First Fruits from the Kitchen Garden

cultivating green fingers

My grandfather was a greengrocer from 1930s East Ham, who had flower magic in his fingers. I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. Over the years he created his own little patch of Eden in the London suburbs, where he grew prize winning gladioli. He looked after the birds as well as the plants. Every day he left a battered old tin frying pan filled with water on the garden path, for the birds to drink from and bathe in.

The garden was tidy rather than manicured, filled with layers and rows of flowers spilling over the beds onto the grass. But at the end of the garden, he left it a little bit wild with nettles against the hedge and honeysuckle twisting around everything in its path. In this tangled end of the garden sat his shed which was full of seed packets and cobwebs. The golden hour light used to filter through the dusty windows turning rusted metal boxes into bronze treasures. For my seven year old self, the end of the garden was a realm of enchantment.

It was also here where grandad hung a string hammock between two apple trees for us, which for a few years my brother and I could both fit in. The temptation to grab an apple each time we swung side to side was immense, but scrumping was rarely allowed. The fruit was for granny’s kitchen, not for pilfering fingers, although I’m sure they knew we what we did when backs were turned.

We shared the space with a fox’s den, which—unsurprisingly—they would always scarper from as soon as they heard us run up the path. There was a gooseberry bush too, which proved irresistible with its ability to contort our faces into sour puckers. We would dare each other to to see who could eat them raw.

It was a small space but filled with pure, simple joy. In my mind it’s still a place I escape to when I need to calm myself.

My grandfather was a kind and gentle man. He was the first person to teach me about the importance of caring for the natural world. His ability to grow and nurture anything, and the way he tended to the wildlife is something that I aspire to in my own garden.

I can’t say that I’m anywhere near as proficient as my grandad but I have been giving it a go. Although I really love flowers, this year my focus has been on creating a kitchen garden, growing lots of vegetables. We’ve been in our new house for eleven months. For the first seven of them we spent almost every weekend trying to cut back twelve years worth of garden growth and neglect. The brambles were nine feet deep and took over a quarter of the lawn (I think it was lawn, we couldn’t actually see). It was a labour of love with a lot of cold rain and permanently scratched arms. But by March we could see the shape of an actual garden and started to see what it could become. Now at nearly a year in, the pay off in produce has been worth the effort.

In the spring C built some raised beds and a herb garden and we started to germinate some seeds on the windowsill. It didn’t take long for the kitchen to be taken over with tomato seedlings and broad bean stalks and these have since outgrown the raised beds they were built for.

In addition to tomatoes and broad beans, we’ve got lettuce, bell peppers, garlic, chilli peppers, nasturtiums, apples, runner beans, French beans, sugar snap peas and Brussel sprouts. In another corner we’ve planted a medicinal herb garden, with evening primrose, feverfew, St Johns wort, comfrey, wormwood, yarrow, mallow, angelica and my favourite: mugwort.

Above: Indigo Rose tomato (L), nasturtium (centre) and more ripening tomatoes (R)

Above: the most recent harvest of vegetables from the garden: nasturtiums, lettuce, chicory, herbs, peas and beans

AboveL: broad bean flowers (L) and podding the ripened beans (R)

The first harvest that we’ve had from the garden has been better than we could have imagined when we were knee deep in mud and thorns six months ago. But the garden has brought so much more than food. There’s a passage in the book Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer where she writes

I take great pleasure in gathering plants, filling my basket with roots and leaves. Usually I go with a specific plant in mind, when it’s time for elderberries or the bergamot is heavy with oils. But it’s the wandering itself that has such appeal….

She goes on to talk about the peaceful picking of berries and the “concentrated attention of the search” and I believe she is right. In what has been a difficult year, the garden has offered quiet solace and moral support. Every day after work the small daily tasks of tending to the plants has felt like medicine. Pinching out side shoots has become meditative, refocusing my attention away from the stresses of the day and instead onto nurturing tender stems. I do wonder though, perhaps the plants are nurturing me?

During the last fortnight, the alternating heat and heavy rain has made most of the vegetables in the garden go through another growth spurt. We’ve been picking lettuce and nasturtiums for a while, and now the rest is catching up. It has been fun experimenting with new ways of cooking vegetables, in particular the glut of broad beans which I’ve made into a recipe below. I would happily grow them for the scent of the flowers alone; the Bunyard’s Exhibition variety isn’t just amazing to eat, but the flowers look and smell incredible too. Whilst I love to eat broad beans freshly podded during a bit of garden pottering, they taste amazing alongside goats cheese and a sharp dressing.

Broad bean boats

Serves two as a starter.

Ingredients:
65-70g broad beans podded and rinsed (approx 10 pods) 
60g cubed cucumber
60g diced/crumbled goats cheese
20g French beans diced, including the pod for extra crunch, although feel free to cook them briefly and then cool before chopping and adding to the mix
4 leaves from a cos lettuce, roughly 6 inches long. I use cos (otherwise known as romaine) because the leaves have a curve and a firm rib down the centre which holds the mixture nicely. Avoid flat or floppy lettuce leaves. 

Dressing:
2 generously heaped teaspoons of wholegrain mustard
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
1 tsp fresh oregano, chopped
1 tsp fresh common thyme, chopped
1-2 tbsp salad oil of your choice. I use Chiltern cold pressed rapeseed oil because it tastes incredible, but extra virgin olive oil works just as well.

Method:
Mix together the ingredients of the dressing 
Add the cucumber, French beans and most of the goats cheese to the dressing. Save a cube or two, or some of the crumbled cheese to garnish.
Douse everything well. 
Spoon the mixture into the individual lettuce leaves and carefully place them on a plate, mixture side up. If they wobble about a bit, lean them against each other. 
Scatter the broad beans on top of the mixture on each leaf. Add the crumbled goats cheese to garnish and add another drizzle of oil if you like

These are lovely served just as they are, but some crusty bread is a delicious accompaniment.

My grandfather never talked about his love of growing plants, but he immersed himself in it wholly. When I’m in the garden it feels restorative, an antidote to anything outside its overgrown borders. Maybe this is something that he knew about? Not just cultivating produce, but the feeling you get from doing it: the escape, the immersion and the reward of seeing the tiniest seeds turn into food for the table. Either way he set the bar high, and when someone leaves a legacy, it can feel impossible to live up to. On the other hand, it’s a chance to take what has created a spark of inspiration and make something new from it. I’ve found my place of peace, with my hands in the soil and whatever wonder grows up from it.