FLAVOUR

Since moving to Yorkshire I've had increased awareness for the flavour of the crops I'm growing. Perhaps it's down to experience and the fact we're now eating more homegrown produce than from my London allotment, exposing us to more tastes.

A great way of testing the flavour of crops is to grow a comparison trial yourself of a few different cultivars each year. Mixing it from crop to crop, so over the years you build up a good knowledge base. I found this the only way to be sure because too often people recommend a cultivar and, when you grow it yourself, it's not as described... I'm looking at you cucamelon and beetroot 'Chioggia'. Never again for those two. 

This year I focussed on tomatoes, salad leaves and microgreens. Yellow 'Clou' tomatoes with their early ripening, abundant sweet fruit, are similar in flavour to 'Sun Gold' and further confirm my suspicion that yellow tomatoes are better than the traditional red. Having said that, 'Pink Bumble' is a red striped tomato good for sal…