E ach spring, my dad would give gardening another try. He grew vegetables, but asparagus never crossed his mind, though a longtime favorite in Germany. Any asparagus he ate came from a can at Nebgen’s Red & White Grocery. Fresh asparagus, with its short shelf life of three to five days, wasn’t available here in Fredericksburg in the 1950s. Even the old PTA cookbooks called for canned asparagus in every recipe.