Strangely Gardening
How to treat artichokes:
Should be planted in well-manured ground. Remove tough parts of outer scale. Boil for 45 minutes in salted water. Drain well. I chop garlic into very small pieces and brown in the melted butter which you then put into little dishes for dipping in. Remove leaves with fingers and scrape with teeth. When you get to the bottom the scales are purple. Peel these off and you will find the hairy choke [the flower stamens], remove by scooping out with a spoon. Now comes you reward for eating rather like a pig - The wonderful, ambrosial artichoke bottom. Having a table napkins and finger bowls handy is rather posh;
How to cook broad beans:
The other unpopular vegetable that is an acquired taste must be picked when very young, [about 4inches long], they will not taste bitter and have a nutty flavour. Salt and boil little beans for 10 minutes. They are easy to grow and are the best vegetables for freezing. If you serve the beans with ham or bacon, lots of parsley and mashed potatoes [creamed with sour cream], you will wonder why you hid them in your hankie when broad beans were served to you by your mother.
Some of the attractive vegetables that may be introduced into the ornamental gardens are more universally liked. I have seen a photograph of a wonderful garden that used the purple red lettuce as a border around the rose garden. This means there is no trimming the box hedges and the lettuce only needs replanting [always a pleasant task] every year. It would need plenty of water, of course. We once planted sweet corn, in our town garden, between a row of Italian cypress trees. It happened that a television crew came to film the garden when the tall plants were showing their golden brown tassels. The garden guru raved on about this wonderful planting. I had only put them there because there was no other space in our smallish, over planted [again] town garden! One year I used mushroom compost in the same garden. How great it was to pick the mushrooms that sprouted all through the gardens and use them in my cooking. Another exotic looking vegetable that may be planted wherever you please, is the common runner bean. I have seen a variety whose pods are the richest red-purple that would make
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