Kitchen Garden with Susan Parsons: Canberra giveaways for 2016
Freckles can be beguiling. Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins gave thanks for stippled trout that swim. Kitchen gardeners can grow a "speckled trout", the loose translation of the Austrian heirloom lettuce called Forellenschluss. Decorative lime green leaves are splashed with maroon. My plants, a gift, came as seedlings labelled "Bunte Freckles" and I harvested outer leaves for a month. Evette Jungwirth from Diggers says the lineage of Bunte Freckles and Forellenschluss has blurred. Some say the former is a butter lettuce and the latter a cos type. Seed Savers Exchange says they are both cos (romaine types).
GIVEAWAY:
Diggers Seeds has supplied 10 packets of Forellenschluss seeds (also sold at the Heritage Nursery in Yarralumla) for us to share with readers. Sown now, the speckled trout leaves could be ready for harvesting in six weeks. To win, tell me what freckled things you grow, eat or admire and include your name and address (email: bodenparsons@bigpond.com.au).
PRUNED
Last year Felco Switzerland celebrated 70 years of making tools for gardeners. In 1970, I purchased a pair of Felco2 secateurs which have been well used, almost every day over the past decade. When the covering on the handles wore out after about 20 years, the man about the house and garden soaked a piece of hose in hot water and stretched it over the handles (seen in our photograph, taken last month). There is another way: Felco make red blade handle coatings, moulded to shape, for $9 each available from Rodney's Nursery in Pialligo and Gibbs Farm Centre in Queanbeyan.
GIVEAWAY:
Felco has offered a free service to a reader whose Felco secateurs need sharpening. You pay for posting them to Melbourne ($8) and the service manager, Dave, will sharpen them, replace the spring, and pay for return postage. Email me and say why your secateurs need this service (bodenparsons@bigpond.com).
For gardeners who love pruning and training the brain, the online game Prune by Joel McDonald ($5.99) won 2015 iPad Game of the Year. Original and with calming zen music, Prune will prepare you for months to come when the peach, plum and other fruit trees need their annual trim.
APRICOT CROP
This has been a great season for apricots. The fruit seems to be smaller than usual but the flavour is perfection. Two trees on public land in my suburb, never sprayed, never watered except from clouds, have been bearing heavy crops. There has been little brown rot or freckling. For dessert, a bowl of apricots with a little box of lebkuchen would be a Valentine's treat. Made in Germany, lebkuchen is a fine gingerbread biscuit and the Weiss brand, founded in 1925, contains wheat flour, candied orange peel, figs, spices, apricots, apple extract, crushed nuts and persipan, which is marzipan made from apricot kernels ($5 a packet from Mart Deli Fyshwick).
THE COLOUR VIOLET
Would you grow a tomato because its name is Violet Jasper and it has dusky red fruit with green camouflage patterns? This tomato is said to have originated in China where it is called Tzi Bi U (can any reader translate this for me?). Seed of Violet Jasper was first offered by Seed Savers via a grower in Bulgaria in 2009. My seedling went into a pot of pure camel poo. The first fruit was eaten on January 1 and the yield is by the handful now. My taste testers think Violet Jasper is delicious. For a toast topping, saute in olive oil with sliced mushrooms and flaked almonds, finish with a splash of lemon juice and homegrown basil or serve with smoked salmon and chat potatoes.
ZUCCHINI SAGA
Last September, a runner-up in our Yates giveaway was Teresa Kennedy of Wanniassa. She had just planted tomato, basil, spinach and oregano seeds for summer to cover zucchini base pizzas plus Ingelara garlic (original knob from the farmers markets). She sowed Yates' Dark Green zucchini seeds. The family then purchased four Isa Brown hens who thought the seedlings were delicious. Teresa hadn't kept chooks since childhood and had forgotten how destructive and determined they can be in a veg patch. Spaghetti squash and, at last, zucchini are now ripe and Teresa shares a recipe refined by her over the years.
ZUCCHINI PIZZA BASE
6 cups grated zucchini
¾ cup plain flour
½ cup grated cheese
Grate zucchini and drain well in a colander over a bowl. Place a small upturned plate on top and weigh it down with a large can from the pantry to drain the liquid (into a compost container). Combine ingredients well, adding more flour if the mixture is too wet, it should be mashed potato consistency rather like than bread dough. Turn out onto a pizza tray or shallow baking tray lined with baking paper and firm down with the back of a wet spoon. Bake at 200C for about 25 minutes. Remove from oven. Using the baking paper, slide base from tray. Lightly spray tray with a little cooking oil. Place oiled tray over pizza base and, with one hand under baking paper and the other on top of pizza tray, flip pizza base onto oiled tray. Return base to oven and cook for about 15 minutes until golden and firm. Remove from oven and top with garden ingredients. Add more cheese if desired. Return to oven and cook for 15 minutes until toppings are ready.
Susan Parsons is a Canberra writer.