Ready For Roasting!

Like comedians, vegetables can do with a good roasting.

- Alice Spencer-Higgs

It makes them sweeter and more nutritious, and it’s a quick and easy way to serve up something special. One of the challenges of a veggie patch is persuading the rest of the family to eat your harvest with your enthusiasm. Kids are more likely to be won over by crunchy roasted carrots or cauliflower, while discerning palettes can be satisfied with olives, spices, herbs, a drizzled balsamic reduction or a tahini sauce added to the roast veggies.

Five best summer vegetables for roasting

1 Sweet bell peppers are best sown in seed trays and transplanted when plants are big enough to handle. Pinch the growing tips when sweet peppers are 15cm high, as bushy plants produce more fruit. Water daily in the heat of summer but make sure the soil drains well – mulching will keep the soil cooler. Fertilise with a liquid or granular fertiliser for flowers and fruit (high potassium) when plants start to flower. Fertilise again after two months or with each flush of flowers. Allow fruit to turn yellow or red for the sweetest flavour.