IN the weeks to come, you may find yourself sitting by the fire with a glass of something relaxing, mulling over a few plant and seed catalogues, anticipating spring. It is one of my favourite winter activities. You may—as I will—have allowed yourself conveniently to forget the tedium (and the stench) of potato blight, various scabs and rots and the slug damage, and start to consider which varieties of potato to sink into the ground next Easter. This is exactly as it should be. That said, let me encourage you to take out a little edible insurance by also growing two other delicious South American tubers, both unaffected by the familiar potato pests and diseases.
I first grew yacón a dozen or more years ago and, although it has been cultivated in the Andes for centuries, I knew only a couple of people who grew it here. Thankfully, it is increasingly popular and hence more widely available. Above ground, yacón is all solid stems, a flurry of large furry leaves, and—in warm summers—small sunflowers; below, it grows two sets of tubers, one larger than the other. The larger tubers—similar to baking potatoes visually—are the main harvest. Lift them out of the ground before winter really hits and they taste like a cross between early apples, watermelon and celery, with a touch of pear. Allow them a day or two in the sun and the tubers become sweeter and the pear flavour more apparent.
Denne historien er fra December 01, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra December 01, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
