Kitchen garden: Susan Parsons finds chokos can be grown in Canberra

Our choko hero Charlie Watson, of Latham, responded to a query in this column on February 11 asking whether any readers had tried growing chokos. Lots of readers replied to say they couldn't stand them, however the ingredient that made them palatable was chilli.

A Campbell couple travelling in Vietnam was continually served a tasty salad called "susu". In Saigon markets a woman had a huge pile of the salad for sale. The peeled chokos had been run through a fine, mandolin-type shredder. It was great with fiery chilli chicken.

A Chapman reader grew up on the NSW north coast where her family grew prolific choko vines along the back fence and "regrettably they featured regularly as one of the 'three veg' in our evening meals in the late 1960s. They were peeled, cut and boiled, and garnished with minced chilli."

Charlie Weston grew up on the Atherton Tablelands where he rode to school, two on the horse, five miles each way. His mother was the CWA Queensland champion in the pumpkin scone and sponge cake categories and her secret was eggs from her chooks, which had been fed corn. Charlie moved to Cairns where chokos and similar veg grow readily. He likes his tropical plants, so has tried to grow some of them in Canberra as a challenge.

Chokos bought at Belconnen Fresh Food Markets in late winter were stored in the dark in his shed until they sprouted in five weeks. When frosts were over they were planted next to a trellis and, as the soil warmed after Christmas, they grew well. The vine spread to eight metres and fruited in late autumn. There was a good crop, then lots of small ones when the frost came. The young ones were delicious and needed very little cooking. To his surprise, the vine re-sprouted for the next few seasons because a 10cm layer of loose mulch had been placed over the base of the plant.

Chokos readily absorb the flavours of a dish and Watson says they are good in chutneys and pickles and as a filler if you are short of main ingredients like tomatoes or apples. They are regularly used in "Chubby Charlies Chunky Chilli Chutney", a Latham special.

Helen and Charlie Lewis are friends and neighbours of Watson and it is her chutney "made under licence to Charlie" that is featured in our photo. Gourmet chef and food writer Digby Law's Pickle & Chutney Cookbook, (1986, 2006) a New Zealand classic, has recipes for choko chutney and pickles and Watson has shared those and his own recipe with us. If any reader would like to try them, email: bodenparsons@bigpond.com

Sweet potatoes are a favourite in the Watson garden. Some nurseries have sprouted tubers that are convenient to plant. Otherwise you can sprout them in a similar way to bean sprouts, just using a slice of sweet potato. Make sure that it is a good-sized piece that will have sufficient nutrient for a strong plant. The tuber will produce runners that can be propagated. The runners need to be cut and transplanted to gain more bulbs as a bulb only produces one fruit. They take some time to grow but are in their stride when the first frosts come.

Galangal, similar to ginger, also thrives in Watson's garden. The plant takes about three years to get established and starts to spread after about five years. Control it by digging out some each year. The galangal plant dies down in winter but a good layer of mulch keeps frost from killing it so that it sprouts again in spring.

Watson gave us a link to an SBS recipe from Luke Nyugen's Vietnam that I tried with a few variations to ingredients. The galangal chicken (ga den nuong rieng) tasted delicious and its fragrance filled the kitchen (sbs.com.au/shows/lukenguyen/recipes/detail/recipe/11047)

When Watson moved to Latham in 1974 he planted an apple tree with three grafts, Delicious, Jonathan and Granny-Smith, a three-way pear tree and a bay tree that is now 15 metres tall. He keeps three chooks and the eggs are shared with the neighbours.

It was an impromptu treat to cross the road to visit the Lewis garden, bright with flowering salvias and roses. They have a dozen fruit trees including apricots, plums, cherries, nectarine, a fig with huge leaves of unknown variety they call "gambler", and a three-year-old 'Luisa' plum from Flemings that produced 800 mango-shaped, superbly flavoured fruit last year.

They are Diggers Club fanatics and vegetables grown from Diggers seed in raised beds with protective shade cloth include varieties of zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, corn and self-sown nasturtiums. They also grow an array of herbs used for teas including the adaptogens, Indian Brahmi and gotu kola.

Susan Parsons is a Canberra writer.