Leaves we like

While I like growing lettuces - I love the way they go from being a small floppy collection of leaves to big-hearted and ready for picking in the space of a week and the fresh crunchiness of a homegrown lettuce cannot be replicated in anything you buy in a shop – I’m increasingly drawn to new tastes in leaves.

Pea shoots are irresistible, although I’ve learned the hard way not to pinch out the growing shoots of the plants I’m growing for their pea pods. These days I’ll grow pea shoots as microleaves, using up the remains of a packet and scattering them over vermiculite in a shallow tray (a supermarket veg tray is ideal and usually comes complete with drainage holes in the bottom). Put the tray on a shallow bowl – or deep plate and pour water onto the plate - not the tray. Water will be drawn up through the drainage holes into the vermiculite without drowning it or displacing it. The peas should germinate in 2-3 days and shoots will be ready for eating within a week.

This same microleaf technique works with lots of different leaves and it’s well worth experimenting. Basil, rocket, radish, coriander will add flavour to salads and garnishes – and use up any dusty remains of a seed packet when there isn’t really enough to sow outside.

Oriental leaves like mizuna and mustard are good for giving salads a peppery punch. Mizuna is probably the easiest leaf in the world to grow, although I personally think a little goes a long way. It’s not the most exciting taste in the world.

For a leaf with a nutty bite to it, rocket is hard to beat. It grows readily in a pot or in the open ground and will readily self-sow as well so you can have rocket growing throughout the season for very little effort. Like mizuna and mustard it’s quick to bolt if there’s any check in its growth such as a dry spell, but the flowers are good to eat as well and the creamy yellow petals are delicately decorative.

For a long-lasting salad plant, corn salad or lamb’s lettuce is my favourite. I grow this in a long trough on a windowsill, starting it off early in the season (Jan-Feb) indoors and moving outdoors when the weather warms up. Great for cut and come again leaves. A heavy layer of vermiculite over the compost in the trough will keep the soil from splashing the leaves when you water, but be gentle with the watering can anyway – don’t blast it.

One of my favourite salad leaves is the French frisee: crunchy-stemmed and blanched in the middle. Some varieties are self-blanching but for those that are not, growing the plants to maturity without blanching will give you tough, bitter leaves. The blanching process tenderises both the texture and flavour of the leaves. I’ve had very variable results with trying to blanch my own, and must give this a go again next year. To blanch the frisee, choose a plant with plenty of healthy green leaves, and either tie up the central leaves with garden twine, or place an upturned bucket over the centre of the plant - the idea is to exclude light (as you do when forcing rhubarb). Make sure the plant is completely dry before you cover it. On several occasions I’ve uncovered my frisee to find a soggy mess.

Lettuces just beginning to develop plump, firm hearts.

Troughs of mixed leaves just outside the back door mean you can throw together a salad at short notice.

Hard graft: my post-operative tomatoes

Three of my newly-grafted tomato plants, in which the top of a good fruiting variety (Black Russian, in this instance) has been grafted on to a vigorous, disease-resistant stem and root. These plants have now been moved somewhere dimly lit  to recover from their transplant surgery. After three or four days, I'll move them back into the light and if the grafts have taken well, remove the orange grafting clips. When I see new leaf growth at the top, I'll cut off the old root stem and cut down the bare top of the rootstock. Once the plants are trimmed, the 'new' plant will consist of the leafy top that you see growing to the left, and the vigorous rootstock, which is the right hand stem.

The graft in close-up. There's a full description of how to perform a tomato graft at http://secret-garden-club.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/how-to-graft-your-own-tomatoes-for.html. It's not technically difficult, just a bit fiddly. These plants are rather larger than you would normally graft - ideal for the ham-fisted like me.

Win £100-worth of toys with Make Time To Play

The months ahead offer the chance to (finally) get the children outdoors. The people behind Make Time To Play, a free app which gives active play ideas for kids of all ages, are encouraging parents to get their children outdoors with a £100 competition. 

Make Time To Play is looking for suggestions on the best play ideas for the garden or the local park. What activities do the kids get up to on their very own green, green grass of home? Trees can be hiding posts or outdoor houses, flowers add a wonderful splash of colour and the lawn acts as a lush green stage just waiting to play host to a wide range of fun filled activities!

Tell Make Time To Play what your children's most inventive garden play activity is at https://www.facebook.com/maketime2play and be in with the chance of winning £100 worth of toys, thanks to Bandai, Hornby and Golden Bear. Closing date is Friday 10 May and the competition is only open to UK residents - full competition details here.

The Make Time To Play app is well worth a look for any parent who dreads the question, "But what can I do now?" Their web page is at http://www.maketime2play.co.uk/ and they're also on Facebook.

Rhubarb - better late than never

Is this a record? Possibly the slowest forcing rhubarb in the country?

The buckets went over the rhubarb, to exclude all light and to force the nascent stalks into early growth, way back in January. Today, after weeks of obsessive checking, the stems were finally long enough to cut and eat. In The Independent, Lily Vanilli says "the first lovely pink crop of forced rhubarb has been and gone". Not on my allotment it hasn't.

