Freshly-pulled beetroot

Another two first-time harvests this weekend, after five and a bit hours of shovelling five tons of shingle from the front drive to the very back of the garden.

First was broccoli on Friday night. You cut it off as individual florets, rather than taking off the whole head in one go as they do for the supermarkets. That way you encourage further growth down the stem. Only trouble was, we didn’t have any short knives to hand as I still haven’t unpacked everything yet (having not moved in). So, we had to take to it with the bread knife, which while effective, wasn’t as accurate as it could have been.

Anyhow, all-told it yielded 200 grams of edible florets, which we had for dinner with some more of the home-grown potatoes. Value? Not enormous. Sainsbury’s sells 300g of broccoli for 99p, so it was 66p all told, proving once again that home growing is more about enjoying what you’re doing and knowing where your food comes from than it is about money saving.

The beetroot, on the other hand, was far more profitable. We pulled four roots, each about the size of a tennis ball, and twisted off the leaves (you don’t cut them, or else they bleed). These totalled 600 grams, which with Ocado selling organic beetroot at £3.38 per kilo, roughly works out at £2.03. Already that’s more than the whole crop cost to grow, as we got 51 seedlings for £1.99, and around 30 of them were strong enough to make it into the patch.

They were delicious. We boiled them for just under two and a half hours, and then peeled off their skins and ate them while they were still luke warm.

I do need to find out how to make beetroot cake before the whole crop is pulled, though, as I promised Rich I’d make some. I’m also rather keen to try making borscht…

Our broccoli in the steamer