Pamper your asparagus with all the muck and compost you can spare and you'll get lots of spears ...
The Guardian 2013-02-16Asparagus is a delicious vegetable, but can be expensive to purchase. An asparagus bed in your kitchen garden can provide you and your family with delicious asparagus for...
The Examiner 2014-08-111. That green spear on your plate wanted to be a fern. Botanically speaking, asparagus is an oddity among vegetables. First of all, farmers only plant a new asparagus crop...
National Public Radio 2014-03-13For six weeks in mid-spring, Don Ross' life is devoted to white asparagus. He wakes up with the sun and ventures out into the cool morning air to the shed where he keeps...
STL Today 2014-03-28
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The season for English asparagus has begun and we can look forward to six weeks' pigging out before the shutters come down again. But for proper feasts, you have to grow your own. The cost of asparagus (£4 a bundle at the start of the season) limits its pleasure. You need at least a bundle per person. Asparagus requires commitment on the part of a gardener. Once planted, it...
The Independent 2013-04-27Despite the decline in Britain’s food self-sufficiency, asparagus farming is reviving along the sand dunes of the Merseyside coast ...
The Guardian 2014-09-05Geoff Lewis bubbles over with enthusiasm as he describes the art exhibition he is planning to host in the Tender Tips packhouse in a month's time. In his mind's eye he has it all worked out: the grand entrance, the separate sections devoted to each of the five artists, the cafe which is being installed just for the weekend. And at some stage in the evening he might pick up a...
Stuff 2014-10-02At work: Farmer Ketut Suriani (right) poses with local children at her farm in Pelaga. Asparagus cultivation, only recently introduced in the village, has changed the life of famers here. Resting in the saddle formed by Bali’s central mountain range is the village of Pelaga. Hanging here in the space between heaven and earth are farmlands stretching away and up the slopes of...
Jakarta Post 2013-05-30Nothing says spring like fresh asparagus from your own garden bed. This vegetable with tender texture and succulent taste is a perennial favorite of home gardeners. Originally native to Europe, Northern Africa and Western Asia, most supermarket asparagus comes from the leading exporters of Peru, China and Mexico. It is grown in the United States predominantly in California,...
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 2012-05-12In her book Guiliano talks how surprised she was when she first came to USA to find out that regardless of whether some fruits and vegetables were seasonal, the American grocery stores still would have everything all year around, while in Europe, these foods are seasonable and are usually accessible only during their seasons. Like, for example, strawberries – their season is in...
The Examiner 2013-05-26
Asparagus officinalis is a spring vegetable, a flowering perennial plant species in the genus Asparagus. It was once classified in the lily family, like its Allium cousins, onions and garlic, but the Liliaceae have been split and the onion-like plants are now in the family Amaryllidaceae and asparagus in the Asparagaceae. Asparagus officinalis is native to most of Europe, northern Africa and western Asia, and is widely cultivated as a vegetable crop.
Asparagus is a herbaceous, perennial plant growing to 100–150 centimetres (39–59 in) tall, with stout stems with much-branched feathery foliage. The "leaves" are in fact needle-like cladodes (modified stems) in the axils of scale leaves; they are 6–32 millimetres (0.24–1.3 in) long and 1 millimetre (0.039 in) broad, and clustered 4–15 together. The root system is adventitious and the root type is fasciculated. The flowers are bell-shaped, greenish-white to yellowish, 4.5–6.5 millimetres (0.18–0.26 in) long, with six tepals partially fused together at the base; they are produced singly or in clusters of 2–3 in the junctions of the branchlets. It is usually dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants, but sometimes hermaphrodite flowers are found. The fruit is a small red berry 6–10 mm diameter, which is poisonous to humans.
