ASPARAGUS season is in full swing, with farmers across Oxfordshire now cutting and packaging the spear-like vegetables for sale.

The season runs from April 24 to June 21 and because no machine is precise enough to select those ready to be cut it must all be done by hand.

At Wykham Park Farm, near Banbury, the Colegrave family expect to pick more than 50 tonnes this year.

Lizzie Colegrave, 28, said: “We sell a small amount of produce from our farm shop and since the early 1990s, when we started growing it, it has become a big part of our business.”

Asparagus is grown from crowns planted in the ground and it takes each crown three years to produce harvestable produce. The spears are then harvested when they are about 12cm long.

In warm weather the plants grow faster and can be harvested every two days. Then in mid-June, they are left so the crowns can start building up energy again for the next year.

Miss Colegrave, whose family has worked Wykham Park Farm for six generations, said pickers typically pick about 6,000 spears in a day.

She added: “We start at about 7am and pick right through the day, with some of the guys taking a siesta and getting back out in the afternoon.

“We only pick about two thirds of the spears that grow and last year was particularly good, so we are hopeful there should be lots of energy ready for this year’s harvest. We took 50 tonnes last year and are hoping for a bit more this time.”

Once picked at the farm, the asparagus are packaged and some sold at the farm shop.

But most are sold to a grower’s cooperative based near Pershore that will sell it on to supermarket chains Lidl and Waitrose.

In Oxford, Ellie Ripley of Quod Brasserie, in High Street, Oxford, said the restaurant would often buy fresh asparagus.

She said: “It is very popular when in season and people do ask for it.”

There are a number of asparagus farms in the county including Medley Manor Farm in Binsey Lane, Millets Farm Centre in Frilford, Peachcroft Farm in Radley and Rectory Farm in Stanton St John.