can pull them off and some can't. Too much nitrogen is the common cause for fluffy sprouts, but the wrong variety for you area could be part of it too. My main issue is that aphids just love them and came close to destroying the patch this year.

I have both growing with the Trillium Bloodroot sprouting up all over the place. I too have superb conditions, but in all honesty, I had trouble in year's past growing them. A few years back, there was a local perrenial place down here that the owner (fairly young) sold his business to land developers. His house and the immediate gardens surrounding his house were to be razed. A few of us took advantage of what was to be plowed under. My Trilliums (were not up yet), but were dug up unknowingly as I dug up many groundcovers (hosta, var. solomon's seal, bluebells, hellebores, etc). They have appeared each spring and appear to be spreading (they're about to flower and I'll post pics this weekend). Hang in there Tea. How's the recovery going? You mentioned that you were going to be resigned to the porch for birdwatching this spring. You're more than welcomed to sit a spell here at Paradise Waits. Come 2nd week of May, it's a given that I'll have anywhere from a dozen to 20 warbler speices on good flight days. If you're anywhere near Monmouth County, email me. One man gathers what another man spills.