Home Grown Fresh Local Asparagus at Revills Farm Shop
Asparagus is a specialty in the Evesham area and Revills offers home grown, freshly cut asparagus in season from approximately St Georges Day until 21st June. The tea room also takes advantage of the local asparagus crop to produce delicious asparagus soup, asparagus salads and a range of light snacks.

If you'd like us to let you know when our Asparagus is available please complete our online contact form.

About Asparagus

Asparagus has been used from very early times as a vegetable and medicine, due to its delicate flavour and diuretic properties. Asparagus was cultivated by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. Fresh asparagus was eaten fresh when in season and the asparagus was then dried for use during the rest of the year.

Asparagus is often referred to as a "Super Food" because it's low in calories, contains no fat or cholesterol, and is very low in sodium. Worcestershire is often acknowledged as having ideal conditions for growing asparagus and many believe it's where the best English asparagus is grown. In "Old English" asparagus was also called "Sparrow Grass" and the term still survives locally today.

Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) is a perennial plant. The young shoots of the asparagus plant are cooked and eaten and when the harvesting season is over the asparagus shoots are left to grow into "ferns". Planted as a crown, the Asparagus take two years to establish, but once in production, the asparagus crowns can be productive for ten years or more.

Growing and Harvesting Asparagus

1. Site selection: Asparagus requires a sheltered site with good drainage.
2. Asparagus is usually established from field grown crowns. Crowns give a bigger plant and can mean a saleable crop is produced a year sooner than would be the case with transplants. The main asparagus varieties grown are Gijnlim, Backlim and Guelph Millenium.
3. Soil is ridged up around the plant during the dormant part of the season.
4. Harvesting period in the field crop is usually from mid April to 21^st June. Crops grown under cover or grown in a Glasshouse are harvested earlier than this. The spears are cut by hand at or just below the soil surface. The growth of the spears is very temperature dependent and in hot weather the Asparagus has to be cut every day. Harvesting is done by a group of Asparagus cutters behind a tractor driven “rig” or by individual cutters driving Asparagus”buggies”.
5. When the asparagus harvesting period is finished the top (or bower) is then allowed to develop and build up the asparagus plant’s reserves for the next season. If the asparagus shoots are harvested beyond the traditional cut off date, the plant will often go into decline.
6. The bower dies down with the first severe autumn frosts. This is then incorporated into the ridge and the crop overwinters below ground.