The taste of summer starting

Now that we have reached the end of May we must be safe from frost. My first tomatoes are out along with courgettes and frisee salad. The mixed leaves I put in earlier are keeping us fed with salads along with rocket and coriander.

This month I've also had my free harvest of elderflowers from the tree in the back garden. My son and I made elderflowers cordial for the second year, modifying last year's recipe which we though too sweet and lemony. So this year we made a litre of sugary water and left 25 heads of flowers in it overnight along with two sliced lemons. In fact busy life intervened and they steeped for two nights but the cordial when diluted still tastes good. We don't bother with acetic acid which should prolong the drink's life. In our house it doesn't hang around long and is our taste of early summer.

Bean picking

Broad beans are an unloved vegetable. Try getting a child to eat one of those leathery grey things which taste bitter and take more chewing that anyone can bear from a bean. Certainly the ones in the supermarket are the size of a pound coin and and just as solid. But, grow them yourself and a whole new experience is at hand.

On Friday I picked my first batch of the season. I planted the seeds in

November and the plants came up pretty fast. Then, through the winter they made the veg patch at least look productive. I pinched out the tops once to encourage them to bush out. During the spring they have shot up a few feet and have now started producing pods. They didn't get greenfly which is sometimes the case. Somehow these older plants just don't

seem tasty to an aphid.

To be tasty for a human, the trick is not to let them get too big. Inside the pods I picked on Friday were maybe eight to ten beans but most of them were half the size

of the ones you might find in the shops. I blanched them quickly and ate them with mozarella, baby tomatoes and basil with a good dressing.

If the worst happens and you leave them too late - and even the

most thorough picker will miss the odd one - you can boil and peel the beans which is a bit more laborious but makes them much more tasty. Or, don't eat them at all - save them to plant next year.