Harvested Asparagus for Sale Now

   We now have over 5 pounds of harvested asparagus for sale, and I harvest more each day.  Asparagus growth is highly temperature-dependent.  Since Tues & Wed. got up to 82 & 89 F, I harvested asparagus twice each of those days, at about 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.  With the cold front that came in yesterday, I'm now harvesting it just once a day, but warmer weather should return next week.  I'll keep harvesting asparagus for the next 8 weeks, so we should still have it for sale until about June 8.

Each of these bags of freshly-harvested asparagus holds about 1.2 pounds. We sell asparagus harvested for $2.78 per pound + tax. Phone 620-597-2450 a day ahead to order it.

   We grow 'Jersey Knight' asparagus, an all-male variety that produces high yields of thicker spears since there are no female plants that spend energy producing berries.  I harvest the spears by snapping them where they break easily, so almost the entire harvested spear is tender and usable.  Asparagus is sold harvested, still for $2.78 per pound + tax, and is limited.  So you do need to phone 620-597-2450 a day ahead and leave a message on our answering machine to order it, saying about how many pounds you want to get, and the day & time you'll come get it.

In this view from our back deck, looking toward our thornless blackberry planting, ornamental crabapple trees bloom in pink (left), white (right) and dark pink (center rear), while redbud trees bloom in magenta behind the crabapples.

   A brief, light frost occurred early this morning (it was 31 F at 5 a.m. & 33 F at 7 a.m.), but that shouldn't hurt any of our fruit crops at all.  This week I was very busy with my apple breeding program, as this was the week to make controlled crosses by hand-pollinating emasculated apple flowers with pollen from a selected parent.  Bill did a lot of grafting of selections from my apple breeding program onto apple rootstocks, and some pear grafting where we're changing varieties.  He'll do more grafting next week with warmer weather.

Here Bill inserted a scion (stem piece) of 'Shenandoah' pear, a new variety we're propagating, into the cut-off rootstock (trunk) that sprouted from the stump of a pear tree that we cut down last year, so we could change the variety. 'Blake's Pride' European pear trees show white blooms at back right, and redbud trees have magenta flowers at back right.