Possible Clues:

• Spears eaten as a vegetable
• Vegetable like empty pea -- sweet tips
• Like soldier from America clutching good spears
• What could be spears in a box — a blow not being all there
• Veggie with woody ends
• Vegetable once known as 'sparrowgrass'
• Vegetable in a special sauce after a starter of soup
• Vegetable which is usually green in Britain and white in Germany
• Vegetable like sweet pea reportedly raised around area
• Sweetener raised to prop up American resort's growth