Edgar Farms Updates

Farm Store will reopen May

2011-12-21T07:51:00.003-07:00

Although our open air Farm Store is now closed until next May, our delicious homemade preserves, homemade pies and grass fed, hormone & antibiotic free beef are still available. Please just phone ahead if you wish to come to the farm. Also all of our products are at the Innnisfail Growers booth at The Calgary Farmers Market.

U-Pick Peas by appointment

2011-07-17T09:59:00.003-06:00

Doesn't get any fresher than that!!

Great experience for the kids and grandkids.

Price is $1.00 per pound and snacking is free!!

Please phone ahead 403-350-0659 for availability and an appointment 8AM - 8 PM Monday - Saturday.

Sorry no U-pick Sunday or pets in the field.

Picking Peas

2011-07-17T09:51:00.003-06:00

Peas are now ready, we are picking super sweet garden peas daily for our farm store and the

Farmer's Markets at the Innisfail Growers booth.

We will have fresh peas until the first frost, barring severe weather issues.

Our farm store is open 8AM - 8PM, seven days a week.

Asparagus Crowns

2011-05-18T06:21:00.003-06:00

For anyone wishing to plant their own patch of asparagus, we now have a few Jersey Supreme Aspragus crowns available at our farm store, Downtown Market on 104th in Edmonton and the Calgary Farmers Market. We will only have them for a couple of weeks. ,

Asparagus

2011-05-18T06:19:00.002-06:00

We have just started picking yesterday and it tastes DELICIOUS!!!

Asparagus is starting to grow

2011-05-11T12:31:00.000-06:00

Our granddaughters are thrilled to find the first spear of asparagus poking out of the ground. We walked over our field and found enough delicious little spears to BBQ for supper. As long as we do not get any frost, we will be picking within a few days.

Seeding Garden Peas

2011-05-04T21:53:00.002-06:00

Finally, we were able to find a small dry area in our field and get the first planting of peas planted the other day. This is the latest we have ever got started planting peas since 1986 when we first started growing them on a field scale. Please note the snow on the background. I was really suprised when I looked at the planted peas today and they have already started to sprout. They are going to come fast!! Can hardly wait for that first tiny baby pea!!

Farm Store now closed for the season

2010-10-24T12:41:00.001-06:00

With the colder weather now happening we will be closing our farm store this weekend. For the last couple of weeks we have not had the preserves out on the shelves as they could freeze during the nights.
We are still open by appintment for preserves or beef at anytime so just call and we can arrange a time. 403-227-2443

Asparagus Fern

2010-07-15T06:48:00.003-06:00

We are so very pleased that we made the decision to stop picking our asparagus field early this year. The growth of fern that has come up since we stopped picking is amazing, the best we have seen for several years. This means that the crowns are now very healthy and busy storing energy so that they will produce a great crop next year.

Now Picking Peas

2010-07-15T06:40:00.003-06:00

July 15. Peas love cool weather and our pea crop is looking fantastic. We have just started picking our delicious, sweet garden peas. We should now have peas at our farm store right through until the first frost in the fall. Pictured here is our granddaughter showing off her peas. Our two granddaughters love to go out to the pea field with us so they can pick and eat peas right off the vines.

Asparagus Crop Update

2010-06-17T03:23:00.003-06:00

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.

Saturday at the Asparagus Festival

2010-05-30T07:17:00.003-06:00

Lots of hardy souls ventured out to our farm on Saturday May 29 to witness Alberta weather at it's finest!! We toured the asparagus field and the people thought that "ASPARACICLES" tasted absolutely amazing with the added chill of snow!!

Festival News

2010-05-28T06:55:00.003-06:00

The rain is fantastic for all the crops, pastures and even the strength of the asparagus plants. Yes, we are going ahead with our festival for this weekend, May 29 & 30 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM.

We have rain plans and everyone will have lots of fun. We have all sorts of children's activities planned in the barn along with the petting zoo. If it is raining we will be putting a cover on the wagon.

We are picking asparagus daily, however the asparagus yield has slowed down the last week with the cool weather. If you were looking for a case lot to make pickles, I would suggest waiting until next week when the weather warms up.

We should have asparagus for sale all weekend, but will not be offering any case discounts because of the somewhat limited supply.

Visit the Asparagus Eats booth where Edgar farms will be offering up many different asparagus dishes.

The LRD WI ladies will be here again with all their homemade tasty treats, home baked pies and coffee for sale.

We are picking asparagus !!

2010-05-16T07:56:00.002-06:00

Finally, NO FROST !! and the temperature has been warmer every day and night. The soil had cooled down with the recent rain and snow so it takes a couple of days to get it warmed up. Sunday, May 16 we started picking in a serious way. With 25 degrees the asparagus took off like crazy so we had to get over some of the field twice. The first day and already a long hard day's work. 1/3 of the field is slower so we will start picking it today. We will have all three of our Asparabuggies running and a crew of 10 people helping. If it gets really crazy I will be phoning some of our wonderful casual help to come as well.

Asparagus is up!!

2010-05-15T13:23:00.001-06:00

We are picking, FINALLY!! Saturday afternoon at 3:00 PM we checked the field and there wasn't anything tall enough to pick. Sunday morning with warm temperatures overnight there was a little that was tall enough so we got started. The temperature is climbing and so is the asparagus. It can grow up to 10" in one day if it is upwards of 28 degrees. We will pick 2/3 of the field today. The older side is always a few days behind.

