Thanks everyone. For someone new to asparagus, I really don't think it was THAT unreasonable of me to expect to see some signs of life. Just a sign of life, even a wee sign that the roots I planted were viable. Everything that I read about asparagus suggested that it's supposed to be one of the first plants to emerge in early spring... and well, it's been spring for a while and we've been having a really warm spring, here in the "banana belt of Idaho." Bareroot asparagus was available at the beginning of February and that is when I snatched up my crowns. I waited several weeks, until my existing rhubarb patch came up and started growing strong, until planting my asparagus (at the same time, I also planted some more bareroot rhubarb and that came up within a week). I know that much of the world is still in the depths of a harsh winter, but we had a mild winter and a warm spring with lots of sunshine and lots of nice rain. I expect to begin harvesting some snap peas this week and I have some broccoli that I planted over a month ago that are forming nice heads. Just considering how well everything in my garden is growing so far this year, and because I have no previous experience with asparagus, I just thought that they would have shown some sign that they are alive by now. ...But life would be really boring if everything behaved as one expected and if one never learned anything new. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh? I know this probably was a waste of time and back-breaking energy (but at least I got some good exercise and was able to spend several lovely hours enjoying my garden in the sunshine!!!), I ended up redigging and replanting all of my asparagus crowns over the weekend. My plan is to just see if any of them make it and try to do the best for them, and then just replace crowns next spring for those who don't pull through. Anyway, catch ya' later! This post was edited by fern1knits on Mon, Apr 7, 14 at 10:32

Both core drills and spade/ 3-point/ spearpoint drills require the same effort to use. You insert the bit into a drill motor or drillpress & drill the material while keeping it cool. Water works ok as a coolant, but a 50/50 mix of water and antifreeze (delivered from a contact lens solution squirt bottle) is much better and will extend the life of the tool considerably. The core drill is better for glass and highly vitrified materials, even thought the spade drill will work ok when it's fairly new. I use spearpoint drills to drill terra cotta or terra cotta with a skim coat of ceramic. For hard materials, I use the diamond core drill. When drilling, you can turn the pot upside down in a tub or bucket and fill until the surface you're drilling is barely covered by water. That saves you from having to use the squirt bottle as a coolant, but isn't as practical if you want to use the water/ antifreeze mix. Owning a glass company for almost 40 years has provided the need and opportunity to drill holes in many different types of material harder than wood, many types of glass, ceramic, granite and other types of stone among them. It's something we do every day. BTW - in hard materials, spearpoint drills tend to 'chatter' and produce out of round holes. The out of roundness isn't a problem in itself, but the chatter can be significant enough that it will cause some materials to break from the stress. Al

It's right off the coast here. We're getting a good breeze, and some much-needed rain. I guess it's going to move north and west? I hope everyone in the path is prepared. We do a pretty god job of keeping prepared for storm season. We stockpile quite a bit of non-perishable food, and I buy a lot of charcoal for the grill when it's on sale. I get up to a about 12 bags or so, then use them the rest of the year. We have a decent generator, too, but it's hard to store gas- it goes bad very quickly these days. We're on relatively high ground here at 55', but it would be hard to evacuate. Our county is virtually an island with nearly a million people on it, most of whom would be under water in a major storm. The bridges are the first thing to flood, so you have to either leave two days early, or hunker down. They once did an evacuation study, and after the numbers were all in, the official recommendation is to stay put! It would take longer to evacuate the county than the typical amount of warning given for a hurricane, so the fear is that the bridges would be jammed with cars when the flood waters came up. Not very encouraging- yet another reason we are moving to SC.

Personally, I restart seeds after about two weeks or so. I will still keep the originals to see if they finally pop, but I don't want to get too far behind in case they never do sprout. It has been my experience that most all peppers (with a few exceptions) will sprout within two weeks if they are going to at all. Like I said, there are a few exceptions but even most super hots will pop within two weeks if they are under proper conditions. Heat and moisture are the two biggies. Too little or too much is not good. 70 to 85 for soil heat and constant moisture without being soggy is good. If you grew several other varieties of peppers and they sprouted fine, then I would consider it a problem with the seed. If you had wide spread failures to sprout, then I would look more at your setup. My 7 Pot Brain Strain-Yellow seeds that I got from the trade actually were the first to sprout for me. They were going strong at 6 days. The photo below shows my early sprouts. Notice the ones that sprouted first were near the center of the heat mat that I had them on. That probably had something to do with it. I expect it was just a bit warmer there than on the outside cells. If you click on the photo it should open in a bigger size so you can see it easier.