food ripe from my garden

Tomatoes

When the Italian immigrants arrived in Wellington at the turn of the century they tasted the New Zealand hothouse tomatoes and called them ‘water bombs’. To this day the supermarkets fill their produce aisles with these same tasteless tomatoes, grown all year round in hothouses with never even a price variation for the seasons, while…

Ferments

Fermentation uses naturally occurring lactic acid to preserve food. If you have never tried it, give it a go – you won’t believe why you ever messed around with boiling vinegar. It is the simplest method of preserving food used out of necessity thousands of years ago to preserve the summer bounty. Some really cold…

Zucchini

Its taken a while but, finally, they are in full throttle. In a normal summer we would have been picking these most days since mid December but this year they have had to first survive a bird attack (where they were uprooted, so I had to re plant them which knocked them back), then freezing…

Scarlet Runner Beans

My favourite fresh bean; big and meaty, sweet and tender (if you catch them young enough). I fell pregnant twice in December in the 80’s, three years apart, and both times by mid January I was fully nauseous. Runner beans – the smell, the texture, the taste, the look of them, they made me want…

Peas

The peas don’t usually make it to the table. Mostly they are foraged by the children, and hey how cool is that?

Against all odds – an aubergine!

So last summer was a scorcher and went on for months. On the back of that I decided its time to start planting aubergines at our place. This summer began with weeks and weeks of cold winds and colder nights, right into mid to late January. To protect these poor little plants I upended the…

Early summer 2020: Summer veg starting to produce… kind of

Even though it is January 21 I am still calling it early summer because we have had too cold a time of it. A cold westerly has been alternating with an even colder easterly combined with really cold nights which has meant the poor tender little summer plants have been sluggish to produce. Finally, this…

Beetroot thinnings

There is never enough beetroot in the world! This year I have three long rows which were planted at different times and the first row is ready for thinning now. A beetroot seed grows 3 little plants out of one seed (same as silverbeet, they are related). As they grow bigger they become squashed together…

Early Summer 2020: Christmas potatoes

The new potatoes are a treat! Planted in October to be ready for Christmas when I make the beloved-by-many fry up of chorizo, red onions, new spuds and tomatoes. Also try this tapas of salt crusted baby potatoes with herby dipping salsa. Potato salads of course – here is the recipe for one with mayo…

Late spring 2019: brassicas

At the start of the winter I planted some green cabbage, brocolli and cauliflower but the weather grew too cold too quickly and they didn’t start growing until early spring. At the same time early in the spring I sowed the seeds for more hoping they would fill the gap in late spring/early summer when…