Garden cooking
Seed sense
Manka Hanbury Tenison
,s1 saPPose, given perfect conditions and the L'erfect summer, that it might be possible to wew Peanuts, 'plate-sized broccoli' and 'the radish that thinks it's a carrot' with a measLire of success, but I am becoming cautious sceptical about the claims of some seed 'erchants in this year's catalogues. ti Thompson and Morgan started, some b'hilte ago, giving their seed catalogue a lift, 114 now they have gone so exotic that it is h4td to find some plain, common or garden as or beans in amongst the plethora of illtew sensations' they have to offer, I find it tia.rd to believe, for instance, that their 'New 1111814n' peppers are really going to grow to b e IoUrteen-inch length of the one held up
Ate man in their picture; and! wonder if!
really have any more success with the snew' Chinese cabbage than I did with the feeds we tried last year which were a total v.9ther seed merchants too are jumping on suts wagon with their ‘chitted' seeds and routing salad vegetables, but I was relreved to see that Suttons, on the whole, have „etaained sensible in their catalogue and vvantinue to provide good value for money. 111,Iest marks of all, however, should
perhaps go to Carters who, instead of producing expensive catalogues and packaging, have spent their money on a large promotion aimed at informing the amateur gardener which seeds to sow where and how to grow them.
Once you have struggled through the 'exotic', 'new' and 'sensational' seeds on offer this year and compared prices between one seed merchant and another (shopping around makes good sense because the price of seeds can form quite a considerable outlay) don't be put off by some of the more unusual vegetables. Sugar or mange tout peas are well worth growing. They are reasonably hardy, grow just like peas and are eaten whole, pods and all, when they are young and tender. Try sowing a row of asparagus peas too: they produce pods like the seeds of lupins and though they are messy to eat (you suck them through your teeth and then discard the fibres) if you serve them with melted butter they do taste extraordinarily like asparagus.
Chervil is a particularly useful herb because it goes on growing throughout the year, providing a good alternative to parsley during the winter months. The taste of chervil is very subtle indeed and one of my most popular soups this winter is made from leeks, potato and chervil, You can now also get seeds of the real French tarragon which goes so well with chicken, fish and egg dishes; plant lovage to screen your greenhouse from the sun, and coriander to give flavour to curries, tomato and fish dishes (dry the seeds and chop the leaves).
The list of lettuces is even more confusing than usual this year but, whichever seeds you choose, do sow a good variety, not too many at a time, and sow them regularly so that you have a good choice of lettuces throughout the summer. The best salads of all are those made of a combination of lettuces (cabbage, cos, endive etc) and don't overlook the delicious lamb's lettuce with its small dark green leaves and distinctive taste. This has kept us going (together with some lettuces grown in a cold greenhouse) throughout the winter months.
So many different vegetables can now be grown by the small gardener that the quality of the soil is often of great importance. I was delighted to hear that PBI of Britannica House, Waltham Cross, Herts., have succeeded in finding a chemical for recycling lawn cuttings and turning them into useful compost for the garden. Lawn cuttings have always been a problem and unless you were highly scientific with your compost heap they tended to be more trouble than they were worth. With this BioRecycler product from 13131 you merely tip the cuttings into a pit, sprinkle over some topsoil and the chemical, and the result is a compost that does not smell or attract flies and which, in the autumn, will be ready for use in the 'garden.
There are plenty of books to help you 'grow it yourself: one I particularly liked is Grow it and Cook it by Denis Wood and Kate Crosby which contains some fairly technical stuff but also a lot of good sense, covering every fruit and vegetable you are likely to want to produce yourself. In the cookery section Kate Crosby tells you how to prepare all the vegetables and has some good soup recipes including potage savoyard.
This is made with half-pound celeriac, peeled and diced; one medium onion; one large potato; two to three leeks; one ounce of butter; salt and pepper; half-pint chicken stock; half-pint milk.
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