Jerusalem artichokes. Bleah. If I ever see another Jerusalem artichoke it will be too soon. Unfortunately, I see a lot of them. They leer at me from their growing colony in the refrigerator. I've roast them, I've souped them, I've shredded them. My family has suffered digestive consequences. No one will touch them now, no matter what I do to sneak them into curries or roasts.

We've been trying to eat as Nature intended: seasonally. Every Friday we pick up a vegetable box and munch our way through it for the week. It's working out pretty well, though I will confess I cheat sometimes with the odd pack of peppers or tomatoes. Don't tell.

It's been an education. As one of those wasteful Americans you read so much about, I confess to having very little clue of what naturally grew when, apart from strawberries and corn on the cob, because we used to pick strawberries in June and then eagerly await the corn days of late summer.

I've enjoyed learning about the rotation of summer salads to autumn harvest bounty, followed by those stalwart winter veg, the broccolis and cabbages and dark leafy greens. It's nice getting everything really fresh and local, and I enjoy cooking reactively – that is, thinking of ways to use what you've got, rather than shovelling the same five choices into your supermarket trolley for those same five meals you know how to make.

Reacting to what's available really tests your creativity. You think, right, what recipes call for 17 onions? Got a bit of a backlog here. Who knew an onion tart was so delicious?

Not everything works out well, though. Like the Jerusalem artichokes. At first we were excited to try something new. But after week six of accumulating the stubby little tubers, unparalleled in the vegetable kingdom for producing flatulence, we know why they're not more popular.

Swede is another one. We have three Swedes, one the size of my head. What do you do? Throw a Swede dinner party? Roast an entire Swede and carve it like a chicken? Spear cubes on cocktail sticks?

There's nothing for it, you just have to Use It Up. You put everyday culinary excitement aside. You do the best you can with what you've got.

Right now is a make-or-break time for faddy or faint-hearted veg-box users. It's the end of the winter season, and everyone is bored to death of cabbage. We are staring wild-eyed at things flown in from Kenya.

Seasonal eaters, stay strong! This is a question of moral and not just digestive fibre. The recession and the melting ice caps are messages that global consumers are way too spoiled. We need to improve our Use It Up mindset.

Jerusalem artichokes don't come from Jerusalem, by the way. It is thought the word is a bastardisation of the Italian "girasole", or sunflower. Though there is a case to be made for word "correggiare", to, um, make air….