Wild Asparagus and Wild Greens: Enjoying What Nature Gives Us

By Euell Gibbons
Published on March 1, 1976
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PHOTO: FOTOLIA/UCKYO
Asparagus doesn't have to be bought from large supermarkets. If you know where to look, you can find wild asparagus near your homestead.

Euell Gibbons’ first book on foraged foods, Stalking the Wild Asparagus, was published in 1962 and I bought a copy shortly thereafter. How ironic. Here I was, a farm boy who’d grown up with great-aunts and great-uncles who regularly gathered wild strawberries and mushrooms and greens and — except for my experiences with hickory nuts and black walnuts — I was learning to collect and eat volunteer edibles from a book! But that’s the way it was. And I still owe Euell a debt of gratitude for opening my eyes to the magnificent quantities of food that Nature will provide us free of charge  if we’ll only let her.–JS. 

Finding and Recognizing Wild Asparagus
(Asparagus officinalis)

When I was about twelve years old we lived near the Rio Grande in New Mexico. At that age, I didn’t mind school so badly when winter weather made it disagreeable to be outdoors, but, when the first warm days of spring arrived, I only existed through the five school days each week in order to really live on Saturdays. I would be off early every Saturday morning to the river, the woods or the surrounding hills to see what nature was doing about bringing the earth back to life, and to revel in all the changes that had taken place since the week before.

One such bright Saturday in spring, I was walking along the bank of an irrigation ditch, headed for a reservoir where I hoped to catch some fish. Happening to look down, I spied a clump of wild asparagus growing on the ditch bank, with half a dozen fat, little spears that were just the right size to be at their best. The idea of “reaping where I did not sow” has fascinated me all my life, I took out my pocketknife, cut the tender tips and dropped them into the pail in which I had intended to carry home any fish I might catch. Even while I was cutting this cluster, I saw another with several more perfect little sprouts. Alerted, I kept my eyes open and soon found another clump, and then another.

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