June 2014 Kitchen Garden Guide

 

Fruit trees, vines, bushes and canes proliferate here in the Huon Valley and fill much of our year with glorious flavours. Winter is the perfect time to plant (and prune) most of them. There is just one problem; wildlife. In the town area of Cygnet I don’t have any problem. If you have bush near your garden, you no doubt have possums and wallabies decimating new growth, tearing at the bark, breaking branches and eating all the fruit. My suggestion is solar powered, electric netting around the whole zone. It works at my friends’ house in the middle of the bush. Available online in NSW. Search for “electric netting fence”.

An overabundance of fruit and the work required in the orchard stresses many people. I choose to grow only what I cannot otherwise source locally; by swapping with friends, sharing at the community garden, buying at the roadside stalls, direct from orchards or from local shops. This is also part of being a sustainable community and supporting each other, whilst enjoying a relaxed and abundant life. Why grow the same things as your neighbour?

Fruit from outside the square

Irish strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo): drought tolerant, evergreen, pretty, small tree native to Europe and Ireland, with late fruits turning from yellow to orange then red. I walked to a lake in France when these were ripe and gorged on them the whole way. There they were growing in sandy soil but mine here is growing happily in solid clay.

Persimon (Diospyros kaki): Deciduous, small tree with large, red fruits on bare stems in winter. A glorious sight. I love the old fashioned sort, where the fruits have to ripen to very soft, on your window sill. Decadently sweet and flavoursome.

Carob (Ceratonia siliqua): Evergreen, drought tolerant tree / hedge producing very large pods which, when picked and eaten fresh, are heavenly. Don’t be put off by your impression of commercial carob powder! I had a tree in Adelaide and highly recommend its luscious crop.

Quince: the smile on the faces of was enough to reinforce to me the value of growing quinces. The pineapple quince is a variety which is less gritty but still full flavoured and can even be eaten raw when thinly sliced.

Tamarillo (Solanum betaceum): native to sub-tropical parts of Chile it is a frost sensitive, small tree bearing egg-shaped, dark red fruits with a lovely taste and lush texture. I don’t have one yet but if I did, I would wrap it in horticultural fleece for the winter and mulch it heavily.

Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) from China and Japan:flowers appear in late autumn and in frosty areas may not set fruit, which would normally be ripe in late winter. The small tree is very drought tolerant and worth growing because of its open habit and fragrant flowers. The fruits are yellow and succulent with several quite big, shiny stones.

White shahtoot mulberry (Morus macroura) from the Middle East: One of my favourite deciduous trees and fruits, the white tassle-like fruit are exquisitely sweet and heavenly. Left to grow to its full height it makes a perfect shade tree but I espaliered one in another life and each stem grew to several metres long, bearing hundreds of sweet tassles, which looked like long ear rings hanging on the wire.

Kiwi fruit and kiwi berries: native to northern China they are very happy in the cold. They are a vine and make wonderful summer shade over a pergola but the pergola must be very strong. They grow well from cutting but you must remember to get cuttings from male and female plants and label them well in case one dies and you need to replace it!

Chilean guava (Ugni molinae): small, tidy, evergreen shrub ideal for edging a path, covered in late autumn with intensely flavoured, bright red berries which the birds don’t seem to know about! The berries hang on for weeks. Eat raw or add to salads or muffins or stew with apples.

Tasmanian Pepperberry (Tasmannia lanceolata):  beautiful, evergreen shrub with red stems and shiny black berries. Suitable for hedges or edges. Not something we would eat as a fruit, but the black berries are fiery hot with tones of the Australian bush. I have been picking them fresh from a friend’s garden and either using fresh or leaving to dry then storing for grinding later. Why buy black pepper when we have our own?

Figs (Ficus carica): My memories are of climbing a fig tree at high school, just before Easter every year, and gorging with my friends on soft, deep red, unbelievably delicious figs. Also, picking green-skinned, strawberry red fleshed figs from my mother’s garden and taking boxes of them to the market to sell as we just had too many from one small tree! I have not eaten a single fig here in Tasmania that would encourage me to grow them here.

If I had a warmer, frost free site or a large glasshouse, I would grow avocadoes, white sapote, oranges, mandarins and figs.

 

Kitchen ideas for June

Winter herbs for health and flavour Do you love pesto and lament the end of fresh basil from your garden? Well I make a wonderful pesto with chervil and almonds / rocket and pistachios / parsley and walnuts. There are so many lovely herbs that either grow and thrive only in winter or continue to hold their colour and flavour even in winter. The former includes the slightly aniseed chervil, with its pretty, soft ferny leaves which I grow as a block and clip by the handful, with scissors. Also in this category is coriander with its robust flavour and growth habit. Parsley is a fabulous winter herb, readily self-sows and is useful all through winter in meals and as a wonderful source of vitamin C, in our climate where oranges are rare.

 

Seeds to sow in June Sow in the garden: Broad beans Salad and spring onions Shallots Chives English spinach Radishes Plant out Garlic Asparagus crowns Divide rhubarb Winter herbs Winter flower annuals Globe artichokes Sunchokes Bulbs

Sow in trays: Brassicas Artichokes Coriander Chervil Lettuce Rocket Asian greens Jobs for June Prune deciduous trees except cherries and apricots Feed and mulch the dripline of fruit trees with anything you have, including seaweed. Collect seaweed (especially kelp) after winter storms and cover your asparagus patch with it. Brassicas also love it. Wonderful added to your compost too.