Beets, roots and leaves

I have found beetroot fairly easy to grow. Particularly nice is that you can use the young leaves in a salad or instead of spinach. They seem pretty immune to pests, which is another good attribute. They're a bit bland on the dinner table, but Moog's favourite recipe is for me to pan-fry them in balsamic vinegar and olive oil and serve with crumbled Roquefort cheese.

I have just spent an hour or so pickling the last of my crop. I am left with astonishing purple fingernails as a result. I also have four jars of pickled beetroot. Looking at them, I realised that this probably represents more pickled beetroot than I have ever eaten in my life to date. So, another vegetable creeps onto the 'not going to grow that next year' list.

Mike's Wisdom Shed: Tip No.2

"If you want to cheat, get a second hand rotavator! Get some parsnips in for the winter, try cylinder beetroot instead of the round kind, they are awesome!

You need two kinds of peas, early & maincrop. "Little Marvel" best early ones, Kelvedon wonder, best main. Germinating peas will be eaten by birds if you don't use twigs & black cotton to deter them. Hope you get a chance to try, it's very satisfying!"

Moog thinks it would be nice to grow bonios, but he doesn't really understand where these things come from.