I picked the last of our pomegranate crop this week, six fruit still hanging on the tree, hard, shrivelled and yellow, but rich with juice inside. Now I am sitting with my feet up in a warm room, tapping on a solar-powered laptop while drinking fresh pomegranate tea (scoop pomegranate into tea pot, pour in boiling water; leave to brew). I am feeling extremely glad I live in a land and a time of such comfort.
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Our ancestors' winter glooms are probably the reason why there are so many garden luxuries for late winter and early spring: late apples like Democrat or Sturmer Pippin; hard winter pears perfect for stewing in red wine; quinces, pomegranates, deep red rhubarb, winter sweet parsnips, not to mention all the citrus, avocadoes et al in sheltered spots.
The snowdrops, jonquils and early daffs are blooming, and the first of the japonicas, a mass of camellias and hellebores: spring is naturally blooming, and summer delicious, but it's taken thousands of years to have luxuriance abundance in late winter, as well as delicacies in spring.
This is the time to make sure you get your fair share, if not this year then in a couple of springs' time. Plant artichokes now, feed well, and you may just get a crop this year, so you can pick them small and tender enough to eat whole, deep fried or simmered with chicken stock and potatoes.
Buy strawberry plants this week, and you may be munching them by the time the days are warm enough to put away your winter overcoat.
Plant at least three varieties, so they crop at different times from early spring to late autumn. Look for the red-flowered variety if you can. The fruit is delicious, but the bright red blooms are a delight among all those green leaves.
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It is impossible to have too much fresh asparagus, picked as the tips just emerge from the soil, totally tender and soft, not fibrous. We grow old-fashioned Mary Washington, fat white, purple and various hybrids known by letters and numbers, and to be honest they taste about the same, though the purple ones are fun and the fat ones ridiculously sumptuous steamed and dipped into hollandaise sauce then eaten with your fingers, suitable for a Henry the Eighth-type banquet but without the executions.
Our loquat tree is blooming now, which means fruit in September. Loquats were once mostly seed - we kids would hide up the tree, hidden by the leathery leaves, and spit the slippery seeds at passers-by. (I am not advocating you do this. Or maybe just try it once. ).
Modern loquat varieties have smaller seeds, more flesh and are sweeter, though they are best peeled for true luxury - the skin is quite edible but toughish. Plant a tree and the possums will love you, or rather, possibly abandon your roof to build a nest in the tree to eat its flowers, fruit and new leaves. Loquats are the most boring looking tree in the universe, so plant it down the backyard or behind the shed, for its fruit and possum attracting qualities.
This is the time to plant as many winter/early spring luxuries as possible. They are a gift from our plant breeding ancestors. It is our duty to fill our vases and our bellies and enjoy it.
This week I am:
- Realising that two red kale and four broccolini plants are enough for two people to eat them daily through winter.
- Picking the now quite tiny new broccoli heads that form overnight, because if I let just one turn into yellow flowers, the plant will turn tough and go into seed production mode instead.
- Loving the carpet of snow drops that have slowly formed from a few I planted here and there about 20 years ago.
- Looking encouragingly at the first daylily of the season, planted among warm sunny rocks - or as sunny as we get in the valley in winter.
- Putting out European wasps traps along paths and near water, as the wasps love clear paths and water sources. I've already caught lots.
- Guzzling frost-sweetened oranges.
- Raking tiny weeds in the vegie garden. They come out with a faint tug now, but give them two months to establish roots and they'll put up a fight.
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Jackie French
Jackie French is an Australian author, historian, ecologist and honourary wombat (part time), 2014-2015 Australian Children' Laureate and 2015 Senior Australian of the Year. She also writes a gardening column for The Canberra Times.
Jackie French is an Australian author, historian, ecologist and honourary wombat (part time), 2014-2015 Australian Children' Laureate and 2015 Senior Australian of the Year. She also writes a gardening column for The Canberra Times.
