I love leaf crops. Whether it’s lettuce, rocket or chard, their fast growth and ease of cultivation makes them some of the best options for newbie growers. But if it’s something more exciting you’re after, here are a few suggestions for unusual, flavourful greens that straddle the boundary between vegetable and herb.
Cima di rapa
Perhaps the fastest-growing of all the big leafy greens are cima di rapa from Italy. Despite their recent arrival on fancy Soho restaurant menus and the eye-watering prices they sell for at farmers’ markets, in reality they are just the leaves of a variety of turnip selected for its tender, buttery greens. They have a great mineral, grown-up bitterness (nothing like turnips) and mature just four weeks after sowing.
Garlic chives
These are a flat-leaved Asian relative of the chive which, unlike its European cousin, is not sprinkled sparingly atop dishes as a raw herb, but cooked up in great handfuls as a staple vegetable. They have a far longer season, too, kicking out great harvests of much more substantial leaves, with a sweet, comforting flavour and deliciously slippery bite.
Once sown they are perennial, forming clumps that, in my garden, provide me with leaves for nine months of the year. The sum total of my care for them? A weeding a couple of times a year and a watering in dry spells.
Nasturtiums
The leaves and flowers of this popular, easy-to-grow, ornamental plant are famously edible, with a uniquely peppery flavour. However, what many non-geeks may not know is that their brilliant orange flowers are also one of nature’s richest sources of lutein, a carotene pigment believed to help prevent age-related vision loss caused by macular degeneration. Boasting way more of the good stuff than even other excellent lutein sources like kiwi, sweetcorn and kale, the flowers are amazing both raw and cooked, with heat greatly improving the absorption of this key phytonutrient.
Sorrel
The bright, lemony flavour of sorrel is provided by oxalic acid, the same stuff that gives rhubarb its mouth-watering tang. Once a common ingredient in British cuisine, the leaves have largely disappeared from our diets, despite still being much loved from France to the Baltic. Unlike many leafy crops they’ll grow well even in shade and are perennial, too. Once established, the only care they’ll need to have is their flowers nipped out once or twice a year to keep their energies focussed on leaf growth & a good drench in dry weather. High time for a revival!
Email James at james.wong@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @Botanygeek
