Buy asparagus, avoid watermelon: Australia’s best-value fresh produce for October

Yotam Ottolenghi's 15-minute buttered eggs and asparagus on toast. Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Jennifer Kay. Food styling assistant Susanna Unsworth.

Asparagus is spearheading October’s best produce. Cheap and plentiful, it is selling for $2.50 or $3 a bunch in supermarkets as we greet the second month of spring.

“In good conditions asparagus can grow about 20cm in a 24-hour period,” says Dave Foreman, owner at Foreman’s Fine Food Merchant in Balwyn, Melbourne.