As well as the darkness, which makes the stems grow long and slim in search of light, covering the rhubarb and packing it with straw also makes it warmer inside its insulated bucket, aiding early growth. In most years, anyway.

This year, the prolonged cold has evidently stopped any growth, just as the suddenly warmer weather this week has set the stalks off. I certainly hadn't imagined it would take three months to harvest any forced rhubarb - usually by mid-April we've started on the 'normally' raised main stems.

It was worth the wait though. Rather than go the whole hog with a crumble or fool, I poached the stems in a light syrup infused with half a vanilla pod and a couple of cardamoms, and served with creme fraiche (vanilla ice cream for the nipper).

The joy of fartichokes

I am regularly asked what vegetable I would recommend growing to someone who is just starting a kitchen garden. I'm sure they expect me to say potatoes, or radishes, or runner beans. Usually I suggest Jerusalem artichokes. They are in so many ways the perfect vegetable. (And in one crucial respect, not so perfect.)

They are virtually indestructible. Apart from a little slug damage when the new shoots appear in April, they appear to attract no pests.

They are perennial so they come back year after year. You'll get bigger and better tubers if you dig up the remaining artichokes in spring and replant just the biggest ones, but it makes them very economical; buy once, replant infinitely.

At the end of the season in March, dig up your remaining tubers and
choose the biggest to replant for next year.

You can grow them in the same spot each year. You don't have to integrate them into a rotation plan and prepare a bed for them every year.

The tubers can be harvested from autumn throughout the winter into early spring, so a long-lived crop and one that is producing for you at a time of year when little else is growing.

The plants are tall and if you choose the position of your Jerusalem artichoke bed with care, they can act as a windbreak for more tender crops.

The artichokes are highly versatile in the kitchen. You can roast them under a Sunday joint like potatoes, or roast along with other rot vegetables. They make a delicious gratin Dauphinoise, substituting thinly sliced artichokes for the potatoes. You can make Jerusalem artichoke fritters, you can mash them, you can eat them raw, shaved thinly into salads. They make a beautiful creamy puree that can be used as a base for soups.

But they do divide people. I think you either love them or loathe them. And whichever side you're on, you can't deny the one thing that puts many people off Jerusalem artichokes. They make you fart. Each tuber, whether raw or cooked (and funnily enough, I think the effects are less explosive after eating raw artichokes) contains a carbohydrate called inulin, which gives you wind. Not for nothing are they usually known as 'fartichokes' in the Zia maison.

Jerusalem artichokes take a fair bit of washing and peeling. After you've
peeled the skins, put the tubers in water with a little lemon juice
squeezed into it to stop the bright white flesh from discolouring. 

So while I have no inhibitions about serving Jerusalem artichokes to supper guests - after all, they will leave at the end of the evening and do their farting in the comfort of their own home (and so will you) - I would advise not serving them at the starting of a camping weekend, say.

Not to be confused with ...
Globe artichokes
Note that the Jerusalem artichokes pictured here are quite distinct from globe artichokes, the giant round buds which we eat, spiky leaf-bud by spiky leaf-bud, until you reach the nutty heart in the centre. Despite the fact that both plants are called artichokes, they are not related. Globe artichokes belong to the same family botanically as thistles; Jerusalem artichokes are related to sunflowers. Quite how they both ended up being commonly called artichokes isn't 100% clear: it's thought that the Jerusalem artichoke is a corruption of girasole, the Italian word for sunflower.

Chinese artichokes
Unrelated botanically to either Jerusalem or globe artichokes, the Chinese artichoke, or Stachys affinis, looks like a smaller, skinnier, paler version of a Jerusalem artichoke tuber. Actually, I think they look like fat cartoon caterpillars, but don't let that put you off.

Like Jerusalem artichokes, the tubers can be planted in spring. They are then harvested from late summer onwards, and again, keep some healthy tubers aside at the end of the season for replanting for the next year's crop.

The taste of these is not dissimilar to Jerusalem artichoke and they can be cooked the same way or in stir-fries, or served raw like a salad vegetable.

Recipe
Jerusalem artichoke gratin
5-6 good-sized Jerusalem artichokes

1 tbsp chopped parsley

100ml double cream

Butter (about 25g in total)
Walnut oil (to finish off)

Salt

Pepper

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Have a large bowl of cold water mixed with a little lemon juice standing by you. Scrub the Jerusalem artichokes and peel them, putting each artichoke  in the bowl of water once peeled to stop them from going brown.

Then slice the artichokes into rounds as finely as possible. Arrange the slices neatly and evenly in layers in a shallow gratin dish. After each layer, season with a little salt and pepper and a smear of butter.

Once you’ve placed the final layer of artichoke slices, sprinkle with the chopped parsley, then pour over the cream. Top with a knob of butter and a last pinch of salt and pepper. 

Cover the dish with foil and bake in the oven for 20 mins. Remove the foil and put back the in oven uncovered for another 10-15 mins to brown the top. Drizzle over a little walnut oil when you serve.

