Soilman

I was chuckling over these as I prepared them. Thick? You bet.

Asparagus spears this thick are inedible unless you shave the bottom few inches (a potato peeler does the trick nicely). But when prepared properly, they are utterly delicious and gorgeously edible from the tip of the spear to the thick bottom stem.

Best of all, you really can’t buy ‘em like this in shops. There are millionaires all over the world who – unless they have their own private asparagus beds – can never know what real asparagus is like.

This is because commercial growers grow intensively: beds are planted as close as possible, with the absolute minimum fertiliser/manure input, and spears are harvested ruthlessly from early April until June 21st (or even later).

Consequence: The plants can never produce spears more than a centimetre or so in diameter. If you’re just growing for quality and taste, though, you can lovingly service your asparagus beds. Lots of manure, lots of TLC and a shorter cutting season (I usually stop on June 1st) yields fat, delicious, excellent asparagus.

So kiss my arse, millionaires. I’m eating better than you tonight.

Well, here’s a first: fresh asparagus on April 3rd.

This is my first cut of the year, and the first ever cut from the asparagus bed I put in two years ago.

It’s a bit mad that it’s coming so early. It would normally be mid-April, at the earliest, for the first spears. We’ve had two untypically warm weeks, though, so the soil is warming up already.

Mrs Soilman and I will scoff these tonight with melted butter and perhaps a sprinkling of freshly grated parmesan.

Mmmmm… there’s nothing like the simple pleasures.

In the finest tradition of only-just-in-time gardening, I prepared the asparagus beds today and made a pleasing discovery.

Turns out that if you’re too lazy to cut down the spent asparagus in November and just leave the old fronds where they are, they fall over and cover the bed… thus excluding light and preventing weeds taking hold over the winter.

Not only that, it’s 10 times easier to clear them up when they’re dry and dead in March than when they’re still bushy and damp in the autumn.

I’ve never done this before and it’s a joyous revelation. How often is the easier, softer way actually better? I’ll tell you: Bloody never.

To anyone who discovered this years ago, apologies for the grandma/egg suck lesson. But if you’re still cutting back your asparagus in November, STOP RIGHT NOW and be a lazy bastard.

You know it makes sense.

This is getting ridiculous. April 22nd and still not an asparagus spear big enough to cut.

I’ve been fantasising for weeks about just-cut, fresh asparagus, one of the great rewards of growing your own vegetables.

It’s a taste sensation you literally can’t buy – no shop can get it from plant to plate fast enough to preserve the gorgeous sweetness. The only way to enjoy the true flavour of asparagus, as God intended it, is to grow your own.

Trouble is, you have to wait. And Jeez, is the waiting painful.

I’m stunned how early it’s come. After the winter we’ve endured, I didn’t expect to see any asparagus until May.

Did a few hours at the plot today, but without enthusiasm. The piercing wind and grey skies got to me. If it were July, I’d have ignored it. But after five months of winter – and a tough old winter, at that – I’m just sick of it. Enough already.

That’s the thing with winter: like radiation exposure, it’s cumulative. I totally get what happened to Van Gogh. Always a tad unstable, the poor bastard painted one too many wacky clouds from his garret window and thought: “Right, fuck it. That’s it. Can’t take it any more. Where did I put that gun?”

Yuck, yuck, yuck. Asparagus beetle eggs laid on the tips of the spears.

I don’t get much grief from asparagus beetle. They get squashed, with maximum prejudice, when I spot them. But it’s rare, and they do very little damage to my plants.

They do, however, lay their eggs on my supper. I’m sure they’re fine to eat, but I do find myself assiduously scraping them off. It’s the thought, you see: creepy-crawly eggs. Yikes. I’m a non-celebrity allotmenteer – get me out of here!

If this is a taste of what’s to come, I’m all for it.

Today was sensational. Sunny, warm, barely a breath of wind. And the vegetables are loving it.

This is the asparagus I planted in early April. The fronds are a bit feeble, but that’s to be expected in their first year. They’ll thicken up well next season.

Sadly, I can’t attack ‘em even then; you shouldn’t cut asparagus until its third year. Just as well I’ve got another established bed, which is still producing enough spears for dinner four times a week.

We’ll be SO sick of it by mid June.

My neighbour made the superfluous observation that these look indecent. He’s not wrong. Brandish one carelessly in a public place and you could get arrested.

Thick asparagus spears are delicious if properly prepared – but woody and chewy if not. If you don’t know how to do it, I made a video last year about harvesting and preparing thick asparagus for the kitchen (mp4).

The onion sets are sprouting nicely. Only three got pulled up by birds, which is a result; most years I can count on replanting 30% thanks to the magpies.

Less good news is that weeds are already rampant. I’ve decided that the World’s Worst Weed is definitely couch grass.

I know, I know: Marestail is ineradicable, but at least it’s fairly easy to control. Ditto brambles and nettles, which both hate determined cultivation.

Couch, on the other hand, is the Daddy of weeds. I hack it up, grub it up, pull it up and rip it out. I burn it, bury it, hoe it and bin it. Couch destruction figures in my dreams.

But there it always is, waiting for me every time I visit the allotment. On my plot, Couch is King.

What’s your most loathed weed?

The countdown’s begun. Just a few days now –  a week at most.

The asparagus kettle has been dug out and dusted down. The free range eggs have been assembled for the hollandaise sauce. Air freshener has been bought for the khazi.

Only time stands in the way of the year’s first asparagus pig-out.