This week’s Small Share (week two) has purple sprouting broccoli, asparagus kale, salad leaves, pea shoots, chard and parsley.
Pea shoots are delicious raw or can be treated a bit like spinach. They really do taste like peas.
When processing the salad leaves I wear disposable, bio-degradeable gloves. I briefly dunk all the leaves in cold water then spin in a salad spinner. This helps keep the salad leaves fresh in the fridge, they still need to be washed before eating. A good tip for keeping any leafy veg fresh is to put a small amount of water in the bag with them and seal.
The chard has been growing over the Winter and there are some really big leaves. The whole leaf and stalk can be eaten. There is no need to remove the stems, they aren’t stringy and cook really well in soup, stews, curry etc. I try not to give customers things which can’t be eaten, for example broccoli leaves are good as a cabbage substitute and beetroot leaves are delicious in soup. Chard is great in curries as a spinach substitute. My favourite website for a veggie curry recipe is www.vegrecipesofindia.com. Some of the recipes have ingredients which might be hard to source on the Isle of Skye, but google can always suggest a substitute!
The weather’s been most obliging this week, more of that please! I made good headway with the potatoes and onions. Last year we grew all the spuds in two big ploughed areas. The first earlies didn’t do too well so this year I’ve put them in raised beds with plenty of seaweed. I’m planting a selection of other potatoes as well – Charlotte because they are usually very reliable, Belle de Fontenay because it sounds so fancy and Arran Victory because they make the worlds best roasties. I’ve still got some to plant and they will be going in a ploughed area so fingers crossed the slugs have found something else to chomp on.
The Polycrub planting is progressing, it’s seriously warm in there. I’ve started acclimatising the tomatoes in advance of planting them much to the relief of my long suffering family. For the past month the tomatoes have been in a caravan during the day and sat in the bath overnight! Early broad beans have been planted in the Polycrub, I’ve tried to usher a few bees in there to aid with pollination.
Next week I’ll be continuing with potato planting, sugar snaps in the Polycrub, maybe tomatoes and dwarf French beans. If we are plunged back into Winter the tomatoes will be back in the bath!