LEAF BEET.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 279, 7 July 1888, Page 6

LEAF BEET.

Writing to us from Crosby, Waimate, Canterbury, Mr W. H. Beckett says :—: — " Some fifteen years ago, a friend from the South of France gave me some seed of a vogetable he called « Blette,' which I grew in the old country up to the time of my leaving, -some two years ago. I brought some pesd out with me, and have collected a considerable quantity of eeed. 1 send you by this post a small packet of it. If you think it would be of any use to any of your friends or subscribers, I shall be pleased to send you a larger quantity. It makes two distinct dishes : the leaves when cooked, are very similar to spinach, the stalks like sea kale. The former grows to 12 to 18 iaches long, and 8 inches broad to larger, the Btalks two to three inches wide, and perfectly white, it is 'a most productive plant. You pull the outside leaves (as you do rhubarb) when large enough, leaving the plant to grow. In cooking you cut the green off the stain and cook separately." Our correspondent evidently refers to a variety of leaf-beet (Btta cicla), with which we are well acquainted, although we have not known it by the French name he quotas*. The kind of leaf-beet which we have cultivated is generally called silver leaf- beet, and it is a most useful vegetable >\ Inch has not attracted from colonial gardeners the attention it deserves. It is a biennial pla it and is said to be a native of the western seacoasts of Spain and Portugal, as no doubt it is also of the South of France. We found it a hardy and productive vegetable when grown in the Auckland district, and far more -satisfactory than any variety of spinach usually grown. It is cultivated more for the leaf stalks than foi the green part of the lea\ es, althougn the latter, as we have said, makes a delicious spinach. The stalks or midribs of the leaves should be boiled and served up in the same way as seakale or asparagus is sent to the tablet W» find, on consulting a horticultural authority, that there are live varieties of leaf-beet. The green or common leaf-beet ; h© white or silver haf-beet ; the yellow - stalked leaf-beet ; the red stalked leaf-beet ; •nd the curled leaf-beet. The last mentioned kind hare curled leaves like those of as avoy, with broad white midribs, but the kind beet worth growing is the silver beet. The seed of this vegetable requires Steeping before being sown, like all seeds of the beet tribe. It may be sown either in spring or autumn, in drills about 18 inches apart, the seed being covered about 1J inches deep. Any fairly rich, well worked soil will grow silver beet. As the plants beconce large enough they should be thinned out in the drills so as to leave them from 9 to 12 inches apart. In rich ground they will want plenty of room. Plenty of water in dry weather must be given to keep the leaves succulent for table use. In gathering, the outside leaves are cut, and the supply is quickly renewed from the fresh ones thrown out from the heart. If Mr Beckett should kindly, as he offers, send us a supply of seed, we shall be happy to give some of it to any subscriber calling at the office of this paper. The packet already sent has come safely to hand.