I have always loved colanders and as you can see have them in every colour, shape and size I can find. They are the perfect utensil for harvesting from my raised beds and the allotment. From now on I will be making regular forays out into the garden or allotment, with colanders, spades, herb scissors and handforks, ready to bring in harvests of whatever is plentiful. And of course, there will be cooking or preparing and eating…
In mid-February I began to harvest from the raised bed. Lambs lettuce or corn salad (Valleriana locusta) was the first harvest. I have grown this regularly since I first came across it in salads on summer holidays in France where it is called mâche. At this time of year it is so fresh and makes a good salad on its own or mixed with other leaves. I picked two or three plants, washed them and served them with my herby omelette.
One or two plants made a sweet-tasting salad.
The seed was from Kings Seeds (www.kingsseeds.com) and is the large leaf form. It can be sown any time of year but mine was sown in late summer and has over-wintered in one of the raised beds.
A small colander with a small, but perfect herb harvest.
In one of my little colanders I made my first small herb harvest of the seasons. I picked chervil (Anthriscus cerefolium), one of my all-time favourite herbs for salads and omelettes; some early spikes of chives (Allium schoenoprasum) and a few garlic or Chinese chive (A. tuberosum) leaves. Finely chopped, they were the perfect flavouring for a light omelette.
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