9 minute read
Growing your own
by Janice Marriott
Feed your body and soul by growing your own food
Advertisement
Iwas telling the story of Jack and the Beanstalk to a child. We had just planted beans in a circle and zucchini seeds in an outer ring. It was November last year. “Here’s Jack exchanging his cow for three bean seeds. Wow! His mother was angry! But wait. Those bean vines grew so strong that Jack could climb them to find treasure! Imagine how many beans Jack’s family collected, ate, and stored for the winter! And we know beans grow year after year!” I like to think of Jack and the Beanstalk as being an ancient folk tale about the value of edible plants compared to the value of one cow, and about the value of growing your own.
In Auckland I can grow food all year round. In my sloping city garden I have fruit trees, four compost bins and five small vegetable plots. Winter can be a little bit like office work; it’s about planning, future proofing and time management - and dreaming into a mug of hot soup while reading Whole Food Living. But now, early spring, is time to drain the last dregs of pearl barley, get off the couch, go outside and admire the beginnings of new life. There are purple cyclamen, daffodils, and the furry-looking buds of a white magnolia just waiting for the kereru. Being outdoors makes me feel more energetic - and hungrier. Gardening, I am convinced, feeds the soul as well as the gut.
Leave your kitchen and go into the garden. Breathe deeply. Feel the sun. Anyone can grow some food. The trick is to start small, and grow easy plants. But what to plant? In The Well-Gardened
Mind by Sue Stuart-Smith I read that Israeli archaeologists have discovered that around 23,000 BC some humans living beside the
Sea of Galilee grew green peas, lentils, figs, grapes, almonds, olives and a cereal like wheat. Pulses, legumes, fruit, nuts and cereals.
Sounds perfect to me.
Dig a square plot. Vegetables like loose, light soil so dig deep. Add lime and compost then put a border around the bed. Old bricks or pavers are good. Plant sprawly, scrawly plants like thyme, alpine strawberries, chamomile, marjoram, parsley to grow between the bricks, or you could go bold and bright with marigolds, nasturtiums and onions. These three will annoy any leaf-eating bugs. Sprigs of rosemary around the beds will help deter slugs and snails.
Inside your square start with the centrepiece, maybe a dwarf fruit tree. They produce full-sized fruit but grow less than two meters tall, so the fruit is easy to pick, and they rarely need pruning. The Ballerina columnar apple tree is no more than 50 cm wide. Or try the dwarf Garden Delight nectarine. There’s the Belle de Jumet pear or the Agrigold self-fertile dwarf apricot or try a lemon or a grey-leaved, artichoke. Of course my own centrepiece will be, in honour of Jack, a bamboo tepee around which we’ll plant scarlet runner beans.
You can buy your veggie plants as seedlings, or you can try growing them from seeds. If this is your first season growing your own food buy seedlings. But soon curiosity will get the better of you. You and your children will want to be like Jack and plant seeds and be amazed as they transform into plants. Use seed trays or recycled polystyrene fish bins and seed-raising mix for your seeds. When you have tiny filigree seedlings to transplant, after having raised them from seed, it’s much easier if you lay the bunch of seedlings on the ground and pick each one up from there. It’s amazing how much easier it is to separate them this way.
Around your centrepiece choose small, well-behaved plants. Small lettuces like buttercrunch or, smaller still, Tom Thumb or Little Gem, are the open-hearted sort from which you can constantly pick individual leaves for salads. Plant them in a shady corner with maybe a red lettuce. Red-leafed Komatsuma mustard spinach is a great cut and come again leaf if you like a salad that tingles. In the summer, lettuces don’t like too much sun so they will flourish in the shade of silver beet or onions.
Other easy to grow greens are Asian greens. For a supply of Asian stirfry veggies try Kings Seeds Mesclun Oriental mix. Dandelion greens have about twice as much vitamin A as spinach. Picked early in the spring when the leaves are small, they are slightly bitter like endive or chicory.
New Zealand spinach is this country's only indigenous salad vegetable. It takes a while to germinate (up to three weeks) but once it's planted out into your garden or in a pot it will look after itself. It’s a rambling vine with large fleshy leaves that wilt very quickly so harvest just before eating. It turns bright green when steamed (just 1 minute in the microwave or steamer).
Peas are a favourite in-the-garden snack for children. They come gift wrapped in their own pod. 'Dwarf Massey' doesn't need staking. I put twigs from the pomegranate tree beside the plants and the peas cling to them. We also love Petit Provencal.
Baby squash are ready for harvest in just a few weeks. Yates has three baby squash to choose from in its seed range. Green Button produces little, round, pale green pillows that look good when
they’re served whole. These and Yellow Button and Squash Mix can be baked, steamed, or lightly cooked and tossed into a salad.
