Ancient Crops

Wormwood is best known as the primary ingredient in absinthe, but is also an exceptionally versatile herb. As well as being an attractive plant to look at, this ancient crop has been used for centuries as a moth repellent, general pesticide and as a spray to repel slugs and snails.

Chinatown's produce stands offer many items that make only fleeting seasonal appearances, often so brief that many chefs scarcely have time to figure out how to cook them properly before they disappear for another year. One example is water spinach, a common vegetable in Asian cuisine.

The legendary fragrant sweet violet: Viola odorata is often referred to as 'The King of Violets', with a beautiful fragrance and also several herbal uses. An excellent wild/woodland garden plant, it can be found near the edges of forests or in clearings.

Turkish Rocket is a robust, fast-growing plant and a great, herbaceous addition to permaculture projects, it is one of the most hardy and long-lived of all winter salad greens. It is blessedly simple to grow. Easy to raise, never needs weeding or watering and goes on for ever.

Thymus pulegoides has large, fleshy dark green, round leaves, known as Broad Leaf Thyme it is regarded by many as the ultimate culinary thyme. The aromatic leaves have a stronger flavour and are much easier to use than narrow leaved varieties. Very ornamental, it can be also be useful as a groundcover.

Thymus mastichina is a very special thyme with an intense flavour. Used in Andalucía to season and preserve olives, the leaves have eucalyptus like overtones and are prized for their essential oils. Distinct and intoxicating, the flowers are like fluffy snowballs and are attractive both fresh and dry.

Texsel Greens is an unusual vegetable that provides an incredibly tender, smooth-textured salads and sauté greens. Fast growing, it has become a popular choice for use as a cut and come again salad crop. The small delicious leaves have an excellent flavour, a mild combination of spinach and cabbage.

Sweet Cicely is an attractive plant that is a striking component of herb gardens and hedgerows. Growing to around 90cm, umbels of tiny white flowers appear from spring to early summer. Formerly a widely cultivated culinary herb, the fern-like leaves are deeply divided and smell of aniseed when crushed.

Artemisia annua, commonly called Sweet Annie is a graceful annual with tall stems with fine bright green ferny foliage. With sweetly fragrant foliage it has a wide variety of uses both medicinal and for handcrafting but is most often grown for fresh and dried arrangements.

The European woodland strawberry is the old fashioned wild strawberry that was once widely grown in gardens, prior to the introduction of commercial strawberry cultivars. Vigorous compact plants produce few runners and give a good yield of small, intensely sweet little berries.

Mexican Tree Spinach is the latest ‘new’ arrival on the veg-growing scene. A beautiful plant to have in the garden or allotment. Vivid pink tinged triangular bright green leaves with each new set of leaves blushed a shocking magenta.

A most attractive selection 'Red Veined' Sorrel is valued for its pointed and bright lime-green leaves with dark red veins, and because of its low-growing habit it makes a nice border plant or garden accent. It looks right at home in a flower border or container if you don't have space for a vegetable patch.

Patience sorrel ‘Volare’ is the mildest of all the sorrels. The leaves have a mild lemon flavour, less acidic with a taste and texture that is nearer to spinach than other sorrels. It is one of the first frost-tolerant greens to appear in early spring, so you will have something worth harvesting even before you plant your potatoes.

Buckler Leaf Sorrel, sometimes called 'True French Sorrel' is a superb salad crop. It has all the best qualities of common sorrel but is a much smaller, more compact plant. It has the same vibrant, lemony taste, but is less sour and it has a softer texture. Its distinct leaves are shaped like a shield.

Broad Leaf Sorrel is a delightful potherb and one of nature’s most special greens, with a tangy taste that can take your taste buds through a range of sensations. One of the earliest green crops, this hardy perennial can be harvested at baby leaf stage and is a great lettuce substitute in salads.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of traveling to countries such as Japan or China will appreciate the bewildering but totally delicious array of vegetables on offer there. No wonder the Japanese have no problem reaching their official recommended intake of not merely five, but 17 portions of fruit and veg per day!

Scorzonera is a root vegetable with an awkward name and an ugly appearance but with a delicious oyster-like flavour. ‘Duplex’ is a fine selection with long, truncated roots with a deep black skin. The root is considered to be finer textured, and remains so further into the winter. The plants can be also be grown for perennial greens.

Winter savory, the perennial savory has the same properties as its summer relative Summer savory, although it has a heavier aroma and a sharper pine type flavour. The small perennial shrubs are semi-evergreen, retaining their leaves in all but the coldest gardens and remain useful all year round.