Good Organic Gardening Issue#7.3 - 2016

Whenever I find a new insect in my garden that I haven’t seen before I take a photo and send it to my very knowledgeable gardening friends to see if they can I.D. it. If they don’t know, I try the museum. The other thing I usually want to know is whether it’s “good” or “bad” Now, some people would argue there’s no such thing as a “bad” bug. Just as a weed can be seen as a plant that’s in the wrong place, garden pests are insects that happen to be — for us gardeners — in the wrong place at the wrong time. But they can also be an indication that something’s amiss or lacking in the soil and plants. Some bugs aren’t all that destructive and you just need…

TRAPPED BY DRAGONS We are all climate deniers to some extent and, according to psychologists, that’s understandable. What we bump up against in our attempts to grapple with the reality of climate change is the psychological barriers that simultaneously work to protect us from psychic pain yet cripple our capacity to respond meaningfully. Huge swathes of the Great Barrier Reef are dying in front of our eyes and severe weather anomalies are rocking communities everywhere — and then we go out and buy a new car or book an overseas holiday! Most people are concerned about climate change and some have taken actions within their capacity but collectively we’re not doing what’s required, not by a long shot. According to climate scientists, we’re right on track for serious climatic disruption. Elected representatives have failed…

HEIRLOOM RAINBOW COLLECTION The plants: I grow heirloom varieties of vegetables as much for their flavour as for the extraordinary colour they bring to the garden and table. The aptly named Heirloom Rainbow Collection is a celebration of colour and showcases some of the best heirloom varieties to grow at home, including the gorgeous Beetroot ‘Chioggia’, with lollypop-like rings of white and pink flesh, Bean ‘Speckled Cranberry’ with decorative hot-pink and purple seeds, Pumpkin ‘Delicata’ with green and yellow-striped skin, the cheery yellow- and burgundy-flowered Marigold ‘Naughty Marietta’ and Eggplant ‘Listada di Gandia’, a French heirloom with beautiful white-and-purple-striped skin. Growing: The vegetables and flowers in this mix will thrive in a sunny position with good drainage, so prepare beds with compost and organic matter before planting. Sow the seeds in spring…

GOOD EATING These bamboos are grown and harvested for their edible shoots: • Phyllostachys atrovaginata • P. dulcis • P. heterocycla f. pubescens • P. hindsii • P. iridescens • P. nidularia • P. nuda • P. praecox • P. platyglossa • P. vivax • Qiongzhuea tumidissinoda • Semiarundinaria fastuosa DID YOU KNOW? Depending on the species, bamboo flowers only once every 7–120 years. Bamboo is one of the fastest-growing plants around. There are choices for every climate and it thrives in a wide range of soils and light conditions. Given its versatility, this clever plant could possibly feed the world, not just the world’s pandas. The edible part of bamboo is the plump new shoot, but not every bamboo shoot is worth eating. Many of the edible shoots come from the running genus Phyllostachys, but there are more than 70 genera and more than 1500 species. Some…

One of the most celebrated April Fools’ Day jokes of all time was a story broadcast in 1957 on the highly respected BBC currentaffairs show Panorama about the annual spaghetti tree harvest in Switzerland. The TV segment, which can be viewed on YouTube, showed a family supposedly gathering long strands of pasta from their own trees. The joke fooled many and lots of viewers are said to have contacted the BBC for details on how to grow a spaghetti tree. While spaghetti is normally made from wheat flour and water mixed with egg, Panorama wasn’t completely barking up the wrong tree, so to speak, as it’s possible to grow your own spaghetti on a vine, if not a tree. When cooked — baked, boiled or microwaved whole — theflesh can be scooped…

I’d been using pomegranate molasses in recipes long before I ever bought a fresh pomegranate to throw its exploding ruby-red seeds into a salad. And what a revelation it was. It brought that salad alive. Perhaps luckily, this fruit has a limited season (late summer/autumn) because I’d run the risk of getting sick of it after putting the gemlike arils in just about every salad. I use them in desserts, too. Some favourite cookbook-writing chefs — Karen Martini and Yotam Ottolenghi, for example — use both the fresh fruit and the molasses a lot because both are inspired by Middle Eastern cuisine: Australianborn Martini is from an Italian/Tunisian background, while Ottolenghi is Israeli by birth and now a famous UK restaurateur. A Persian staple, pomegranate (Punica granatum) originated in the eastern Mediterranean,…