After the rain of January and February, the recent relatively nice weather, with cold nights and nice sunshine during the day, seems to herald a change. The markets are starting to shift with this change of season. Root vegetables will soon be replaced with spring primeurs: carrots with greens, bunched navets, purple sprouting broccoli, beautiful sand carrots from Créances, large-leaf spinach, and cime di rapa all start to appear.

The star of this season is definitely early-season white asparagus from the Loire Valley. Early-season white asparagus has a delicate sweetness that is delicious. Cultivated morels seem to complement the start of this lovely crop. Green asparagus has also started and is equally lovely at this time. Volumes will increase and prices will reduce as we move into the season proper over the coming weeks.

In fruit, rhubarb has taken centre stage alongside the stunning Salustiana blood oranges from the Bruno family in eastern Spain. Early-season berries will start to become more available over the next week or two, with spring Gariguettes usually the first to appear, as well as Spanish wild strawberries, which have already made an appearance.

It’s time to think of menu changes. Root vegetables will wane, and some of the superb winter wild mushrooms have come to a natural end. While blood oranges feature alongside untreated Italian and Provençal lemons, other citrus varieties are slowly closing down for the season.

Soon we also expect to see wild garlic and wild three-cornered leeks, which typically become abundant as we move through March. It will not be long before we see the first of broad beans and fresh peas.

It is a quiet time for our Irish growing partners. Purple sprouting broccoli and leeks are still abundant, but this is the time when these growers plan and begin propagating and sowing the crops that will appear for us later in the spring.