[King Moonracer]

Asparagus and stinky pea. Good times.

[Bommer]

Awesome. It only takes 2 a 3 years to establish a crop. Hope they don’t get too hungry until then. Mars is for morons. Even Martians don’t want to live there!

[LouieFisk]

Sounds good to me, I like asparagus. Still staying on earth, though.

[TomServo]

Mmmmm...slathered in butter and salt. Yes!

[ocrp1982]

Not an issue worth the time discussing. We visited our moon a few times 5 decades ago. Collected some rocks and planted a flag at very great expense. Haven’t been back since. And, it will be many years before we go back.

The hazards to humans not to mention the expense of long-term deep space travel and exposure to zero gravity and radiation bombardment on the human body makes the attempt with current or near term tech a fools errand.

[Army Air Corps]

Ping.

[Telepathic Intruder]

Mars is supposed to be nitrogen poor. How do nitrates get into the soil without bacteria?

[butlerweave]

Someone is going to be very hungry = cannibalism

[petro45acp]

Yeah, it’ll just take gathering some mars dirt, dropping some seeds then sit back and wait for the food to flow from the ground. Never underestimate ignorance of farming and farming techniques. Most scifi writers set up extraterrestrial agriculture fairly well with descriptions of soil conditioning, or some sort of treatment.

THE LAST CENTURION by John Ringo goes into some wonderful detail of both family business farming and scratch “oh crap we gotta grow food” farming.

KYPD

[petro45acp]

Yeah, it’ll just take gathering some mars dirt, dropping some seeds then sit back and wait for the food to flow from the ground. Never underestimate ignorance of farming and farming techniques. Most scifi writers set up extraterrestrial agriculture fairly well with descriptions of soil conditioning, or some sort of treatment.

THE LAST CENTURION by John Ringo goes into some wonderful detail of both family business farming and scratch “oh crap we gotta grow food” farming.

KYPD

[fieldmarshaldj]

*make Mars smell like rancid piss ping*

[Jack Hammer]

Asparagus without butter?

Good luck Martians!

[Adder]

That would make for some smelly recycled water...

[TXnMA]

Asparagus is amazing stuff.

When I worked in the desert of New Mexico, a dry-land farmer who worked with me invited me home to dinner. One dish was some of the best cream of asparagus soup I'd ever tasted.

After sunset, as we walked around his place, he asked, "How would you like some of the asparagus my wife used in that soup?" I responded, "You bet! Where do you grow it?"

He pointed to an absolutely barren patch of ground, with a dry ditch running across it, and said, "I'll bring you some tomorrow..."

~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day, he put a grocery bag full of fresh, 4"-5" asparagus sprouts on my desk. Then, when I tracked him down, he said, Come on back, and I'll show you the crop". So, I did...

There, all along the banks of that ditch, was asparagus sprouts -- "as thick as hairs on a dog's back"!

Then he explained, "I knew that last night was my night to receive my allocation of irrigation water from the river. When the water flowed in, that stuff popped up so fast, you could literally hear it pushing the soil aside as it grew!

~~~~~~~~~

That "volunteer" asparagus was a bit strong-flavored, but, it did make sone of the best soup I ever tasted! And, it froze just fine...

All it took to grow it was alkaline, sandy soil -- and a little bit of water...

TXnMA