TOP & FLOP CRAPS

HEIRLOOM TOMATOES:

In November a clutch of self-sown tomato seedlings sprouted in the unlikeliest of places, right in the middle of our driveway. I took pity and potted them up, though I didn’t expect these freebies to ever amount to much. They certainly took their sweet time to start cropping, with the first fruit not forming until March, but in late April I was chuffed to pick these ribbed fruit (above) – and solve the mystery of where they came from. I buy heirloom ‘Oxheart’ tomatoes from the Curious Croppers at the Clevedon Farmers Market and must have dropped one out of the boot of my car.

‘CARDINAL’ CHARD:

Hiding grated zucchini or beetroot in cakes and cookies is an age-old parenting trick to sneak nutrition past picky tastebuds. My sons get suspicious if they spot anything green in their favourite meals – no basil on their margherita pizza, thanks, or chopped parsley in their mac ‘n‘ cheese.

There’s no chance either of my boys would willingly eat silverbeet or its pretty multicoloured cousin Swiss chard, either, which is a shame because this winter I’ve grown a beautiful crop of the red-stemmed variety ‘Cardinal’. This is an improved disease-resistant chard with dark green, crinkly leaves and ruby red stalks that the Kings Seeds catalogue suggests can be cooked like asparagus.

Or, strip all the foliage off those bright red stalks and chop them into a simmering pot of spaghetti bolognaise. As I watched my kids shovel it down, let me tell you that I felt as triumphant as a Masterchef champion!

PARSNIPS:

Parsnips germinate best from fresh seed, so every year I leave a few plants to run to seed and resow themselves. Last year, I thought I’d pulled off a parsnip coup when a crop of self-sown seedlings popped up in the rich, warm soil of my impromptu compost heap. (When I say “compost heap”, what I really mean is the big pile of composting weeds and other green waste that I was meaning to shovel up and deal to properly a year ago, but haven’t got around to yet.)

Unfortunately, while I now have plenty of parsnips, I need plenty of them to make a meal. They’re scrawny and a devil to peel. KŪMARA:

So many plants, and so few tubers. I’m going to stick to growing ku¯ mara vines as handsome houseplants and simply buy a bag of sweet potatoes when I want to actually eat them. FRISÉE LETTUCE:

I might have had more luck convincing my family to eat frilly endive had I not tried to pass it off as a fancy lettuce. Even the baby leaves taste quite bitter in a salad, and that sharpness comes as a shock to unprepared palates. I hope the chooks like it, at least, because I’m pulling it out to sow perennial wild rocket in its place. BUTTER BEANS:

When my sweet peas finished last summer, I bought two punnets of climbing butter beans for their obelisk. The seedlings turned out to be mislabelled dwarf butter beans and, out of sight and out of mind, I forgot to pick any. Oh well, I did at least harvest enough lumpy pods to fill a jar with dried beans to add to vegetable soup. ✤