Don't let the tasty '˜wonky' go to waste

Some vegetable crops have already matured and are safely stored.
Cucumber Burpless Tasty Green growing in a circle.Cucumber Burpless Tasty Green growing in a circle.
Cucumber Burpless Tasty Green growing in a circle.

The early soft fruits have been good, and so-called tree or top-types are showing promise. Those under glass have already started to deliver treats for the table and it’s shaping up for a bumper year.

Any excess can be stored or preserved, and the wish should be to avoid waste at all costs because they take time and patience to grow.

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The current choice of vegetables here includes potatoes in three varieties, onions, courgettes, beetroot, spinach, corn on the cob, lettuce, tomatoes and assorted herbs. The first runner beans will come on line this week, and more importantly, the leeks, cabbages, sprouts, and broccoli, which bring choice in autumn and winter, are growing on nicely.

It’s frustrating when you find a plump, ripe strawberry that’s been pecked by a blackbird or holed by a slug. It’s tempting to salvage what you can to avoid waste.

Why discard a potato of decent size just because it has a patch of scab? This is a superficial condition resolved by the stroke of a knife as you remove the peel.

Much harder to bear is the discarding of perfectly good fruit and vegetables on a massive commercial scale just because they are the wrong shape. No wonder there’s a move afoot to beat the drum for ‘wonky fruits and vegetables’.

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This is something they’ve been doing at local flower shows since Adam was a lad. Any half decent children’s section has a class for ‘most unusually shaped vegetable or fruit’.

When gardening friends David and Anne sent the image of a cucumber growing in a circle, rather than long and straight, it occurred to me that there will be other oddities out there.

Let’s celebrate our culturally misshapen efforts. Strange in appearance yes, but just as tasty to eat.