We have our farm store open now.

Three Generations in the Asparagus Patch

2010-05-13T22:05:00.002-06:00

The asparagus is about 3" tall now. We hope to start picking this weekend. It is very slow to get growing, we are thinking that with the snow and rain we got last week, the soil temperature cooled down considerably.

Asparagus is growing

2010-05-13T06:22:00.004-06:00

May 12 YEH!! Finally NO FROST last night, the sun is shining, the temperature got to 20 C. the soil is warming up. We will be picking very soon now.

Baby Pea Plants

2010-05-13T06:18:00.002-06:00

Peas are very frost tolerant in the spring. These little guys were planted on April 3 and have survived many nights of -5 and -6 temperatures. We hope to be picking peas by early July.

Planting Peas

2010-05-13T06:15:00.003-06:00

May 12, got another planting of our market garden peas and broad beans seeded today. We now have about six plantings of peas in and are seeing lots of baby peas poking up.

Asparagus is coming soon!!

2010-05-10T21:21:00.001-06:00

We have lots of baby asparagus tips poking through the ground. Asparagus can grow up to 10" in a day if it is very warm, for example a daytime temperature of 25 degrees. The forecast is great, warming up every day. If the forecast doesn't change, we should be picking by Friday at the latest!!

Rain is great, Snow OK, too!! May 5, 2010

2010-05-09T06:44:00.007-06:00

Picture on the left is of our asparagus field and on the right is on the way to the field, both taken on May 4. We have received 2" of rain which was very, very badly needed. We also got about 4" of heavy, wet snow. The snow is fine, too as it melts slowly and tends to soak in. All of this moisture will make the asparagus crowns much stronger and hopefully produce a few more of those delicious tender tips for us all to savor!!

Asparagus Update April 28

2010-04-28T10:38:00.006-06:00

With a forecast of -6 a few nights ago, three of us went out to the aspargus field and picked any tips that were up on our sandy ridge that warms up early. We picked for about an hour and found about five or six pounds of delicious, young tender (very short) tips. My granddaughter is very proudly displaying the tallest tip that she found, then very quickly ate just as soon as she posed for the picture.

We will be picking asparagus just as soon as it quits freezing at night and it warms up to seasonal temperatures.

This RAIN that we are getting today is very, very badly needed as we have been extremely dry.

Planting Broad Beans

2010-04-21T07:41:00.001-06:00

I got in the second planting of broad beans yesterday. The first planting was on April 4, which is about a week earlier than normal. The rows are 650 feet long and we plant two rows each time. Broad Beans are planted by hand, because the seed is much too big and won't fit though our mechanical planter.

New Rhubarb

2010-04-21T07:36:00.000-06:00

It has been nice and warm for a few days now so everything is starting to come back to life after the winter. This picture is of our rhubarb patch. The rhubarb is about 4" tall. There is nothing that tastes better than that first feed of delicious young tender steamed rhubarb with just a little dollop of vanilla ice cream!!

First New Asparagus Spear!!

2010-04-21T07:28:00.000-06:00

Nice warm day today, so I went out to the asparagus field and sure enough, there were the first few tiny little tips adventuring out of the ground. April 20 is about the earliest that the asparagus has ever been up. This is telling us that the asparagus is alive and well and eager to get growing, but we need frost free nights before we will actually be able to get enough growth to start picking. There is a low of -3 in the forecast, so I don't think that we will be started picking for a few days, yet.

Removing Old Fern From Asparagus Field

2010-04-05T08:14:00.001-06:00

The asparagus field is also completely dry so, although it is very early, we got the grain combine out and cut last year's old fern off of the asparagus field. The combine cuts the old fern off at the ground, chops it all up and spreads it back on the field for mulch.
We have never before been able to get the entire field done at the first attempt, there are usually several wet spots that we have to wait on.

Early Seeding of Peas

2010-04-05T06:24:00.000-06:00

It is unbelievably early (April 3) but the ground is dry and warm so I put in a small planting of our delicious sweet and tender garden peas and one double row of broad beans . The earliest that we have ever planted in the past has been April 10 and we have been doing the market garden peas since 1986.

Peas are very frost tolerant in the spring.

If the weather was to stay this unseasonably warm, we could potentially be picking peas the end of June. Picture is of our precision seed drill and our little tractor that I use to plant our 25 or so acres of garden peas and beans every year.

We sure could use some rain, it is very dry.

Asparagus Fern with snow cover

2010-03-20T09:27:00.001-06:00

March 19, 2010

Our asparagus is patiently waiting for the snow to melt. We like to leave the fern on the field all winter, it traps the snow and the snow provides valuable moisture for the plants.

The weather seems to be unseasonably warm so here is hoping for an early spring and early asparagus!!

Winter Sales on our Farm

2009-12-12T12:59:00.000-07:00

Yes our farm store is closed for the season, but we are open for anyone who wishes to come to the farm. Pictured to the left is one of our small displays in our basement of our home. If you wish to come and purchase any thing from pies, to beef, to preserves or anything else just give us a call and we will gladly open our home to you. We have many regular customer stop by the farm during the winter, so don't feel you are imposing as we really enjoy having you come. The best part of this time of year is we have more time to visit with you, rather than just taking you money and rushing off to do something else.
Hope to see you soon!