Know your Rampion

The Rampion, Campanula rapunculus, formerly regularly cultivated in English kitchen gardens, and much valued as a wholesome, edible vegetable, is seldom grown for use now, though its graceful flowers are sometimes seen to advantage in the borders as an ornamental plant.

The plant is found wild in England, on gravelly roadsides and hedgebanks and in open pastures, from Stafford southwards, but it is uncertain whether it should be held as a true native in the localities in southern England, where it is now established.

Rampion provides:

• flowers to grace the vegetable patch and attract pollinators,

• long edible roots,

• leaves that can be eaten as a spinach substitute,

• young shots can be cooked like asparagus in the spring.

Sow in Autumn for harvest the following Spring or in Spring to harvest in November to be lifted for Winter storage.

Rampion is still much cultivated in France, Germany and Italy, and occasionally here in England, for the roots which are boiled tender like parsnips and eaten hot with a sauce.

The roots are sweetish, with a slight pungency, but though wholesome, are considered inferior to other roots now more widely grown for culinary use.

The larger roots are reserved for boiling, sometimes the young roots are eaten raw with vinegar and pepper, and occasionally the leaves, as well as the roots, are eaten as a winter salad.

The leaves can be used in the summer and autumn as a substitute for spinach.

The young shoots may be blanched like asparagus and prepared in the same manner.

The roots are fleshy and biennial (but can be made perennial), the stems are 2 to 3 feet high, erect, stiff, though rather slender, generally simple, more or less covered with stiff, white hairs, which almost disappear when cultivated.

The leaves are variable, 1 to 3 inches long, the radical leaves oblong or ovate, on long stalks and slightly crenate, the stem-leaves narrow and mostly entire, or obscurely toothed.