Thursday, June 17, 2010

Asparagus Crop Update


The last year has presented difficult growing
conditions with the very hot and dry summer and fall of 2009, then the sudden turn to winter in 2009 (even the trees didn’t go into winter properly and drop their leaves) followed by the extremely cool wet spring this year.
Our asparagus is very stressed and is producing
extremely thin spears. Asparagus experts state that you must quit picking asparagus when it is thinner than a pencil in size. We are seeing the majority of the spears emerging extremely thin as indicated in the picture plus our yield is much lower than in previous years. These two factors are telling us that it is time to quit stressing the plants. Asparagus is a perennial plant and we are looking toward the next several years of production in our decision to stop supplying the markets earlier than usual. We will have asparagus at our farm store for a few more days, yet. We regret this situation but it is out of our control.