Tender Tips

Spring hasn't really sprung until fresh asparagus has hit the shelves. But the hunt for locally grown asparagus has proved quite a challenge for hilbarn. We'd been making inquiries for some weeks, and thought we'd finally struck gold when (via an internet search) we found a local grower just up the road from us in Pipers River. Sadly, they'd stopped producing last year....too hard, they said, with supermarkets cutting the price and - with all the effort entailed - just no longer worth it. So, back to the start again. A blackboard sign outside a shop in Launceston which read "Local Asparagus" stopped us at the traffic lights. On investigation, "local" meant "it's from Victoria". Excuse me? That's not exactly local...Finally, after one of our trips to pick up fresh produce on the central coast, we found Jo. Yes, she'd have asparagus...not sure how much until she picked it...it'd been a really hard year with all the rain... Well, Jo picked today's hilbarn box asparagus on Saturday morning for us. Just enough for all our customers...and there might just be enough in the patch for next week too. How sweet and tender it is. Don't stop Jo - you're the only local asparagus grower we know!