IN SEASON : Tears for Spears

Now it’s asparagus’ turn. It seems every vegetable in the spring roster has had its time in the sun--or, more accurately, the rain. Just as iceberg lettuce prices level out and broccoli becomes downright affordable, asparagus is going through the roof.

Granted, asparagus prices have been relatively high all spring, but in the last week and a half, they’ve really taken off. Spears that normally cost between $1 and $1.50 a pound at wholesale this time of year, and was $3 a pound earlier this month, was selling for $3.60 a pound early this week.

Blame this spring’s rains--what else? What is happening is that as waterlogged, weakened plants fail to produce for as long as they have in the past, the asparagus season is ending sooner than usual.

Iceberg lettuce, on the other hand, is finally getting up to something like full speed. California lettuce shipments last week were eight times higher than two weeks before and the price had fallen by more than half. Granted, the harvest is still 25% behind last year’s and the current wholesale price of roughly 85 cents a head is still four times normal for this time of year.

Don’t count on this relief lasting. In the next 10 days to two weeks, the lettuce harvest will begin shifting from the Huron area of the San Joaquin Valley to the Salinas Valley--the area hardest hit by the spring floods. And most produce buyers are expecting something close to, if not equal to, the $2 a head wholesale pricing we saw not so many weeks ago.

Leave it to broccoli to be the best vegetable buy in the produce section for the next couple of weeks. Broccoli prices are half what they were a month ago as both Salinas- and Santa Maria-area fields recover from the rain. Shipments last week were up 58% and will probably continue to improve this week.