US: Asparagus comes early in Northwest
At the Middleton farm near Pasco, Washington asparagus—both purple and green—is selling by the pound to passers by. Bins of fresh asparagus are brought here right off the fields. Workers come and go. At the helm is Laura Middleton.
“It’s stressful the first couple of days, so I’m feeling a little stress," she said.
Middleton says they’re recruiting and organizing crews, getting paperwork sorted out and starting deliveries to processing sheds. They’ll hire nearly 100 people in the next weeks. Each plump spear is sliced off under the ground by hand.
Middleton says her operation has enough labor for now, though she’s still looking for a few more experienced workers.
Throughout the region, growers say it’s still too early to say whether they’ll have enough seasonal farm workers to pick this year’s cherries, apples and pears.
Source: kplu.org