Serves 2

Open house at Seeds Of Italy

Just a small selection from the Franchi Sementi range, which numbers
over 500 different seed varieties in total.

Seeds of Italy held an open day at the weekend at premises in Harrow. It was a chance to see, under one roof, the full range of seeds from Franchi Sementi, which Seeds of Italy distributes in the UK, plus its ancillary products - preserving jars, soaps, packet seasonings and tomato presses. It was indeed the horticultural equivalent of being a kid in a sweetshop.

With a friendly welcome and coffee and biscuits it was also a chance to chat about growing produce in the UK with the immensely knowledgeable and infinitely enthusiastic Paolo Arrigo, head of Seeds Of Italy and author of From Seed To Plate, which is one of my favourite cookbooks.

Paolo was keen to talk about provenance on Saturday - how the parent company, which has been run by the Franchi family since 1783, carefully sources its seeds, how the Italians treat the locality of its produce with the utmost seriousness, how the produce specific to each region is used together. Much of the seed sold in the UK these days, Paolo says, is bought in from China, with little attention paid to its suitability for our climate. In contrast, looking at - for example - the courgette varieties offered by Franchi, I can see Zucchino Bolognese (from Bologna), Zucchino Genovese (from Genoa), Zucchino Fiorentino (from Florence) and Zucchino Nero di Milano (the black courgette of Milan!). You don't get different British counties extolling the provenance of their parsnips, although a few regional varieties live on in the names - Kelvedon Wonder peas, for instance. Interestingly, as Paolo points out, we're better at protecting the local heritage of our fruit: think of all the different apple varieties and where they come from.

And compared to China, Italy is much closer to the UK in terms of growing conditions, Paolo explains. We may think of Italy as mainly Mediterranean, and hot, but 74% of the country is mountainous and the southern tip and Sicily aside, it gets very cold in winter.

I can believe it. I've always bought as much of my seed from Seeds Of Italy as possible, because 1) the quantities of seed in each packet is always generous, 2) the varieties offered are always interesting and frequently different to those on sale in the shops here. Lots of different - and very local - courgettes and squashes, for instance, from the deliciously sweet and nutty Berrettina Piacentina pumpkins to the round stuffing courgette Tondo di Nizza. It was also Seeds of Italy that introduced me to the pink and white striped beetroot from Chioggia, which I know is now available more widely but which was quite surprise find 10 years ago. 3) I always get good results from Franchi Seeds: near 100% germination and healthy plants. Lastly, and definitely not least, is this idea of provenance, of knowing where the seed is from and where it has been saved. The blurb that comes with Seeds Of Italy packets online is always knowledgeable and specific (in contrast, amusingly, to the sowing instructions, which are decidedly cryptic!).

After a delicious couple of hours browsing, I left happy, clutching a number of seed packets, including some Puntarelle - that crunchy Roman salad leaf, a variety of chicory, which I now discover originally hails from Catalonia rather than Italy, even though it's now so strongly associated with Rome. I'll plant this along with the other chicories I grow, the round radicchio and elongated red Rossa di Treviso, and look forward to winter salads next year.

When Paolo Arrigo isn't extolling the virtues of locally
raised Italian seeds, he rescues and restores
accordions in his spare time. This beautiful accordion
is around 80 years old and sounds as good as new.

Confessions of a basil addict

I have a confession to make: I think I must be a basil addict. Every year I seem to add another variety of  basil to the pots and troughs on various windowsills throughout the house.

It started, as I suppose these things do, with the apparently harmless classic Italian basil, packaged in a deceptively friendly-looking envelope from Seeds of Italy. At first this seemed more than enough: this is the aromatic, fleshy-leaved variety, the same as the fresh basil sold growing in the pot in supermarkets. Even if I wasn't cooking with it at any given moment, it was still a pleasure just to brush one's hands across the leaves for a rush of heady aroma.

But when it came to seed buying the next year, I wanted more. Lemon basil, with a citrus overlay to the distinctive clove fragrance, seemed to fit the bill, and produced tall, willowy plants which wafted scent around the kitchen every time I opened the door to let in breeze. The year after that I was looking for a warmer basil aroma again and found cinnamon basil, with gentle spice notes which contrasted with the sharper lemon variety.

By the time I discovered how easy it was to grow Thai basil (pictured above) and how wonderful it was to liberally apply its leaves to curries and indeed any coconut-based dishes, I knew I was hooked. Holy basil came next, and now, this year, I've come full circle back to Seeds of Italy and its Neapolitan large-leaved basil - a variety with leaves as big as lettuce, I'm promised. Will that be enough to satisfy my basil-lust?

I've also flirted with Greek basil (small pointy leaves), lime basil, purple basil (beautiful but duller in flavour) and holy red basil (which was identical to holy green basil until I transplanted it outside and only then did the leaves turn truly red).

Now is the right time to start thinking about sowing basil, with the days getting longer and the light levels rising, and since I'm not about to give basil up any time soon, what other varieties should I try?