Ready to pick

Although you may be frantically busy sowing this year’s crops, now is peak ‘hungry gap’, when winter is over but summer hasn’t quite started so there’s not much ready to pick.

That said, the few crops that are at their best now are absolutely superb, so you should still get to feast like a queen if you were proactive with your growing last year. Asparagus, purplesprouting broccoli and spring cabbages – all hungry gap crops – major on sumptuous, mouthwatering flavour. They’re expensive luxuries in the shops (and often imported and wrapped in plastic), but grow your own and you can pile your plate high every day for weeks.

Additionally, you can pick autumn-sown Swiss chard and baby-leaf salads, annual herbs like chervil, parsley and coriander sown in February in a cool greenhouse... so taking a few of these steps this year will mean no hungry gap for you!

Above: Snip salads and oriental leaves throughout spring, from indoor sowings made in autumn and winter Left: Harvest plump asparagus spears up to 20cm tall by cutting them 2-3cm below the soil surface with a knife