Article — Megan Helm
Spring is a miracle! After months of sleeping in the frozen ground, Mother Nature stretches her spiny green asparagus fingers toward the sun. People are ready to smell wet earth and hike through fields with the sun on their backs. Asparagus, the first pick-your-own (PYO) crop of the season, is getting ripe for the snapping and lucky Kansans can indulge in the juicy shoots at Pendleton’s Country Market just west of Eudora in Douglas County.
“Tax day to Memorial Day” is Karen and John Pendleton’s mantra. Although springtime in Kansas is unpredictable, mid April is usually when customers can make their way out to the farm for the delicious green stalks. I check their website (Pendletons.com) for field status reports and weather related delays. “Frosts aren’t so bad,” Karen jokes, “it’s the hailstorms that hurt.” If crop damaging weather is predicted, the Pendleton’s work hard to pull in as much asparagus as they can so customers can still buy it in the market until the picking is ready again in a few days.
My asparagus adventure begins in the market where I get a green grocery basket, a plastic “spinach” sack and a ride out to the nearby field on Farmer John’s tractor wagon. Walking to the field is always an option, it isn’t very far and I like the excitement of crossing the railroad tracks, but John always takes customers to the area where the picking is the best.
Carrying a green grocery basket through the field, I always feel like I’m shopping at God’s supermarket. There isn’t a roof and weather is variable so sunscreen, hats, boots and rain ponchos are often necessary. The fields at the Pendleton’s aren’t as muddy as one would suspect and they don’t use pesticides so the fields are safe for children and babies. Placing straw mulch is to “pray with hay.”
Choosing spears isn’t hard; they are everywhere leading me farther and farther into the field. Asparagus grows fast when the sun is hot. The spear that was too short to pick on the way out to the field might be an inch taller on my way back in. The picking rule is to choose stalks that are as tall as the side of the green basket or taller. To pick it, I just snap it off at the base of the plant. If it’s too long to fit neatly into the basket, I can take off the excess at the bottom and leave it in the field; I just have to remember to keep the stalk as tall as the height of the basket. Picking only the tips and leaving the bare stalk seems wasteful and greedy so I’m careful to treat the plants with respect. I also know that just picking the tips will cost me double.
One asparagus plant will continue to generate spears over and over throughout the season. The bigger, thicker spears are the ones I prefer. According to Karen, “each stalk has the same number of string-like fibers running through it. When a stalk has been sitting in a grocery store for a few weeks after traveling a week in a truck, the fibers lose water and shrink. In the field, the fatter stalks contain more water and are sweeter and juicier.” Freshness is the secret to great asparagus.
How people arrange the spears in the basket is always interesting to observe. “You can tell a lot about a customer’s personality by the way they arrange their basket,” Karen laughs. Some come back and every stalk is the same length laying the same direction in a neat pile. Others “pick and stick” randomly in their baskets with irregular stalks poking out of it in all directions. My basket is a hybrid of both techniques. I start out organizing them with good intentions but as I walk back to the barn I find ones I can’t live without and they end up tossed in haphazardly.
I never miss the spinach patch on my way back to the market. The long rows of deep green leaves long to be plucked and popped into the plastic bag. Just the leaves of the plant are individually torn off, not the whole head. That has to stay in the field where it will regenerate leaves for the next group of pickers as it continues to grow. Spinach is very light so I pack my bag full and have spinach salad for two weeks or blanch it and freeze it for soups and sauces.
Once back from the field, the assistants in the market will put my harvest into paper sacks and weigh them. John Pendleton has a variety of hydroponic tomatoes that he plants in his greenhouse to ripen at roughly the same time as the asparagus. This year look for them around May 1st. Boxes of beautiful and delicious red tomatoes at the checkout line are an irresistible impulse item.
Also available in the market, but not in the field, is the famous Purple Passion Asparagus. It has a deep purple color and when it’s cut into segments, there is a bright green ring inside. As gorgeous as it looks, it’s even better to eat raw in salads. “It tastes like fresh peas with one more sugar molecule than the standard asparagus,” explains Karen. I, personally, like to grill it even if the color will become a more olive shade. It still tastes amazing.
The only color of asparagus the Pendleton’s don’t carry is white. “White asparagus is just green asparagus that has been growing underground.” Karen explains. It’s a slow and inefficient harvesting process. “You have to dig underground and cut the stalks out with a knife.” However, customers are welcome to buy asparagus crowns and cultivate the white variation in their own gardens. Orders for the crowns begin in January and John is happy to give planting advice to anyone who asks.
Later in the season Karen and John will offer PYO snow and snap peas, green beans, lettuce and tomatoes. They also have a special cutting garden and allow people to pick their own flowers on certain days. The Pendleton’s picking staff is reduced in midsummer and in order to pull the harvest in quickly for the farmers market they sometimes have a PYO special.
“We usually announce those days in our e-newsletter. “Often it’s a half and half deal. You give them half and they charge you a minimal amount for the other half. It’s a great way for students from KU and cost conscious customers to get fresh veggies for a minimal price.
We are fortunate to live in the heartland where so many local food options exist. Picking your own vegetables and fruits is a great way to re-connect to the land. Be it asparagus, spinach or berries in the summer, nothing feels better than knowing you are getting great produce from farmers who care.
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