“Our gardens are deeply personal, rooted in our memories and taste, and reflect what we love.”
WHEN we consult on gardens we often see landscapes full of plants that struggle in the climate and soil type they are planted in and, most strange of all, edible gardens with a complete lack of plants the owners most like to eat.
One gardener we came across realised – after quite a few years of trying to establish a garden full of British cottage plants that did not like her site’s heavy clay – that what she really loved were Avocados and Lemons: a daily food habit that required shopping because among the garden filled with cottage plantings there was not one Lemon or Avocado tree.
Any gardener will tell you that some produce, such as Tomatoes, White Peaches and Apricots, will never compare to the home-grown version. Others don’t travel well and are almost impossible to find: Mulberries, White Figs, Pepino melons, Babaco, fresh Carob pods or currant Grapes, while in other cases they are ridiculously expensive: Persimmons, Dragonfruit and even the humble Passionfruit. And some fruit and veg have a very short season: Artichokes, Persimmons, Blood Oranges, Japanese Blood Plums, Jerusalem Artichoke and Florence Fennel to name a few.
All of these are great reasons to add these plants to your garden. Plants you love, food you like to eat. I happen to love the fresh seeds of the perennial Bronze Fennel, which burst in the mouth with an intensely sweet aniseed flavour like a black Jellybean and regularly drink tea made from the dried seeds. It’s a plant I wouldn’t be without. I love eating a sweet sun-warmed Tommy Toe Cherry Tomato straight off the plant and vividly recall the shock of cutting into a Black Creole Tomato with its deep red meaty flesh that was like slicing into a human heart, an experience straight out of the Brother’s Grimm: not at all polite. But you won’t find any of these at a store.
And then there’s the freshness argument: eating a freshly snapped stalk of Asparagus, raiding the broad beans and peas, or snacking on a perfect fragrant strawberry is one of a gardener’s great pleasures. These almost never make it to the kitchen. And then there’s ripeness: a perfectly ripe Greengage or Damson Plum picked warm off the tree are some of the finest eating you can have with complex notes and flavours you have to experience to believe. But you won’t find any of these at the supermarket.
When you start planting food plants the culinary world opens up with heirloom, rare and extraordinary produce that can’t be found elsewhere. If you love a slice of Lime in your gin and tonic, why not plant a Lime tree. If you love Mint tea, plant some Peppermint and Moroccan Mint for the best Mint tea you’ll ever have. If you love Thai cuisine, consider planting a Keffir Lime, Lemongrass and some Galangal. If you love Mexican food, put in some Tomatillos and a variety of hot peppers. If you love heirloom Cantaloupe, Watermelon or have a hankering for gumbo made with Okra, there’s every reason to add these to your garden.
At the moment my dwarf Arabica Coffee bush is laden with berries, many of them ripening and turning fire engine red. I can’t wait to harvest, roast and grind these beans for a home-grown coffee. The delicious smell of grinding roasted coffee beans instantly takes me back to my childhood where tiny cups of sweet black Turkish coffee brewed in a copper pot were drunk in a few mouthfuls and then upended into a saucer where the patterns in the thick sediment were carefully examined for symbols and omens: kitchen table mysticism that was always practiced and, a moment later, roundly denounced. I’m looking forward to revisiting the experience.
I love the fact that the personal story behind a plant can transport us to another time, another place, even other countries, with people who are no longer here, and connect us instantly with our childhood. I love the fact that our gardens are deeply personal, rooted in our memories and taste, and reflect what we love.
