This week there is certainly every indication that spring is in the air.

Hardly had the election date been announced than one of my contacts suggested the best result would be if Jamie Oliver should stand as all party minister for fruit and veg.

On a more commercial note, it has been good to see English asparagus is already getting some warm up publicity - even before the season has really started.

Or am I wrong? My eye caught a story in Sunday’s Observer dated April 3 about Isle of Wight grower David Brown who apparently had a bet on with Ladbrokes that his crop would be the first on the market - or to be more specific in Tesco.

It seemed like a fairly safe bet as I have always been told that across the Solent that there is a special microclimate enabling early production.

But I hear in fact Hampshire was pipped to the post by what this sensible Sunday was calling a new-style Beaujolais run by Herefordshire, the domain of John Chinn, who supplies Marks & Spencer.

This of course assumes that both crops were grown under plastic protection.

John Chinn set the industry talking when in anticipation of a boom, he planted up some 120 acres - regarded at the time by the industry as vast. He is hosting the forthcoming Asparagus Growers’ Association conference next week so I look forward to reporting further.

The last time this industry met, the main topic was all about getting the season to start early. Now the Holy Grail is to find a way to extend it past the almost statutory end-of-season June 20-21 when everyone draws stumps.

Back to the Beaujolais scenario.

If the concept could be made to catch on with the public, it could become the sort of boost that would do horticulture a world of good in raising the profile of seasonality. There is already great rivalry on the high street to receive the first English strawberries and tomatoes - and of course now asparagus.

Once in this mindset, the opportunities seem endless.

A race from the Channel Isles with the first Jersey Royals? The squeal of tyres in a Kent orchard bringing the first Cox? Highly paid promotional professionals could even earn their salaries by devising schemes for spring cabbage.

At least a common starting point nowadays is that there is a far better understanding of what the public is prepared to accept than when I worked in old Covent Garden.

I recall the annual rush to bring in the first early grapefruit or white grape that was assured a premium.

Unfortunately time and again buyers failed to return for repeat purchase. Fruit was usually so acidic that in market parlance “it could take the enamel off your teeth”.

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