RARER VEGETABLES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 May 1938, Page 3

RARER VEGETABLES

REALLY WORTH GROWING. Celeriac can be used to flavour soups, or sliced for a salad. Some people like it as a relish with bread and butter and others prefer to cook it like turnips. Indeed, this vegetable is sometimes called turnip-rooted celery because it has an enlarged bulbous root. It needs no blanching. Sow in October to December and plant out when ready. Salsify is a very hardy vegetable and may be left in the ground till _ spring, just like parsnips. It may be cooked like parsnips or made into a stew. Its flavour is enough like that of oysters to justify its popular name, vegetable oyster. Seed should be sown in October an inch deep and the plants thinned to five inches.

Another vegetable not commonly grown in New Zealand gardens is curly or Scotch kale, sometimes catalogued as borecole. It is used for greens, and its special merit lies in the fact that it is not harmed by frost, being so hardy that it can often be dug out from under the snows of early winter: October is the time to sow the seeds, and the plants should be handled just like cabbage plants. The Chinese cabbage, catalogued as Be Tsai, is growing in favour. It may be eaten like lettuce or boiled for greens and it is excellent either way. If started too early the plants are likely to go to seed. The middle of December is early enough to sow the Chinese cabbage.