Maxwell Farms had stinging nettles this AM, something I’ve never seen at the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket before. On any other day that might make it a shoo-in for this year’s inaugural Market Watch, but today also marked the debut of asparagus. The weather has been see-sawing back and forth between hot and cold, and for a while it seemed that spring would never arrive. Every year I look for the arrival of asparagus to herald the true beginning of spring. Perhaps that’s too much responsibility to bestow upon a vegetable, but the sense of relief I got when I saw that asparagus was here can’t be denied.