The call for asparagus plants

The Call for Asparagus – not just asparagus

Many useful plants return faithfully year after year. In our Call for Asparagus we are looking for perennial vegetables that can be vegetatively divided and that we know with certainty are older than from 1950. In the garden literature from the mid 1800's, several of these are treated as “asparagus plants”. The reason for this seems to be that they were all ”blanched” by various cultivation techniques, i.e. the plants were protected from exposure to sunlight.

The asparagus was cultivated in raised beds and the shoots harvested underneath the soil. Rhubarb, hop shoots, and seakale were kept under dark conditions to keep them delicate and tender and not bitter. Thee cardoon, a close relative of the artichoke, was forced with minimal light reaching the leaves, and so is also included in the asparagus group, as is garden angelica. We are also interested to know if you have artichoke, onion species, horseradish or herbal and medicinal plants.

Contact

Postal address:

Sparrisuppropet
Centrum för biologisk mångfald
Box 57
230 53 Alnarp
Sweden

E-mail: Else-Marie Karlsson Strese (projektledare)
sparrisuppropet@pom.info