Friends for dinner
Last weekend we had friends over to dinner and I served a saffron & seafood risotto, with a decorative side salad. 

I would be over-reaching myself to claim the seafood risotto was 'seasonal': while the dill and chives came from my garden, the saffron and mussels did not! 

Home grown salad
However, the salad was 100% home grown, and a fun experiment. The peppery rocket came from the vegetable garden, while the silene and mustard had been growing in large bags in the ruined greenhouse, where they'd enjoyed the cool nights and warm days. The yellow and red tomatoes were also home grown. I decorated the salad with violet basil, and blue borage flowers from the orchard, then dressed it with a balsamic vinegrette. Enjoy!

Rocket overload
During the summer I had a glut of rocket leaves several times, and used them to make a quick pesto. After the plants responded to successive chops and cooler conditions, they produce coarser and hotter leaves which are not as pleasant to eat in a salad. However they work nicely in this pesto recipe.
Ingredients
3 handfuls rocket leaves
3-5 sprigs aromatic basil
75g pine nuts
75g grated parmesan cheese
Good pinch of sea salt
75ml lightly flavoured olive oil

Method
Toast the pine nuts in a pre-heated hot oven (200 C, or 180 fan) for 4 minutes, keeping a close eye on them, until golden. Whip them and quickly remove from the tray to stop them browning and burning. In a food processor (or by hand, if you don't have one) whiz all the ingredients. Taste, and adjust seasoning as required. I don't add pepper to this, as these leaves are so peppery. 

Uses
Incorporate into freshly boiled pasta, or smear on a sheet of rolled puff pastry, top with tomatoes, pancetta, and chillies, and bake at 200 C (180 fan oven) for 20 minutes, for a quick supper. 
Blend in a food processor

A few days ago Mr. P raided the salad bags in the old ruined greenhouse, picked some of the tomatoes still ripening in our working greenhouse, and dipped into the veg patch, to create a quick 'risotto' with an unusual combination of flavours. I wondered whether I'd like it - and was happy to discover that I really did. I hope you enjoy it too.

Note: This recipe uses my Rocket Pesto. Timings are for an al dente texture, so cook for a few more minutes if you prefer a softer texture. It serves 4 for a main meal, or 3 hungry gardeners.

Ingredients
250g orzo 
1 Tbspn oil, 1 Tbspn butter
1 small onion
2 bay leaves
20g dried mushrooms 
Large bunch of silene
200g tomatoes
1 & 1/2 mushroom stockcubes, made into about 750ml stock
2 Tbspns Rocket Pesto
3 Tbspns ricotta
Grated parmesan

Method
1. Soak the mushrooms in hot stock for 10-20 minutes while you complete step #2. 
2. Dice then fry the onion in butter and oil over a medium heat until soft. 
3. Add the bay leaves and orzo, and stir for a minute to coat the orzo.
4. Add about half of the hot stock and all the mushrooms and cook for 3 minutes.
5. Add the tomatoes and cook for another 4 minutes.
6. Add the silene, stir several times to wilt, then add the pesto and ricotta.
7. Serve topped with grated parmesan and some salad leaves.

Kitchen Garden Kicks Off
This year's crops are in full swing in the new Kitchen Garden. Even the sweet peas are flowering, thanks to May's warm weather. 

Rocket rules... 
I began to harvest lettuce and rocket from mid March. Good crop but a mixed bag in terms of flavour. As ever, the rocket was great - hot, peppery, fierce, fantastic when compared to shop-bought. But lettuce was another matter. 


... but lettuce does not...
I don't think I'd sow "winter salad" mixes again - they contain too many brassicas for my liking. Nor would I sow Romaine lettuce "Bionda Lentissima a Montaire" again - it was too bitter for my taste. "All year round butterhead" lettuce cropped well from seed, and was tender, but pretty bland. Once I've cleared the ground of these crops, I'll sow red lettuces and chicory instead, and hope for better results. 

... so eat chard instead.
Chard has been a real success, though. I've grown several types, both Swiss Chard "Lucullus" and "Verde a Costa Bianca," and I'm already harvesting  young chard leaves. They're delicious braised in salty butter. These I would definitely grow again and again. 

Autumn sown broad beans 
I've been harvesting autumn-sown broad beans Aquadulce Claudia since mid May. This was the "final" year I was going to grow broad beans: I was so fed up with them being devoured by aphids. For the first time I tried the autumn sowing approach. From now on I'll always grow broad beans this way. 

(Sow them into individual pots under cover in the autumn; transplant late winter/early spring into the soil; chop off new growth in early May, once they've flowered and begun fruiting, to avoid attracting aphids; keep weed free throughout.)

Agretti
Now I'm harvesting Agretti (Salsola soda). All of my veg, this was the one I was most excited about growing this year. I first ate it last summer, at Worton Organic Garden, and loved it. It looks like floppy samphire, but tastes less salty.

Huge anticipation, bit of a let-down
My experimental attempt to sow it under cover last autumn failed completely. This spring I tried to sow it under cover and then plant out, and also to plant out direct. Of the two approaches, only the direct sowing worked. My harvest is good, but the flavour is hugely disappointing - it needs jazzing up with lemon and olive oil, but is still akin to crunchy grass.  Let's just say that Mr. P will not partake, and I'm not sure I'll bother growing it again. 

Next on the radar - the first strawberries (Frigaria ) - for which my mouth is already watering. Fingers crossed I manage to eat them before the pigeons, rabbits, chickens and slugs find them.

In the meantime, the sweet peas are coming on nicely, and the Oca, Yacon, Salsify, and Cardoons are in the ground. I've planted several squash on a heaving compost pile. Now I just need to find  some space for all of those Globe Artichokes... 

I love salad, rocket and watercress especially; but it's expensive to buy, and has usually been highly processed before purchase. Last season, though, my big success was rocket. I direct sowed it in succession, and we enjoyed lots of hot, firy rocket well into autumn.

This season I sowed winter lettuce, cress, and rocket under glass, in both seed trays and guttering, and then planted them out in March. They stayed in semi-stasis for a good few weeks, before suddenly bursting into growth in April. We've been eating all these leaves for 3-4 weeks now. 

But I rather over-estimated our capacity for salad consumption, and this past fortnight, I've certainly been feeling like I have to dutifully scoff large buckets of leaves at lunch and dinner. I've been giving it away to neighbours... but I finally accepted that enough was enough. The flea beetles have been beginning to make inroads, and, believe it or not, the rocket and the brassicas included in the winter lettuce mix have already begun bolting.

So I chopped down and thinned most of it, and am hoping for a second batch in a few weeks. Next time, though, I'll be a little less generous when I sprinkle the seed. After all, a girl cannot live on cress alone.