IT TASTES good, it’s nutritious, it’s easy to grow and you can harvest it more or less all year round. So why isn’t skirret better known?

The answer, I suspect, lies in the transition from one mode of production to another: skirret (Sium sisarum) is a vegetable well suited to gardeners growing for their own use. But it doesn’t lend itself to capitalist agriculture, which requires, amongst other factors, uniformity of product and a decent shelf-life. Skirret doesn’t keep well, doesn’t travel well, is of unpredictable size, shape and quality, and it’s fiddly to clean before cooking.

The potato, on the other hand, fitted into the industrial revolution like a jigsaw piece, meeting the needs of busy, hungry, dispossessed proletarians and of the landowners. Potatoes are easy to market and to use. As a result, many of our traditionally popular root crops disappeared, at least until the allotment movement.

Sugar root, or crummock, to cite two of skirret’s historic names, makes a green, leafy plant about five or six feet (1.5-2m) tall. It doesn’t take up much ground, reaching only around 18 inches (46cm) in spread. A hardy herbaceous perennial, it’s a relative of carrot and parsley, as becomes obvious as soon as you see the lacy spikes of summer flowers.

Incidentally, another advantage of this plant is that flowering doesn’t have any effect on the crop, so there’s no need to remove the blooms which are very attractive to hoverflies and other insects.

The edible part is the bundle of finger-thick roots just below the soil. Eaten raw or cooked, in both sweet and savoury dishes, they have a texture something like potatoes, and a flavour reminiscent of carrot or parsnip — but much sweeter. They cook much faster than parsnip or potato, and one of the favourite ways of eating them is to parboil for a few minutes and then fry briefly in butter.

There are several places online offering young skirret plants for sale, at around £6 to £8. Much cheaper, of course, is seed, which is widely available online. It can be sown in September or in spring, either directly into the soil or into pots or trays. Unlike many of its close relatives skirret isn’t disturbed at all by being transplanted. Propagation from existing plants is very simple, by detaching and replanting the offsets that are produced each spring.

One thing this vegetable is a bit fussy about is soil. For the biggest crop, and roots of useable size, it needs moist, rich, deep ground. Dig in plenty of compost before planting, and give skirret a mulch of compost or leafmould every autumn or spring.

Water heavily in dry spells, to keep the roots from getting woody. It’s a good idea to tie skirret to a stake as it grows, otherwise it will flop everywhere. The usual harvest time for skirret is after frost has killed the greenery in autumn, but in fact established plants can be lifted for eating at any time.