Gabrielle Tryon's French kitchen garden

In 1997, Gabrielle Tryon, then of Pearce, appeared in our kitchen garden column. She told us about living with her husband and children 20 years earlier in the Loire Valley in France. Their home was a water mill with its own potager or ornamental kitchen garden. Their neighbour lived in an 18th-century house with a vineyard, orchard and potager, its walls covered with espaliered stone fruit and with 150 metre-long asparagus beds.

In 2010, the Tryons moved to Red Hilland work began to remove unpruned wild shrubs and rubble. Now there is a split-level terrace with a garden seat backed by billowing Mexican bush sage (Salvia leucantha) and decorated with pots containing citrus as gifts from friends. There are cumquats, four lemon trees - Lisbon, eureka and Meyer varieties - and an eye-catching Red Centre lime, a gift from keen gardeners Max and Margie Bourke of Campbell.

The Australian plant came from Citrus Gems who describe it as a cross between a finger lime and a rangpur lime. It has red, egg-shaped fruit in winter with blood red rind, flesh and juice. The rangpur lime is an essential ingredient in Tanqueray Rangpur Gin.

Inspired by living and travelling for many years in rural France and Rome, and exchanging vegies with the locals, last spring Tryon began planting a potager. The trellised enclosure provides structure and a medium on which beans, peas and tomatoes can climb during summer months. A young fig tree is being espaliered along the frame.

There are beds of Aquadulce broad beans, filigree green mizuna and spicy red mustard plants, mache or corn salad, rocket, celeriac, endive, and a row of ruby chard that has been decimated by a possum or rat despite black netting. In the kitchen, Tryon uses the mizuna in stir-fries, chopped into vegetable soup, risotto and salads. For potato salad, mix mizuna with slightly warm cooked potato, chopped shallot, parsley and add a mustard vinaigrette.

Having learnt about old varieties and the number of varieties of vegetables like kale, onions and tomatoes, Tryon grows red onions, tiny French onions and flat salad onions and four types of kale including the heirloom thousand-headed kale from The Lost Seed company, used in her farro soup. French shallots have been a permanent vegetable in her gardens since childhood and they are pickled to go with rich terrines. Cima di rapa from Franchi Seeds is served as wilted greens on Piadina Italian flatbread from Deli Planet at Fyshwick markets.

An important feature of a potager is its ornamental plantings. Tryon has included flowers in the vegetable garden including poppies, lupins, hollyhocks, cosmos, marigolds, dahlias, nicotiana, amaranthus and Nepalese marigolds with gold and brown petals. Sweet peas have been planted to climb up decorative metal tripods.

As a long-time member and former president of the Australian Garden History Society, Tryon researched Daniel Bunce’s 1836 catalogue of seeds and plants then for sale at Denmark Hill Nursery in Hobart Town. Victor Crittenden of Mulini Press in Canberra reproduced the small book in 1994.

Among the plants chosen for her new kitchen garden, many were already available to Australian gardeners in 1836. These include artichoke, carrot, radish, broccoli, parsley, asparagus and french sorrel.

Farro soup

2 cups farro

2 cloves garlic, chopped

small onion stuck with 2 cloves

small onion, chopped

2 medium leeks

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 large carrot, chopped

2 sprigs rosemary

½ cup chopped pancetta

2 tbsp tomato paste

bunch kale

half bunch red chard

2 leeks, chopped

2 zucchini, diced

basil

parsley

olive oil

Add three tablespoons olive oil to a large saucepan with pancetta, garlic, celery, rosemary and leek and cook for five minutes. Dilute tomato paste in half cup of water and add the rest of the vegetables, herbs, farro, and cover with water. Season and cook for about 1½ hours. The soup should be quite thick but add more water during cooking if required. Serve with a drizzle of chilli-flavoured olive oil and grated parmesan. Serve with a glass of Sangiovese.