In the kitchen
Elderflower
Pick on the sunniest May days, when their scent is heady and sweet, to infuse for cordial. For a truly special tipple, pour a litre of gin into a large, shallow dish, and stand as many elderflower heads, florets down, as fit for two hours. Drain, bottle, and enjoy with tonic and ice on a warm evening.
Rhubarb
The world’s finest rhubarb comes from a few square miles of Yorkshire thanks to a combination of climate, soil and culture. A delicious treat for the freshest stalks: dip raw in the syrup of a jar of stem ginger and nibble.
Asparagus
Whether you barely steam the spears for a few minutes or roast in the hottest of ovens until charred and nutty, try to get the freshest you can. Every few hours from the field affects the fullness of its flavour.
Radishes
To enjoy radishes – and their leaves – at their best, eat alongside excellent softened butter and a small pile of sea salt (Blackthorn is a favourite). If the radishes are mild, a little white pepper in the salt works wonders.
New potatoes
The small, nutty, waxy potatoes of spring are my favourite of the year. The most famous, Jersey Royals (AKA International Kidney), are grown on the sunny, traditionally seaweed-fertilised slopes of the island, known as côtils.
Pea shoots
With none of the elbows-out confrontation of rocket, pea shoots – the succulent tips from pea plants – carry a sweet, nutty, pea flavour that sings of spring. Try them simply dressed, in good olive oil and a little salt.
Broad beans
I love broad beans most as they are served in Italy: raw, the size of a little fingernail, just plucked from their downy pods, with a wedge of good pecorino, some olive oil and a scant squeeze of lemon.
In the garden
Sow tomatoes and chillies undercover by mid-March, and courgettes, cucumbers, squash, sweetcorn, basil and French beans in modules. Outside, sow broad beans, salad leaves, carrots, peas, beetroot, spinach, chard, with French beans and sweetcorn from May. Plant early potatoes in March; main crop from April. Harvest early rhubarb with a firm, twisting tug. Prune stone fruit such as plums and cherry from late April, after flowering. Earth up potatoes. Cut back soft-leaved perennial herbs, such as lovage and chives, to invigorate.
