Q-R

Rocket ‘Dragons Tongue’ is a distinctive wild rocket variety with striking purple-red leaf veins which contrast beautifully with the dark green leaf. It is the essence of a lightly flavoured rocket – honeyed, grassy and only lightly peppery. It is something a bit little bit different for the salad bowl.

GIOVE, the Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element are the satellites that test technology in orbit for the Galileo positioning system, while Rocket ‘Giove’ is a new wild rocket variety that has been bred for flavour. Bolt-resistant, hardy with a distinctive flavour, I am sure Galileo would have approved of this new variety.

Relatively unknown to our shores, Rocket ‘Olive Leaf’ is an excellent selection of the traditional Italian olive leaf wild rocket. With a beautiful light green colour and smooth shape similar to an olive leaf, this perennial form has a distinctive aroma and flavour that is more subtle than the usual wild rockets.

Rocket 'Sorrento' is a reliable main season variety with distinct thick leaf and strongly erect plant habit. A little slower to mature with good field holding ability for summer and autumn crops, the plants are more upright, and bolting is slower than with standard wild rocket. Use as a baby leaf in salad mixes, it will ‘cut and come again’ two to three times.

This trendy Wasabi Rocket actually has the punchy flavour of Wasabi - a Japanese vegetable much like horseradish. It can be picked from microleaf, babyleaf or a larger rocket sized leaf. Easy to grow and packs a full flavoured punch with the unusual flavour of wasabi. .

Root Parsley Hamburg is an off-beat, dual purpose vegetable that deserves to be better known. The root can be left in the ground all winter and dug up as and when your Sunday roast requires and the luxury of having plenty of leaves to snip from the garden in winter can’t be overstated.

Rosemary can be used for ornamental, culinary and medicinal purposes. The aromatic, evergreen shrub, native to the dry hills of southern Europe and North Africa, can be grown as a clipped hedge, along the edge of a retaining wall, pruned and shaped as topiaries and as a container patio plant.