OVERLOOKED HARVESTS

• BY VALÉRIE LEVÉE

After you’ve taken good care of your radish seedlings, watched them grow into plants, and the tuberous roots have developed, your radishes are ready. It’s time to harvest them and throw the green parts into the compost. Whoa! Not so fast! Radish tops can be eaten in salad, made into pesto or fried up on the stovetop! You can even freeze them and take them out in winter to make soup. And if your radishes have gone to seed, you can always let them keep on growing, as the seed pods are edible and add a nice touch to salads.

Have your coriander (cilantro) and arugula plants flowered too quickly? Not to worry. You can eat the flowers. If you cut back your coriander, it’ll start growing again, which means you won’t have to plant new seeds. A vegetable garden yields far more than you imagine, as the leaves of bean, sweet potato and beetroot plants, as well as carrot tops, are all edible and available for use in culinary experiments!