Emerging asparagus with expired shiitake log wood chips.
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Unharvested spears continue to elongate into florets and then full fronds. The florets are tender and extremely flavourful, great on salads and as a garnish for soups.
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Fresh Asparagus
Our fresh asparagus is ecologically grown, without harmful fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides, and is available May and June. We grow Jersey Giant asparagus, which has a fantastic flavour and mixed large and small spears.
Asparagus is a healthy springtime delicacy, and one of our favourite perennial foods. Asparagus is an alkaline food and has an abundance of an amino acid called asparagines, which helps to cleanse the body of waste material, making it a great springtime tonic.
We are constantly striving towards a more ecological way of farming. A particularly effective method is growing cover crops between the rows of asparagus. Keeping the soil cover cropped is a sustainable practice that stops erosion, promotes healthy soil biology and provides food and shelter for above ground pollinators and other insects. Using cover crops to keep the soil covered is an amazingly effective practice for promoting healthy and vibrant agriculture, which results in healthy and vibrant asparagus.
In addition to adding compost and other organic amendments to the asparagus beds, we also use our expired mushroom logs as a soil amendment, first chipping them and then applying them to the asparagus beds with a manure spreader. Because the shiitake mycelium has digested a lot of the wood, the tough lignins in the wood chips provide an excellent source of food and habitat for all the organisms in the soil food web, which in turn makes for health and happy asparagus plants.
Asparagus is a healthy springtime delicacy, and one of our favourite perennial foods. Asparagus is an alkaline food and has an abundance of an amino acid called asparagines, which helps to cleanse the body of waste material, making it a great springtime tonic.
We are constantly striving towards a more ecological way of farming. A particularly effective method is growing cover crops between the rows of asparagus. Keeping the soil cover cropped is a sustainable practice that stops erosion, promotes healthy soil biology and provides food and shelter for above ground pollinators and other insects. Using cover crops to keep the soil covered is an amazingly effective practice for promoting healthy and vibrant agriculture, which results in healthy and vibrant asparagus.
In addition to adding compost and other organic amendments to the asparagus beds, we also use our expired mushroom logs as a soil amendment, first chipping them and then applying them to the asparagus beds with a manure spreader. Because the shiitake mycelium has digested a lot of the wood, the tough lignins in the wood chips provide an excellent source of food and habitat for all the organisms in the soil food web, which in turn makes for health and happy asparagus plants.
Jon and Ahren taking a break in during harvest.
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Cooling off – it’s important to cool the asparagus down quickly after it's harvested from a hot field in order to keep the spears firm.
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Early spring asparagus field before asparagus has emerged.-The brown soil strips are the asparagus beds and the green strips are the perennial white clover cover crop.
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The wash station – cleaning and hydocooling the asparagus.
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