For a stand of beautiful leeks, now is the time to sow maincrop varieties. Throughout winter, they’ll be ready to lift and use for soups, stews, pies, flans or delicious leeks in cheese sauce. I’ve never been fussy about food and even as a child, ate pretty much everything I was given. Looking back, the veg I disliked all contained some degree of oxalic acid. When I was a baby, Mum was spoon-feeding me spinach puree and thought it was going down pretty well until she found herself covered in an explosion of green gunk. I didn’t eat spinach, beetroot or rhubarb until I was about 40 and even nowoxalates. The reason we consider rhubarb leaves poisonous is because they have a greater concentration of oxalic acid. The best season for enjoying rhubarb is from March to July, not just because plants are sometimes drought-stricken and the stems turn coarse, but they contain a higher concentrate of oxalates in late summer.
