Even such a cold start to May could not contain the spring rush to seed of the over-wintered crops, so the purple sprouting broccoli and spring greens have gone under the plough. This will be the last week for leeks and cauliflower; for once I will be sad to see them go. I never tire of leeks but could cauliflower reclaim our affections and become the new beetroot? Perhaps it is just that the extreme cold of January and February claimed so many that there weren’t enough left to tire of. You will not see another in your box until the autumn.
As the wild garlic from the woods runs to seed and gets shaded out by the trees above coming into leaf, we have started harvesting wet garlic from our fields. Bulbs were divided into cloves and planted out last November. If left to mature, by the end of June, each would swell to form a bulb which could be dried and stored. We don’t have the best climate for drying garlic so, ever since encountering it in an Andalucian market 15 years ago and being told it would make a “bueno tortilla”, I have been a fan of wet, or immature garlic. It makes its first appearance in the boxes this week; it resembles a small leek but if you crush a leaf the smell is a giveaway. Wet garlic has a milder flavour (somewhere between a salad onion and normal dried garlic) and can be eaten raw, sliced finely into salads, sprinkled over a stir-fry just before serving or used in a marinade or dressing. Wet garlic can also replace mature, dry garlic in your cooking but is best added later on and in larger quantities. Use the whole thing: immature bulb, shank, leaves and all.
News from France
Our French lettuces grew so well that they have all been cut and eaten before the first of the home crop is ready; testimony to all that Vendéean sunshine. Unfortunately our celery has joined the carrots as the second casualty crop by responding to the hardship of a cold wet spring by prematurely running to seed. This week we will be starting to pick turnips, kohlrabi and the first of the courgettes.
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