- Today we call this the king of vegetables.

But once upon a time, it was just swamp grass.

(upbeat music) So what is asparagus?

Basically, we're eating the young shoots of a plant that's probably native to the Mediterranean, though that's hard to pin down.

5000 year old asparagus was discovered in ancient Egyptian tombs.

The ancient Greeks foraged for it in wet, marshy areas.

And it was so popular with the Romans that Emperor Augustus coined the phrase, Faster than Asparagus is Cooked!

Which meant, well, really fast.

Now while it doesn't take long to cook asparagus, it does take a little longer to grow.

(record scratching) Oh, only about five years.

That's how long it takes to go from seed to a fully yielding plant.

Farmers can get spears at year two, but if they want healthy, long-living plants, they don't pick those.

At years three and four, farmers will start to harvest, but the plant won't deliver a full season's worth of asparagus.

See, farming asparagus is playing the long game.

A is a perennial.

That means they're not pulled out at the end of the harvest season like cucumbers or tomatoes, most of our common vegetables.

Here at Sheppard Farms, they'll keep a field for up to 20 years.

To get a jump on everything, farmers don't plant seeds, they plant crowns.

That's the name for root clusters that have been grown from seed by breeders, like Scott Walker.

Breeders get seeds from the fruits of the asparagus plant.

That's right, asparagus grows fruits!

And they're actually poisonous to humans.

The fruits grow once the female flowers are pollinated.

- [Scott] Once you plant it, it will get about two feet in diameter.

The roots will go down about five or six feet.

- They go deep.

- They go deep.

I've seen fields that the fern will get between 10 and fifteen feet tall.

So you're looking at about two spears per plant per week.

If you run the numbers, the math, you think, where's all my asparagus?

- [Nicole] You're right, exactly!

- There should be a lot more than this.

(upbeat music) - This meager yield is one reason that asparagus is such a delicacy.

It also has an extremely short harvest window, just eight weeks in the spring.

A mature plant will grow no more than 16 spears each season.

I know that doesn't sound like much, but consider this.

Sheppard Farms harvests over 10,000 plants per acre, with 400 acres, that's a lot to pick in a short period of time.

And to top it off, asparagus grows really fast.

Six inches in a day, or more.

If it grows too tall, it starts to get tough and woody.

So picking asparagus is truly a race against time.

(upbeat music) When you're cutting, you're cutting below the ground.

- In around it.

- So there's a little bit of white at the bottom.

- Yeah, a little white.

- Okay.

So satisfying!

So this site is sharp, this side is not sharp, and they use this like a knife to basically machete the ends off.

All right, you show me how to do that first.

I'm a little bit scared.

Whoa!

(laughing) One swipe.

(laughing) That's terrible!

(laughing) I don't think I'm good at this part!

All right, I'm gonna do it again, I'm not a quitter.

(laughing) I whipped!

- There you go.

- Oh, not that clean, but at least got it.

(laughing) I hit the target.

- That's good.

- Ramone, you've been a good teacher.

I think I'm going to try my hand with the crew.

Do you think I'm ready?

- Yeah, you're ready.

- (laughing) All right, let's try this, let's do this.

(laughing) Come on!

- Extra.

- Extra, yes.

I work for free, I work for free, okay?

(laughing) (upbeat music) Don't cut my fingers?

Okay.

- Okay.

- Ahh.

Where did everybody go?

(laughing) We've got to catch up, Jose, come on.

- Okay.

- Let's do it, let's do it, quick!

(laughing) Yeah?

How did I do?

Okay?

(laughing) (speaks foreign language) At the end of the harvest season, the plants are allowed to fern out, branching out at the spear tips, and growing wispy fronds.

All of this growth will be mowed down before next year's harvest begins.

From the field, the asparagus heads straight to the packing plant, where it's cleaned, cooled and sorted into one pound bundles of about 20 spears.

(upbeat music) In the US, green asparagus is the most popular, but there are purple varieties too, which are actually sweeter than green.

The purple ones do turn green though, when they're cooked.

In much of Europe, the most prized asparagus is white, which is really just green asparagus that is grown in the dark.

The technique is called blanching.

Dirt is mounded over the roots so high that spears never see the sun, which means they never photosynthesize, and never build up the green pigment called chlorophyll.

I've never eaten fresh white asparagus, but I'm told it has a more delicate, less earthy taste than green.

I tried in the field today, you know, a spear just fresh-- - Sweet?

- So sweet!

- Yeah, you can't beat it.

- And juicy, there was literally juice oozing out.

And this vibrant green color I've never seen before.

- I would say 95% of the world does not know what fresh asparagus tastes like.

- Yeah, yeah, unless you're a farmer.

- Yeah, that's it, (mumbles) benefits.

- Asparagus is one of the most nutrition-packed vegetables.

It's got vitamin A, B6, C, E, folate, calcium, the list goes on.

It also leaves behind another gift.

Asparagus pee.

See, asparagus contains the unique chemical, asparagusic acid.

Our bodies break that down into carious sulfur compounds, and it's the sulfur that gives urine its unmistakable asparagus stink.

Whatever minor consequences we may endure, that's never stopped us from enjoying this spring-time star.

It's been on the menu for over 5000 years.

(upbeat music)