Zucchinis are easy growers too and you can pick them when just finger size and at their most tender. Buttercup is the compact pumpkin for the small family. A thin green outer shell protects the contrasting bright orange interior. Unlike most other pumpkins, Buttercup won’t take over the entire garden.
Tomatoes can take up a lot of room so choose smaller Sweet 100s. Even smaller are Window Box Red from Kings Seeds, and Yates’ Small Fry, and Tiny Tim designed for pots and hanging baskets. Yates Small Fry has cherry-sized tomatoes on a sprawly bush.
I scatter radish, rocket and coriander seeds in one section. They germinate easily. A row of onions between each row of carrots and radish will dissuade the carrot rust fly from laying eggs. I often grow onions or chives or carrots as dividers between leaf crops. Or you could edge the different plantings with easy-to-grow chives. You can cut chives down at least twice and they’ll grow more chives. Chive flowers are edible too so leave some of the lovely pink flowers.
I like a row of large white daikon radishes too. The daikon root has a crisp, mild flavour and is good in salads or soups or pickled. Take care when you dig daikon up: they are brittle. They’ll last for up to two months if you cut their leaves off and keep them in your fridge.
All through the year I have silver beet growing, especially the red, yellow, orange and pink stemmed varieties, like Bright Lights. I always have beetroot and leeks too. Beetroots will sit in the ground, during rain, frost, or even snow, and don’t get woody or bitter. They make great soups, salads and pickles. Look for a compact variety, like Cylindra. Leeks are deliciously sweet when eaten small. If you do leave them in the garden, they make wonderful starry flowers on tall stalks the following summer.
It’s so important to show children how plants grow. Help them sow carrots, strawberries in hanging baskets, pumpkins, sunflower seeds, runner beans, peas, cherry tomatoes of unusual colours, or bright edible flowers like nasturtiums or marigolds. Marigold petals look like saffron in rice dishes, cakes, and bread or let the children toss fresh petals of heartsease pansies and blue borage into a salad.
Give the kids their own fruit plot if you have the space. In the centre try a berry bush, a guava, or a tamarillo if you are in a warm area. Look at the Incredible Edibles range online for more ideas. Plant different types of strawberries. There are very sweet white ones that don’t tend to get dive-bombed by birds, and tiny alpine ones that are so secretive they are a delight to hunt for.
Plant a Cocktail Kiwi! They are mouth-sized mini versions with a very thin, sweet skin, and are ideal on desserts and in kids' lunchboxes! You can train it along a wall, pergola, or trellis. Another lunchbox treat are Flatto Peaches which are easy for kids to hold.
By November your plot will be thriving and so will you. Water it regularly while you listen to the birds and bees, and you’ll be eating salads and stir-fries throughout the summer and autumn.
Now, what can I eat tonight? The silver beet have small leaves now and thick stalks. They’ve given and given all through winter, as has the kale. There’s beetroot, NZ spinach, parsley, a few carrots, rocket, coriander, chives, leeks, celeriac, pak choi. Most mysteriously there’s a broccolini that has grown through the winter and is now 5 feet high. Hmm. Maybe it was planted by that fabled Jack’s sister, Jill.
Give children their own garden space.
Kumara and Cumin Hummus
Oil free hummus made in bulk, can be frozen into small portions | by Penny Garrick
INGREDIENTS
500 gms
2 lrg 2-3 1 tsp 3 Tbsp
2-3 1-2 tsp 1-2 tsp
1 tsp cooked chickpea plus some of the cooking water roasted kumara garlic cloves kelp powder whole tahini, pour off any accumulated oil on top. lemons, juice cumin powder cumin seeds, dry roast till slightly browned chilli paste or fresh chilli, chopped ground pepper
METHOD
1. Soak dried chickpeas overnight or a minimum of eight hours. Drain and refresh the water. Boil until softened, approx 45 mins. 2. Roast unpeeled kumara with a bit of water, and cover the oven dish with foil to keep the kumara moist until cooked thoroughly, approx 45 mins. 3. Drain chickpeas reserving the cooking water, and put chickpeas into the largest bowl of your food processor. 4. Add roughly chopped kumara, garlic, pepper, kelp, tahini, lemon juice, cumin powder & seeds and chilli. 5. Pour in about one cup of reserved chickpea cooking water and whiz thoroughly. Add more water if the mixture is too thick. Add additional flavourings to taste. Other alternative ingredients instead of the kumara and cumin
• Caramelised Onion • Roasted red peppers • Roasted beetroot
