Salad Days

Why it is better to grow your own…

Summer is here and I am thoroughly enjoying my home-grown salad leaves and rocket.

In the supermarket you can expect to pay a pound or more for a small bag of rocket and anything up to £2 for a lettuce – and just to let you into a little secret, I think the home-grown salad tastes much better. I also know that it has not been sprayed with any chemicals, so it feels much better for me as well.

Growing your own food is an excellent way to save money. A packet of seeds costs anything from 99p to £1.99 and you get a lot of salad from one packet! This year I inherited a lot of seeds from family, so it has worked out even cheaper.

Salads have a long season. I usually start sowing my summer leaves in trays in early spring and putting them in my little plastic greenhouse, so they are ready to plant out when the soil is warm enough - this year, I waited a while!

I then keep sowing them either in trays or direct into the ground every couple of weeks, to ensure a constant supply.

In August/September I sow some Winter Crop lettuce and protect them through the winter under cloches. They are ready to harvest in March/April and it is very rewarding to have something to pick at that time of year.

A couple of years ago I grew some wild rocket. This lasted two years (which was a bit of a surprise) and I only had to pull it up at the end of last year, as it had flea beetle and I also wanted to move the beds around.

Of course salads are also a favourite crop of the slugs and snails. I try to protect mine with a combination of used filter coffee granules - which I dry and then sprinkle around the plants - sage and organic slug pellets. Regular checks of your plants are also a good idea.

I have seen my fellow allotmenteers try all kinds of contraptions, including planting lettuces in a long plastic pot on metal poles with the copper strips wound around the top of them. The only way the slugs and snails are getting to his lettuces is if they can parachute in!

I mentioned flea beetle earlier, which is a pest that can attack your rocket and brassicas. This year I have planted catnip with them, as this is a companion plant that is supposed to deter this pest and so far it has been very successful.

Radishes, beans and carrots are also good companion plants for lettuces, but they do not like to be grown with celery, cabbage, cress or parsley.

In this hot weather salad is the perfect dish – easy to prepare and eat. I have been adding in my little carrots as I thin them, which have a delicious sweet flavour.

You can make all kinds of dressings to go with you salad; here is a recipe for one of my favourites:

Garlic & Herb Dressing

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
• 1-2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• Pinch of sea salt and black pepper
• 2 tablespoons fresh herbs or 2 teaspoons dried herbs (e.g. basil, oregano or thyme)
• About 1.5 cups extra virgin olive oil

Method

Combine all ingredients except olive oil in a jar. Stir well with a fork.

Add olive oil, cover tightly, and shake well until combined. You can also use a blender and drizzle the oil in slowly while it is running.

Serve (this will also last in the fridge for at least a week or so)

Getting Busy With the Fizzy

‘Elderflower Champagne, Cordial and Jam are great!’

Summer was rather late arriving this year, which meant the elderflowers were also delayed. However, once they did start to flower, they did so in earnest and it has been a bumper year – or at least it has in East Anglia.

The Elder is referred to as a tree, but is a member of the Honeysuckle family, so it is actually a fast-growing, tall shrub. It is not very prepossessing in the winter months and you may not even notice it. However, when it comes to flower in early summer, the lovely haze of white flowers should catch your attention. Elder can be found in hedgerows, on waste ground, farms, alongside paths and roads.

The Elder has had rather a mixed press through history. On the positive side, it is said to possess magical properties with fairies making their instruments from branches. Whilst some of you may raise your eyebrow quizzically at this suggestion, the branches are certainly easily bored out to make top notch pea shooters, and whistles etc and this has earned the elder its alternative names of the ‘pipe tree’ or ‘bore tree’. The flowers are very good in skin and eye treatments and the leaves can be used in bunches around the home and livestock – e.g. attached to horses’ bridles - to keep flies away.

However, the elder has also been seen as nature’s bad boy. The leaves and berries (if eaten raw) are poisonous, but the root – pardon the pun – of this evil reputation is from the belief that Judas hanged himself from the elder after betraying Christ. It was also widely believed that if you burnt elder on the fire that you would see the devil, which is likely to be have been caused by the slight issue that Elder releases cyanide when it is burning – a problem which may have killed a number of Dark Age peasants in their homes!

But to me the elder is all about the wonderful things I can make from its flowers in early summer and its berries in the autumn. Usually you expect to be foraging for elderflowers from early June through to July (though I start to keep an eye out for them from late May if it has been a mild winter).

Ideally you want to pick them when they are milky white, as this is when the flavour is at its best, rather than when they are a darker cream colour and smelling more strongly (with a slight hint of cats pee – not a great flavouring!)

This year I am celebrating the fact that after two years of bad batches, I have finally produced a rather delectable Elderflower champagne!

I took a good look at my method for making elderflower champagne to see what the possible problems were. First of all, as a jam maker, I naturally reached for the preserving pan.  However, metal is probably not the material to use in this process. I am now using enormous two litre glass jars, but a sterilised plastic bucket is suggested in many recipes. When I made my first batch it was suggested that the ideal yeast to use would be champagne yeast – makes sense when making champagne! However, my brother has made several batches of very nice elderflower champagne using ordinary yeast, so I went with that.

There are a number of recipes around, but I tend to use the River Cottage one, though I have also found a ‘knocks your socks off version’ which I might have to try.

Whichever recipe you try, you need to shake the elderflower heads gently to remove any bugs; don’t wash them as this removes the rather wonderful fragrance and flavour. As with all foraging, be careful where you pick.  You don’t want to be collecting from trees along the roadside or other potential contaminates. Also, please don’t pick all the flowers, as obviously the flowers will become the berries and we will need these later in the year!

A final word of warning about elderflower champagne is that it can be rather volatile. I use fizzy drinks plastic bottles (washed and sterilised), I don’t fill them to the top and I release the pressure slightly every couple of days by twisting the lid.

You can also make a rather lovely elderflower cordial – a favourite of my Mum and Dad. Obviously you can use this to make a squash, but personally I like to use it as syrup and pour it over vanilla ice cream.

It is worth making a lot of the cordial, but you will need to freeze it as it only lasts about six weeks. I make a large batch so that I can then use it in making gooseberry and elderflower jam, gooseberry and elderflower ice cream, or just to ensure that the folks have a good supply of it, to keep me in their good books.

You can also try making elderflower fritters, though not sure if these are genuinely nice, or if it is a case of anything tastes good wrapped in batter. Anyway here is a recipe for you to try:

Elderflower Fritters

• 4 tbsps flour
• 1 egg
• 1.5 cups of water
• Elderflower heads (retain short stalks for dipping)
• Oil
• Fresh mint
• Sugar for dusting
• 1 lemon

1.  Make the batter using the flour, egg and water

2.  Hold the flower head by the stalk and dip into the batter

3.  Shake of any excess batter, then plunge into hot oil and deep-fry until golden brown.

4.  Trim off the excess stalk and serve with some sugar, mint and lemon

Good luck with all your elderflower creations – let me know how you get on!