Grow Your Own Food; The Unusual Suspects

When I tell people that I grow my own food most of them seem to think that I grow rows and rows of leeks, spuds and cabbages in my kitchen garden. I don't. What's the point? Firstly I don't need to grow food to feed an army or an orphanage stuffed to the gills with hungry kids, and secondly I don't even like leeks, spuds and cabbages all that much to grow them in vast quantities. For me the potager is there to grow quality food that is tasty, pretty to look at and either not available in the shops or not even half as tasty  bought than grown by my own fair hands.

This is a spud, a purple one, that I'm growing this year in my potager and I'm growing it for 2 reasons: 1. you cannot buy these potatoes (Blue Congo) anywhere and 2. I've extended my potager by removing an humongous hedge and spuds are very good to losen up the earth when you garden on concrete heavy clay. And although I'm not that much of a spud eater (how very un-Dutch of me) I am rather partial to new spuds and when they come in my favorite colour, well, bonus!

What I am very partial to are radishes and that's what these are. They are called rat's tail radishes, for obvious reasons and they come highly recommended by yours truly as they taste just as radish-y as ordinary ones but more juicy. Also, you get more value for your money as an ordinary radish plant produces only 1 radish but the rat radish produces around 30 to 40 per plant as it's the seedheads you eat, not the root. Not bad, eh?And this is my favorite way to eat radishes:

Take a slice of wholewheat bread, butter it, decorate with radishes in frightfully artistic way, sprinkle with sea salt. Happy munching! Also good with goat's cheese with radishes on top. Yum!

The fun of growing your own food for me is not just in the sowing, the growing, the harvesting and the eating but also in the experimenting to my heart's content with the often wonderfully weird & whacky varieties of vegs, herbs, spuds and fruit that are available.

These are the beets I'm growing this year. Why grow the ordinary red ones when you can have these? Can't wait to serve them to my dinner guests in a few months time, the look on their widdle faces alone will be worth the effort. Yellow beets? And white ones and o, look these have concentric circles in red and white.

As children we are told not to play with our food, but take it from me, gentle reader, playing with food is fun. Startling your friends and relatives with purple spuds, yellow beets, green rat tail's radishes, edible flowers and drinkable roses is a hoot!

Cavolo nero is worth growing for its beauty alone. Stunning, innit?

Some of the unusual suspects I grow in my potager are cavolo nero, sorrel (see pic above), tomatillo's, artichokes, chard (unusual in Dutchland), red lamb's lettuce, olive tomatoes, Jerusalem fartichokes, fat marrow peas (not available fresh in the shops), gooseberries (not to be had for love nor money over here), tasty purple taters, tropaeolum tuberosum and much, much more. But how about you, what unusual suspects are lurking in your veg garden, plot or potager? One enquiring gardener loves to know!

Tropaeolum tuberosum, family of nasturtiums, produces pretty flowers and edible roots

copyright 2011 Y.E.W. Heuzen