professionals. They’ve travelled the world, they actually really know their stuff and they would tell you if it was crap. It’s also good for the four of us. We’ve all worked really hard. It’s nice to be recognised that we are on the right track and all that hard work has paid off.” Tasmania’s strict quarantine laws are the major reason behind the lengthy Tasmanian White Asparagus journey. Based in Brighton, the Weston’s could only import their European varieties as seeds, and growing those into crowns to get production is a minimum of four years. Then there is the labour-intensive process involved in keeping the asparagus white, especially when currently there are 34,000 plants in the ground – a figure Richard aims to expand to 55,000. “When you grow white, you start off with a profile in the ground where you bury your crowns 20 centimetres below ground. Then over the next three, four years, you cover that crown. So effectively the base of that plant is 20 centimetres below. When you go to harvest, you mound up another 20 centimetres with a machine, so you’ve got a 40 centimetre profile. Sunlight equals chlorophyll (green plants) so if you can keep the sunlight
away from the asparagus, it’s a beautiful white colour.
“When we mound we’ve got the soil, and then we place a special plastic over the top, so when we go to harvest, you go along, you remove the plastic, you harvest it, you put the plastic back and that is what keeps it white. It’s a European way of growing it, it is a phenomenal industry, but it is labour intensive and it does take some specialised equipment.” While white asparagus is grown in other parts of Australia, Weston Farm is the only one to have the truly European style. Richard describes the flavour profile as “really earthy and sweet”, and top chefs have been clambering to get access to the vegetable, which has an extremely short harvest period of around four weeks and saw Richard and Tom harvesting around 200kg of asparagus a day last spring. “Our big point of difference is we’ve actually got those true European varieties, and that’s really important. That’s the difference in our quality. If you’re in Germany or the Netherlands, all of those countries predominantly they eat white. It’s Australia and France and a few other
21 Tasmanian Hospitality Review August/September Edition
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