Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Asparagus Season - Consider Selling Your Crop Roadside

I literally grew up in an asparagus patch.  My mother often talked about taking us out to help our grandmother pick asparagus and setting us in a bush basket at the end of the row under a tree.  Of course, that was back in the 1960s - before child services would have come after her for some kind of child abuse.

Growing up on our farm in southwest Michigan our crop season always started about now with asparagus.  By the time I was five or six I was riding the motorized carts my dad had made and helping to pick asparagus.  We put in several new fields over the years - both raising crowns and purchasing them for planting.  The last of our fields were plowed under in the late 1990s. Today, along the road next to the former fields, asparagus grows voluntarily and is enough of a crop for family and relatives who live nearby.

For most of the 20+ years we grew asparagus commercially we did so for the canneries.  However, sometime in the 1980s we started selling it (pre-ordered) to the public, as well.  Not only was it profitable, it required no overhead.  We didn't even have a stand.

Should your fields be alongside a road - simply take some bags and a scale with you when you go to pick.  It will only take one or two people stopping to see if you will sell them some fresh asparagus before the word will get out.  It did for us and some days we sold so much that we barely had a bulk box left to take to the cannery.

Once you establish a customer base - make sure they are aware of the short season for asparagus.  Reminding them of you projected end date will ensure they get their orders in ASAP.

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