Britain’s best – and we’re keeping it

May 13 2008 by Laura Davis, Liverpool Daily Post

This is the holy grail of crops – and it’s grown right here. Laura Davis reports on the greenest of luxury foods

LIKE the koh-i-noor diamond, British asparagus is coveted all around the world for its rich sheen and its exclusivity.

While chefs in other countries may dream of dipping a spear into a ribbon of hollandaise sauce, unless they come to the UK to buy a bunch, it will never trouble their tastebuds.

This is because we eat all that we grow each year – none of it is exported.

If you’re trying to keep your food miles down, then it’s the perfect vegetable for people living in the North West.

To get a successful asparagus crop, you need certain conditions and they can be found in farms in Wirral, Cheshire and Formby.

Andrew Pimberly, 29, was much farther afield when he became interested in growing asparagus at his family’s farm in Spital.

After a spell working in Australia, he returned to Wirral with the latest farming equipment and a passion for the unique vegetable.

“The Cheshire and Wirral climates are perfect for growing asparagus, because of the sandy soil and the fact that here we are on a peninsula, so it is cooler, allowing the asparagus to grow slower and thereby letting the flavour mature,” explains the fourth- generation farmer.

The crop was so successful that Claremont Farm now supplies many of Merseyside’s most well-renowned restaurants, including the London Carriage Works and 60 Hope Street, in Liverpool.

In 1994, the farm had just four acres given over to asparagus growing which has now grown to 12, producing around 18 tonnes per year.

A member of the lily family, asparagus was cultivated by the Ancient Greeks and Romans and has been used as a herbal medicine for many centuries.

It grew wild on British shores from the 16th century and, in Victorian times, farmers in Formby took advantage of the beneficial conditions – and the human waste delivered by train that made good fertiliser – to produce vegetables of the highest quality that were served on luxury cruise liners including, it is said, Titanic.

Cheshire farmer Richard Wilding has expanded his range to include Italian wild asparagus and the more unusual red.

“It’s a dark red colour, a French variety which is more suited to the salads.

“Like other crops, there are different varieties for different jobs,” he explains.

“You use the fronds of the Italian wild asparagus for flavourings.”

To harvest the 38 acres of vegetables – that’s 40,000 crowns – at Cherry Orchard Farm, Oakmere, Richard employs six Polish workers who each pick five acres per day.

“We start as early as possible because it’s easiest to pick then. By dinner time, they are like rubber,” explains Richard, who eats asparagus every day during the eight-week harvesting period from May to June to check its quality.

“They grow three to four inches a day, and if it’s really hot they grow more than that and have to be cropped twice a day.”

lauradavis