Salad days
As we start to feel the pinch, it’s good to know there are crops that will come good again and again, says Toby
WHEN Environment Secretary Thérèse Coffey said that Brits should fight supermarket food shortages by eating more turnips, I was cock-a-hoop. After all, who doesn’t love a gin and tonic with a slice of turnip?
What’s caused the shelves to be empty (again) is a topic of hot debate. The government blames bad weather. Food importers point to post-Brexit import regulations turning the UK into a red-tape wrapped ‘marginal’ market. Whatever the truth, the why is out of our hands. But what we can grow to fill the gaps is filled with possibilities – for summer, at least.
Lacking a Mediterranean climate, year-round tomatoes, cucumbers and lemons will always be a stretch. But otherwise expensive-to-buy leafy rocket, spinach and oriental greens are easily within our grasp.
My favourite way of growing these salads is in raised beds or planters made from timber crates by the kitchen door. Seeds are sown cheek-by-jowl (1in/2.5cm apart) in blocks, and crops are harvested with kitchen scissors when they are a few inches tall. If cut above the lowest pair of buds, they happily ‘cutand-come-again’ three (even four) times.
When they run out of steam, simply clear and sow more. But as summer progresses, spinach, rocket and salads such as ‘Lollo Rosso’ require a shady spot, as the seeds don’t sprout in temperatures much above 18°C.
Come September, the strategy changes: I sow winter lettuce and leaves in the greenhouse or borders as single plants covered (when temperatures drop) with cloches. The plants soon bulk up to a decent size, and by harvesting only the outer leaves, the centres keep producing right through the winter.
Potatoes deserve a mention here,
too. But there is another root that’s even more reliable, requires less space and is ready to harvest just eight weeks after sowing. Even its leaves are edible, and lovely when wilted (Italian style) into pasta.
Turnips sown little and often through the summer are an easy crop and have a lovely nutty flavour when roasted or fried. And unlike cucumbers and lemons, they’ll always be there should the Environment Secretary call in for a G&T!
“What we grow is full of possibilities”