Edible But Beautiful

This is my courgette plant growing in the compost bin. It is a Czech variety called Wanda, which in addition to the large yellow flowers has sweet pale green fruit and beautiful variegated leaves. We can hardly keep up with plant's courgette production - my list of courgette recipes has had to expand a lot. It is hard to remember what this section of the garden looked like only a few months ago. In the corner of one of the beds I had erected a chicken-wire compost bin to cope with the green and brown material generated at the end of last year's harvest. My husband considered it ugly and he was right! The composting process had not finished by spring, so I removed the upright poles and covered the heap with a layer of multipurpose compost bought for 99p from Aldi. Into that I planted two courgette plants and boy did they love their unconventional bed. Soon the decorative courgette leaves had hidden everything. When the courgettes have finished fruiting, I will c

I sowed my scorzonera seeds last spring and the roots should have been ready to harvest in the autumn/winter. But as the roots were looking pretty small, I left them in the ground. I am glad I did. Scorzonera is a biennial/perennial and so flowers in the second year and what beautiful flowers they are. They rise on tall stalks above the leaves. I was wondering about leaving a few plants in the ground for next year, but the hot dry weather has put paid to that. The plants wilted horribly and so I have just dug up the long black roots, which are much thicker and ready for eating.  One tip on preparing the roots for eating - they produce a thick white glue-like substance when cut or peeled, so blanche them first, after this the black skin can just be scraped off easily.