Salsify (by sarah)
The salsify are beginning to seed! When in flower they are a lovely purple dandilion type flower that only seems to open in the morning. Their name is supposed to be the corruption of the latin for 'follows the sun' I dont know if that is true but it sounds fesible. Anyway we like the to eat the roots which are tasty - basically thanks to the constriction of British tastes with all the rationing and stuff.
Unfortunatly the roots are only tender enough to eat the first year and becuase they have tended to seed themselves its not obvious which ones are old roots and which are new. Some of the roots are huge and ancient and as tough as old nials - I run on the supersition that if I cant get the knife to cut the roots easily from the roots then they are old tough ones that need discarding.
Now this plant is also could purple goats beard and the oster plant (as the root is supposed to taste like oster I dont think so as I dont like osters but I like this plant!). The seed heads are giant brown fluffy dandilion clocks - this is what I have been haversting.
The reason? Why not let them seed themselves?
We are fed up with digging up the old nails! Therefore we pull all the plants this year after they finish seeding and sow the seed ourselves insuring that we have all new plants and therefore yummy tender roots for us to consume. I am also sure that we are going to have far to many seeds - so if anyone whats them they are 50p for hundred seeds whilst stocks last! (erm p&p extra but hopefully you'll be visiting us! or we'll be visiting you!).
Even if you dont want to eat it its a lovely plant - with pretty purple flowers 🙂 Bring on the purple!!!! Also these plants were rare in the 70's so probably still are - I havent checked mind! Now these are cultivated plants not wild ones we've dug up or anything so we are not depriving the wild but if people like this type of old English rareness then this is the way to go. (this isnt ment to be a sales pitch I just love my veggies!)
Fri 23rd Jun 2006 9:37 pm 
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