Seasonal offerings
With Palm Sunday leading the way to Easter, we'd like to start with some food for thought before suggesting gifts of kitchen garden boots, book, bag and herbs.
DATE PALMS
Nourishing dates come from the date palm Phoenix dactylifera. In Canberra, specimens of the Canary Islands date palm (Phoenix canariensis) have been planted.
One fills the garden of an old house in Banks Street, Yarralumla; four in the garden at the US Embassy can be seen from the corner of Perth Avenue and Moonah Place; a pair grow in the grounds of Ottoman Cuisine in Barton; a splendid pair of palms have been growing beside Duntroon House for more than a century and a young pair thrive in the Bible Garden at the Centre for Christianity and Culture.
The yellow fruit, which hangs in clusters on the female trees, is edible but as the flesh is thin it is usually only fed to livestock.
Last Sunday at St John's Church in Reid, Jean Salisbury, a parishioner for 50 years, made crosses from Japanese irises gathered in the church grounds to give to congregation members.
A BOTANISING BOOK
In Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things (2013, about $30 on the popular releases stack at Paperchain in Manuka and at Dymocks Booksellers in Civic) rather than her earlier themes of eat, pray, love, the author tells the story of a woman who becomes a curator of mosses.
During the years Alma Whittaker spends in Tahiti eating taro root, her beachside 'fare' (house) has a doorway screened with plaited palm fronds.
For something to nibble while you are reading, Organic Energy at Griffith shops has green Garden Crackers made on site by dehydrating carrots, zucchini, silverbeet, almonds, cashews, celery, oregano, garlic and parsley ($12.80).
WADING THROUGH WATER
For the past four years I have been wearing a man's hand-me-down pair of old Crocs.
They proved even more useful than my usual clogs in the garden as they coped with being hosed (accidentally) and, like the clogs, they could be slipped off at the courtyard door without using dirty hands.
Unfortunately in our 41-dregree days, mine melted.
Redpath in Garema Place has a good range of Crocs ($40) for males and females. One of the best colours for gardeners is an earthy taupe.
CHOCOLATE
A small pot of culinary chocolate mint (Mentha piperata x piperata - Oasis herbs about $5 from The Garden, Weston, or Rodney's, Pialligo) is a novel way to get a chocolate hit.
The plant is so easy to grow it should be restricted to a pot.
Fresh chocolate mint leaves make a digestive tea or you can pop them in fruit punch. Dried leaves, crumbled, can be added to the mix for chocolate brownies or folded through ice-cream. For a mojito cocktail, muddle together sprigs of chocolate mint, white rum, sugar, lime juice and soda water or any sparkling water.
BAGS FOR BUNNIES
To hold Easter eggs or even to do the farmers' market shopping, an appropriate Easter gift is an Apple Green Duck bag made of jute painted with smart garden images ($9.95 from the National Museum of Australia shop). This month, online, Apple Green Duck is bringing out jute pot plant holders in slate, green or red ($14.95).
THE PULSE OF PRODUCE
There is one plant in the Bible Garden in Barton that I've not seen growing in Canberra previously, yet it is one of the oldest crops cultivated by humans. It is the lentil. The seeds, entire or split, are used in soups and dhal and in India the young pods are eaten as a vegetable. Lentil (Lens culinaris or L. esculenta) is an annual with slender stems, pinnate leaves and flattened curling pods.