RICH PICKINGS IN THE FRUIT AND VEG PATCH

This summer in the UK, certainly here on the Pennine Mountains in the North, has been disappointing (putting it politely).  Things have taken so long to grow, flower, fruit, and for some gardeners nothing much has happened at all.  I'm not here to talk about the failures in my garden this year but of the successes.  I love to go out and pick at things that I grow and, after a quick rinse with cold water, eat them straight off.  No putting in a meal, no waiting, no messing, just gone!  Imagine, all those vitamins.   I've been doing this with the cut and come again lettuce, with the pea shoots, with the Italian parsley (ever eaten parsley raw?  It's wonderful and full of iron).  I've been picking at the Alpine strawberries, and making herb teas from the applemint, the lemon thyme, the lemon verbena, the lemon balm (I like lemon).  All are grown in pots on the top patio of my small garden.  Even people with only a balcony can do this.  Try it.  You'll see.





Alpine strawberries growing in a pot

These little Alpine strawberries, above, tend to hide among the leaves.  The perennial plant is full of flowers and I grow it in a pot, with gravel around the stems, and the pot is placed on top of another upside-down pot to keep the hanging fruit away from the ground and slugs.  If you haven't eaten Alpine strawberries you may not know that that have a delightful perfumed taste about them.  They really are lovely.  Very small and great to pop in breakfast cereals. 

Green salad of lettuce, Italian parsley, and pea shoots

I love to eat the small Soleil F1 courgettes raw.  Just pick 'em and eat 'em.  They are crunchy and fresh tasting.

Courgette Soleil F1 Hybrid

Cut and Come Again lettuce grown in a 12" black plastic pot

I'm eating the small tomatoes from Tumbling Tom and Losetto like sweets.  They pop when I bite them and are so sweet and lovely.  They just never taste the same in a supermarket.  My tomatoes are grown outdoors in a large terracotta pot (on another upturned pot to keep them off the ground), fed with Phostrogen and I never see a sign of blight or problems.

Tumbling Tom tomatoes

Italian flat leaf parsley is great to eat raw.  I just pick off the leaves and wolf them.  They have a strong taste which I cannot quite describe.  It has a sweetness yet a bitterness at the same time.  Confusing.  Parsley is full of goodness but after years of growing the curly kind, I have realised that I like the flat leaf parsley so much more. 



Nutritional value of flat leaf parsley (Nutrition-and-You.com) external link

Italian parsley