Leaf of last week: Cornet de Bordeaux

Not only is this one of the biggest leaves on our site at the moment but wow, what a mouthful of a name! It’s the escarole type of endive and I just had to resurrect ‘Leaf of the Week’ to show it to you.

It has been a hugely successful crop over the past winter and has continued to grow nicely over the last few weeks of unsettled weather. If you get the salad bags you should have no difficulty recognising it! This type of endive is less bitter than the other types.

Last week was the first day back harvesting on the sites. Now that British Summer Time has arrived (even if summer itself seems far off!), we are back to harvesting on a Tuesday. This means super long days which end in trailer loads of salad bags being cycled from our growing sites to Growing Communities’ HQ, ready to be packed into the veggie boxes the following day.

So long…for now…

So. My last week as an apprentice. My last ‘leaf of the week’ just written, even though there are loads more leaves to feed the feature for weeks to come (how I love the diversity of our salad bags!). But it’s time up. My six months of being an Apprentice Grower are over. A good growing season in which, as I hope my posts on this will testify, I’ve learnt a huge amount. I hope they’ve taught you something too.

And, what next? Well, first up, I’m taking a bit of a break for October. A trip or two away, while I ruminate on the next step on this growing path I’ve decided to go down. I should warn you that there are some exciting developments brewing…

So, maybe take a break too, but don’t go away entirely. Check this every now and again. This blog will continue to tell its growing tales…I’ll be back soon.

Bits and bobs on the wild side…

Every week the majority of leaves that go into the salad bags we pack are those that we grow in the main section of Allens Garden - the green oakleafs, the red oraches, cos, the lollo rossos etc. etc. All good leaves, sure, ones that you would find in any salad worth its salt. But it’s on the wild side that things get more interesting. In this section of Allens Garden we follow a more forest-garden approach. It’s not as managed as the other area and when you harvest you really feel like you are foraging. So, of course it means we spend a bit more time picking these leaves, lifting up other plants sometimes to get to them, but the taste that they bring to the salad makes it all worth while.

In a little bit of a departure from my usual blogging style, I thought I would share them all with you - something like a rogues gallery of ‘bits and bobs’, as Ru calls them, ‘the unsung heroes.’ Hope you enjoy!

First up is mint - one of the largest beds on the wild side, this plant has been producing since I arrived in April. Mint in salad is a must - makes it very fresh and surprising. You just pluck out the tender tips…

Next up is salad burnett. A delicate little string of leaves, with a very subtle taste and oh so pretty in your salad bowl…

Then come chives, featured last week as Leaf of the Week. Here they have already been cut back.


The next is a truly delicious leaf called saltbush. It is, as its name suggests, salty. It’s almost as if the leaves were finely dusted with salt.

Then there is buckle-leaf sorrel. This grows voraciously on our site, so needs constant cutting back, which is great for us and, if you like the sour taste, great for our salad eaters too. It’s good with a sweet dressing…

And here, looking nothing like the buckle-leaf variety above, is common sorrel. It does, however, share its taste…

This next one is marjoram, typically used in cooking, as a herb, but as you’ll know from my last couple of leaves, herbs get tossed into our salads too. We make sure we pick the young tender leaves.

And as grand finale, this is Ceylon spinach. I love it that this is spinach. It’s so succulent and it climbs! The leaves get pretty big, which is great because for a moment we thought they weren’t going to get a chance to grow at all - something, we think it might be fleas, rather liked the young plants. Now they are doing really well, climbing up and round the stakes we optimistically put in a few months back. Apparently they can get to 30 ft in their true habitat in Africa and southeast Asia. Now that would be something!

And in conclusion, here they all are together, picked and mixed up, ready to go into this week’s bags. All together they gave us just over a kilo of leaves. It might not seem so much out of a total of 10.8kgs. Yet, without these bits and bobs, the salad just wouldn’t be the same.

Weekly stats…
Grower: 1 | Apprentices: 2 | Volunteers: 4 | Support workers: 1 | Dog: 1

Harvested from the site…
Salad greens & edible flowers: 10.8kg | 2 punnets blackberries: 600g | Tomatoes: 24kg!! - yes, I know, it’s amazing! We thought the tomatos would peak last week but here we have a whole 6kg more! Those calabash toms are incredible!