Grow a rainbow

There are so many seeds out there that it can be hard to choose what to go for (though picking your seeds at a garden centre is half the fun of gardening). I tend to opt for things that are either easy and plentiful to grow (radishes, peas, lettuce, tomatoes), expensive to buy (sorrel, rocket, asparagus, herbs) or hard to get hold of in the shops (anything weird and wonderful). The latter category contains numerous things I’d never heard of until I got into gardening – and is also a good way of getting kids into growing their own produce because the end result is so different from anything you can buy in the supermarket.  Here are just a few of the options:

• Purple carrots
• Purple sprouts
• Purple cauliflower
• Purple tomatillos (also known as husk tomatoes or green tomatoes, these are used in Mexican cooking, particularly salsas. They’re a member of the tomato family but taste much sharper and have a meatier texture. They have a husk that needs to be removed before eating, much as physallis, and are sweetest when they’re small)
• Purple beans (turn green when cooked)
• Purple spring onions
• Purple, orange and red chillis (on the same plant)
• Purple, orange and red chard (ditto – see pic)
• Rainbow radishes (red, orange, purple and white from the same plant)
• Stripey tomatoes (which taste incredibly sweet and are *so* worth growing)
• Black cherry tomatoes
• Yellow strawberries
• Yellow beans
• Lemon cucumbers (looks like a lemon, tastes like a sweeter cucumber)

OK, it might be a bit gimmicky but I enjoy being able to put a new and unexpected ingredient into salad (of the tasty variety rather than an errant slug) and it’s a good way to get kids to eat vegetables, or at least give them a go.