Today, April 15, is a rite of spring.

True, it’s a day many Americans dread: Time to turn in your yearly homework assignment to the IRS.

But today is more than a rendezvous with Uncle Sam — it’s a date with another spring tradition: asparagus.

“This is our 28th year of harvest, and out of 28 years, there have been only three years that we didn’t start one or two days on the either side of the 15th of April,” says Karen Pendleton, co-owner of Pendleton’s Country Market, 1146 E. 1850 Road. “We pick basically from the 15th of April to Memorial Day.”

This year’s peek-a-boo spring has put the stalks behind a bit thanks to the cold weather. Pendleton expects to pick the first stalk Friday but says that those with asparagus gardens within Lawrence may have fared better thanks to the “heat sink” effect of being in the city. She knows cold weather or not, now is the time of year the phone starts ringing off the hook with folks begging for the luscious stalks.

If they had phones in ancient times, surely they also wouldn’t have stopped ringing this time of year. Egyptians and Greeks considered the spears a luxury, and the vegetable is still extremely popular in Europe, where it is celebrated each year in Germany during asparagus season, “spargelzeit,” where it is often eaten by the pound with hollandaise, ham and potatoes.

Asparagus is most famous in the United States in its traditional green form. The vegetable is actually a perennial plant in the lily family, though its spears often look almost like giant blades of wild green grass. However, in Germany and many other places in Europe and in Asia, the ubiquitous green asparagus of the United States isn’t what the locals crave.

They want the white stuff.

Creamy ivory stalks are the most popular there but almost nonexistent here, although they are, in fact, the same plant — the white ones just don’t have a tan.

“The reason it is white is it has not gone through photosynthesis,” Pendleton says.

She explains that to raise white asparagus, the farmer must constantly work to keep the plants covered over with dirt to make sure the sun never sees the stalks. It’s a time-intensive process and that, coupled with a lack of demand, means there’s not much on sale here, Pendleton says.

But just because the white asparagus isn’t big in this country doesn’t mean green is king alone. Gaining on green is the purple variety, something that has become more popular in recent years. The purple asparagus, which is a dark burgundy, is more delicate and about 20 percent sweeter than the green kind, says Pendleton.

The mild flavor of the purple — compared to green peas by Pendleton — is something that is winning converts but is best without a bunch of bells and whistles.

“It’s really, really tender, so it’s good raw, like in a salad or something like that,” says Bob Lominska of Hoyland Farm, 1954 Union Road. “All asparagus is good raw, but it’s more tender than the green asparagus. And if you do cook it, you should just barely cook it because it doesn’t hold it’s texture quite as well.”

Pendleton says that the purple asparagus’ nature has made it a favorite during another rite of spring for those in the farm business: The start of harvest season — which, of course, sets up another date with the tax man next April 15.

“We just put it out with dip, we just eat it like carrots,” she says of the purple spears. “For us, we are so busy during the asparagus season that we really don’t have time to cook much.”

Grow your own

Want to grow your own asparagus?

Karen Pendleton of Pendleton’s Country Market has been growing asparagus for 28 years and has spoken at farmers’ conferences on techniques for growing the vegetables.

She knows gardeners can be apprehensive about undertaking the vegetable because it is only planted every 15 to 20 years, and maintenance is important.

She offers some helpful hints for those interested in adding asparagus to their gardens:

• Start with a year-old asparagus crown. Seeds can be difficult and older crowns can be too ungainly.

• Get a soil test. Make sure to know what you need to add to get your soil right.

• Plant it in lighter soil. It’ll make things easier come harvest time.

• Plant it in full sun, on the edge of your garden to give the extensive root system room to work.

• The year after you plant the crowns, have a two-week harvest. That will encourage the plant.

• After the two-week harvest, let the plant grow into a fern. Don’t cut back that fern until after Christmas.