How is the 52-week salad challenge going for you? Two weeks in, and it’s going pretty darn well for me, thank you very much.
Week 2
As the frosts are finally here, I’ve been busily and happily preparing greens indoors rather than gathering cold and stiff leaves from the balcony. These are the microgreens that I recommended in last week’s post.
I sowed my first batch of perilla, or shiso greens, two weeks ago. They took five days to germinate, and then once they were up, sprang up within a few days to produce their first pair of true leaves. This is the stage you want to harvest your microveg, when the taste is an intense hit of the adult plant.
And what an intense hit shiso greens give you. Crikey.
I served these to some unsuspecting friends I’d invited round for supper last night. My husband refused to eat them, citing their pungent scent, but the others were more polite, and gobbled them up. Shiso has a really strong aniseed taste, with a gentle warmth to it as well. One of the boys at the table said it had a slight coriander hint to it as well. Either way, they were a fab taste hit, a clever garnish, and a neat talking point.
This week I sowed:
Peas for pea shoots, beetroot “Bull’s Blood” and mustard.
Don’t forget to follow others taking part in the salad challenge on twitter using the hashtag #saladchat. And if you don’t have your own blog but want to write a post about your own experience of the challenge, then use our Your Blogs section.
10% off at Victoriana Nurseries
Anyone visiting Victoriana from F&F will automatically get a discount on their order. Click the link above.
Image a day
Vanessa
Your close up pics are beautiful; I’m inspired to comment because I have wanted an excuse to grow perilla but suspect from the description that it might not be to either or both of my or my better half’s taste. Microgreens (much as I like to point and giggle when a TV chef enthuses about them) are a genius solution, we can try it out without sacrificing a lot of time or space if it doesn’t turn out to be the start of a beautiful friendship. Bang goes that gap in my seed box…
F&F
Glad you like it Vanessa – please do pop back here and let me know how you get on.