On Sunday, I posted about my discovery of fennel as a cut-and-come-again vegetable.What do I mean? Well I guess I have two ways of defining this. One definition is veg that you can harvest as a whole but that you only harvest in part by taking parts of the plant when you want, leaving most of the plant in the ground to gather more later.Then I guess there is another way to define cut-and-come-again. Plants that, if you harvest in the right way by leaving their roots in the ground, they will come again.
I don't do a Top 5 very often, but the post about fennel got me thinking about cut-and-come-again vegetables and how handy they are.
In no particular order here are my Top 5 cut-and-come-again veg.
1. Lettuce
Lettuce is a great cut and come again. While you cant take all of the leaves at once, selectively picking off leaves from a number of plants at one gives you enough for a salad bowl without harvesting the whole plant.
2. BroccoliA classic cut-and-come-again. Once you have harvested that central head, the sprouts keep coming. And they are such a handy size - no need to cut the side shoots up before cooking.
3. Celery
Celery is probably one of those plants that you can both harvest individual stalks and also cut the plant off at the base. I personally haven't cut it off at the base and had it re-sprout, but City garden, country garden has and attests to it and I will try it out myself.
4. Spring onions
I tend to pull my spring onions, as you can see from this picture, but many I know cut the onion at the base allowing it to re-sprout. I am going to try this to keep the crop going in future. Another version of getting the most from your spring onions is to buy them in the shops but plant them in the garden straight away. My mother and brother do this regularly they tell me. It keeps the onions nice and taught - preferable to them going limp and slimy in the bottom of your crisper!
5. Fennel
I accidentally discovered that fennel was a cut-and-come-again. Read about it here.
I guess there is another definition of cut and come again vegetables - they might be the ones you can 'bandicoot'. Bandicoots are cute Australian mammals that can raid your root vegetables. So in Australia we call raiding your potato crop by grubbing around with your hand and taking a few potatoes only without ripping the whole plant up - 'bandicooting'.
Which vegetables do you use as a cut-and-come-again? What's your Top 5. Which vegetables do you 'bandicoot'?
Suburban Tomato and The New Good Life do great and regular Top 5 which I read each week. Pop over to theirs.
Great list, who know about the fennel. I agree with all of them (though I'll have to trust you on the fennel). I would add all the herbs and silverbeet/spinach.
ReplyDeleteOh, of course! Herbs, silverbeet/spinach and rocket... oh there are lots of them. The fennel really does work, I am in my third cycle of fennel.
DeleteI do love a cut and come again vegetable, particularly lettuce. I would add perpetual spinach, although it fits in with the silverbeet/spinach suggestion from Barbara, and artichokes, and kale, and sorrel.. hmm I do seem to be going on. I bandicoot potatoes, but I don't know what else you could do that with - perhaps jerusalem artichokes?
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I have realised there are lots of these types of plants!
DeleteI think one of the great differences between garden grown vegetables and commercially grown ones is this ability to select varieties of things that yield over a long time. It's almost like a hugely varied pantry just sitting there, available for whatever you want to cook. When I think about it, I have very few garden crops that are single crop - only carrots, beets, onions are garlic really, that I can think of offhand. Most things in my garden bear over at least a few months. At the moment I'm picking celery, wild rocket (aragula), lettuce, amaranth, kale, silver beet, asparagus, artichokes, spring onions, perennial leeks, chinese cabbage, snow peas, peas, broccoli. I'm just starting to get the first of the trombochino, button squash, cherry tomatoes, perennial capsicums, and chilis for the new season, and the french beans aren't far off. Plus a big range of almost effortless herbs - parsley, chives, garlic chives, dill, coriander, tarragon, ginger, turmeric, galangal, lemon grass, vietnamese mint, oregano, thyme, marjoram, rosemary, sage....I would hate to have to think what I wanted out of all this lot as I wheeled a shopping trolley around. So nice to just have it on hand.
ReplyDeleteWow, that is some pickings!
DeleteWell I dont think there's anything I can add to the already long list of cut and come veggies. Myself I just love the different varieties of lettuce you can grow for a great mixed salad,a quick walk around the patch with a pair of sissors , mizuna,rocket,baby spinach,red/green oak leaf,a couple of spring onions,parsley and lemon thyme!!
ReplyDeleteOur own mixed leaves! it's very nice isn't it, without the bag...
DeleteI've never had much success with spring onions as cut and come again but perhaps I've just tried at the wrong time of year. My latest attempt has yielded flower shoots but not much else. I do bandicoot sweet potatoes. I think anything you eat the leaves of can usually be a cut and come again crop. What I would like though is a cut and come again cauliflower - now that would be nice.
ReplyDeleteCut and come again cauli would be fantastic!
DeleteLinda and others have already mentioned the ones that work best for me as 'cut and come again' (or perennial veggies) but I'll list my five favourites. Rocket, silverbeet, lettuce, err, and rocket and silverbeet?? I could include artichokes but I'm ashamed to say, though I've grown them for a couple of years, I've yet to use them. They sound so fiddly to prepare and cook I've just not had the time to experiment. Is there anyone out there who could inspire me with a simple recipe to do that, please?
ReplyDeleteI frequently make atrichoke risotto when I get overwhelmed by artichokes... I feel a blog post coming on :)
DeleteYep Beck, I think you are the artichoke queen. We NEED a blog from you on the artichoke!
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