I’VE always been a fan of the 1970s sitcom The Good Life. Watching Tom and Barbara Good create their self-sustainability lifestyle inspired me to want to do the same. I’ve never made much progress with this and fall well short of their achievements with my little tubs of salad leaves in the yard and small herb patch, but the desire remains!

In one episode, Tom and Barbara’s neighbour Margo is keen to be the first to purchase local asparagus. We are well into asparagus season now, and this vegetable must surely win the prize for the shortest seasonal availability, running from April to June.

Asparagus has been grown in England since the 16th century. The white variety is popular on the continent but doesn’t carry as much flavour as the dark green varieties grown here.

Of all vegetables, I think asparagus captures the need to for us to eat seasonally as much as possible. In supermarkets, asparagus is available year-round, flown in from Peru and Mexico, losing much of its flavour and nutrient content in the process. Asparagus deteriorates quickly after picking; you can keep it fresh for a couple of days in the fridge by wrapping the stems in damp kitchen paper, but the journey from South America takes a bit longer than that, requiring refrigerated air and road transport, and the use of modified atmospheric packaging to preserve freshness.

Seasonal foods are harvested at their peak of flavour and goodness, designed to be eaten when nature intended. Asparagus is packed with folic acid, vitamin C and glutathione, the levels of which are heavily affected by heat, light, transport, and storage.

Strawberries are another seasonal food whose availability has been expanded thanks to vast polytunnels and irrigation systems in Southern Europe and the Middle East. They are fragile fruits, often picked too earlier to prevent bruising during transport, and lacking fully developed flavours and nutrients.

The fantastic website Eat the Seasons is an excellent resource for finding out what is in season in the UK throughout the year. According to their calendar, we are currently able to enjoy lamb, rhubarb, purple sprouting broccoli, radishes, spinach, wild garlic, wild nettles, spring onions, watercress, and Jersey Royal new potatoes.

Like so many people I am time-poor when it comes to growing my own produce. Fortunately, here in York we are lucky to have plenty of suppliers supporting local seasonal foods, from vegetable box delivery schemes and local honey producers to the amazing Edible York that runs public vegetable and herb beds around the city, seed swaps, community growing projects, and the Abundance initiative that gathers and distributes surplus produce.

As we move through spring, consider how you can switch to eating more seasonally. Enjoy this short sharp asparagus season, and the English summer strawberries in June. Maybe even plant a few seeds of your own to harvest come autumn.

Sally Duffin is a Registered Nutritionist (MBANT). Find her online at nutritioninyork.co.uk or join the Facebook group Nutrition in York.