They are delicious. Scrape them, cook them in slightly salted water til almost done (takes longer then carrots), drain them and then braise them in a little butter. Please try, before giving up.

There are purple podded mangetout peas. Maybe your green peas have dormant genes for purple pods.

About the 'laxative' problem, grated raw apple is supposed to help. Also serving mashed potatoes with the beetroot dish. About the storing problem. Last winter we stored some of our celeriac and beetroot in a hole in the ground with a lot of dead leaves on top and covered with a sheet of plywood. Th...

In old gardening books you often see that planting small shallots will result in big shallots, big ones will give many small ones. This year we tested it. Half a row of small ones, another half row of big ones. And the small shallots gave us more by weight than the big ones, and they were really big...

We like a salad of even parts of raw grated beetroot, carrot and apple, with lemon juice and honey. But our favourite is this salad with cooked beetroot: 100 g green lentils, cooked and cooled. 400 g beetroot, cooked, peeled and chopped. 1-2 mild onions, peeled and chopped. 1-2 apples, peeled and co...

We always grow at least one of the 'black' varieties as well as Gardener's Delight (the most important), and find that Bl Krim and Bl Russian are delicious, juicy and with a slightly different taste than GD. Bl Cherry tastes differently from the other 'blacks'. All the bl tomatoes tend to be very th...

I often use the sideshoots of tomatoes to make new plants, espec if I have started one or two in January (can't wait!). Or plants to grow outside, made from the early ones in the glasshouse. Last year I kept a plant, made from a very late overlooked sideshoot, alive all through the winter in a cool ...

Aji chillies can be hot or mild. Those I grow are called Friar's Hat, they are hanging, bellshaped, very mild and red when ripe. Very decorative and good eating, slightly different taste from ordinary mild peppers. Delicious!

Black Russian is almost as good as Black Krim, juicy and tasty, but the tomatoes are not quite so big. It is open-polinated, so you can save seeds.