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A big, sturdy, handsome plant forming clumps of purple-tinged leaves with vivid crimson midribs that glow in sunshine. The taste is rich and earthy – like a cross between beetroot and spinach. Pick leaves young and eat raw for a colourful salad ingredient or cook leaves and midribs separately as a dual-purpose side vegetable. The midribs make a tasty (and colourful) substitute for celery in cooking.

• Growing Instructions: In spring make a drill 2cm deep and sow seeds about 20cm apart. Cover lightly with soil and water in. Seeds can produce multiple seedlings, so thin to leave one plant to mature at each spot. Leaf beet can also be grown in containers: sow direct into the compost allowing about four seeds to a 45cm pot.
  
  
• Sow: March-June
  
  
• Harvest: June onwards