May

I'm intrigued to see what May will be like this year, given that March did a remarkable impression of May, and the last two weeks of April did everything it could to back track and look like March. But whatever the weather, I'm confident I'll be eating plenty of asparagus, new lettuces and broadbeans from my polytunnel, and maybe even an early artichoke or two. And I'll be out on my boat at the earliest opportunity looking for those elusive sea bass…

May is the month when, in our winter reveries, we often imagine summer will be gloriously upon us. And a Sunday lunch of roast spring lamb, taken outdoors under a blinding sun, of course, will surely include a feast of just-picked baby vegetables from the garden.

But memory plays cruel tricks. May isn't quite like that. Things are coming on, without a doubt. However, like the watched pot that won't boil, our plants are snubbing our daily inspections, and progress can seem painfully slow. There's no cause for alarm. Plants have their own schedule, and simply won't be persuaded that you know any better. Unless of course you offer them a polytunnel … in which case you may yet have your roast spring lamb with infant peas, little-fingernail-sized broad beans and carrots no bigger than sharpened pencil tops.

Polytunnels aside, May simply doesn't have the breadth of produce imagined six months previously. But what it does have can be relished without risk of hyperbole, for it is one of the year's not-to-be missed seasonal treats - asparagus. Personally, I'd hate to have fewer than half a dozen generous portions of the magic spears in the course of the season.

The trick, of course, is getting hold of the really good stuff - and that means spears that have been cut within hours rather than days. The loss of sweetness in asparagus (as with many vegetables, including peas and sweetcorn) is a simple function of time elapsed after harvest. Sugar begins to revert to starch as soon as the plant has been cut. (It can be fixed only by cooking or freezing - the latter is okay for peas and sweetcorn but pretty detrimental to the fragile texture of asparagus.) In fact, just-cut asparagus is sweet enough to eat raw, and I urge anyone who grows their own to try it like this, dipped in a simple vinaigrette, or in the anchovy and caper mayonnaise.

That's all very well for those who grow their own, but for asparagus lovers who have to shop for their spears the mission to find such quality specimens is more challenging. It can be done, however. Near me in Dorset is a lovely lady who grows asparagus commercially, but on a small scale. She completely understands the value of the just-cut product, and some locals will go and collect at a time when they know she'll be harvesting (deliberately or not, it often happens to coincide with the afternoon school run). Others have come to know exactly when various local stores take delivery of fresh-cut spears, and they will time their trip accordingly. Those who buy it at the local village shop will, if they time it right, be eating their asparagus within five or six hours of its being picked.

The vital sugar-to-starch time lag also explains the difference - which anyone would notice in a blind tasting - between seasonal British asparagus and the imported crop. Imported asparagus is never likely to be less than 48 hours cut by the time it reaches the supermarket, and it is probably given a use-by span of about a week, by which time it's woody, mealy and of very little interest. It staggers me that these coarse, flavourless spears continue to be flown in from Europe, America and the southern hemisphere and, expensive though they are, appear to sell in huge quantities throughout the year. The amount of food miles involved makes me want to weep.

My advice is to stick to May (and early June), and the British product. Make the effort of discovering the whereabouts of your own nearest commercial asparagus grower - and bother them a lot in the month of May. Phone them and find out where they deliver to, or if you can pick up direct from them.

Incidentally, you can buy yourself a couple of extra hours' sugar by keeping your asparagus wrapped in a wet tea towel in the fridge. Our local farm shop keeps the cut stalks in a tray of water, which also seems to help. If you've managed to get hold of some good stuff but want to keep it for more than 24 hours before eating, then blanch it in boiling water for 2 minutes as soon as you get it home. Refresh it in cold water, then keep it, wrapped, in the fridge for a day or two. To serve, plunge back into boiling water for another 3-4 minutes, then serve straight away with melted butter. Or, for something a bit different, cook the blanched spears over a barbecue, or on a very hot ridged griddle pan, for about 5 minutes, turning occasionally. Serve the char-striped spears with trickles of olive oil and shavings of Parmesan.

It isn't just asparagus that comes good in May. Spinach seems to forge slowly ahead whatever the weather, and by the end of the month there'll be plenty of young leaves for salads, and with a bit of luck enough more substantial ones for a first cook up. For the first couple of outings, they'll be lightly wilted in just a little water, squeezed gently to drain off the excess, then tossed with a little butter and/or olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice and a twist of black pepper. Then I'll make my ultimate creamed spinach.

Then there's the lettuces. By the end of the month, I'd hope to be cutting one a day. One of the first to get the chop will be combined with a fresh-laid egg or two in one of my favourite early summer salads.

The arrival of the early spring spinach and lettuces should be reflected in good greengrocer's shops, and perhaps the supermarkets - and even if they've been grown under plastic they'll still have the edge over imported equivalents.

May's potential harvest may be more modest than hoped for but in some ways that's no bad thing. From the vegetable gardener's point of view it's still a busy month - especially for 'plug' gardeners like me. By nurturing individual seedlings in trays of plugs (effectively miniature flowerpots) in the polytunnel, you give them the best possible start in life. With a bit of luck, any risk of frost is past by now and, after a couple of days' hardening off, the plugs can all go out into their growing sites.

It's immensely satisfying. The pea shoots have already sprouted their first clingy tendrils, and sometimes have them wrapped around a strand of netting within hours of transplanting. The young broad beans, with their firm, waxy leaves, always seem punchy and prepared - too much of a challenge now for even the most determined slug. Even beetroot can be grown and planted this way - a hand's width apart in well-spaced grids that will not require thinning.

In the space of a single early May weekend (albeit a backbreaking one), a vast, empty expanse of chocolate-brown tilth can be transformed into a busy network of perky green seedlings. Not long now.