How to create an *Entirely Edible Garden, even if you’re #NotaHorticulturist
Behind NotaHorticulturist.com is science and gardening blogger and educator, singer and mum; Jessi Wong who’s based in South London. We had a safe and socially distant chat via Zoom about sharing gardens, getting kids into gardening and how you can grow food in a limited space.
Watch the full Zoom chat here:
Apart from a Jasmine plant and a small lawn for her 4 year old to fall on, Jessi’s garden is *entirely edible and hosts a cornucopias amount of food. During our Zoom chat, Jessi’s daughter even proudly plucked Primroses, Marshmallow and Nasturtium flowers, waving them at the camera, chomping at them then bolting off to play.
A self-confessed ‘Edible-Garden Evangelist’
Jessi looks like she’s got a piece of the good life in South London. Her (*almost) entirely edible garden is bountiful and food grows in every corner.
Despite admitting she also grows (what she thought was) a non-edible plant (aptly) called ’Honesty’; Lunaria Annua for its quirky aesthetic (it has papery full moon-like seed disks that her daughter loves to use in crafts) a quick search suggests it is edible after-all!
Honesty’s leaves and flowers taste like cabbage, the seeds like mustard and it can be added to salads, even the root can be peeled and eaten.
As for the Jasmine, if you’re lucky enough to have Jasminum Officinale growing, the flowers are intensely fragrant and are edible, mostly used in scenting tea and rice. If you’re into flowery flavours like violet creams or rose gin, try Italian dark Chocolate with Jasmine. Another quick search brings up a plethora of ways Jasmine Officinale including a recipe for a Jasmine jellied desert: my fave Panna Cotta.
Jessi’s own plant, however, is the more common Trachelospermum Jasminoides which isn’t edible after all, but it’s still a beautiful plant and attracts bees and other pollinators to the things that are.
Growing Food and Foraging in Lockdown
Like many people lucky enough to have a garden, Jessi feels it helped her cope during this difficult year.
However, it wasn’t always the edible haven it is now. Jessi has spent the last 3 years transforming the back yard, once a paved over space into a source of food. COVID-19 has unearthed a lot of uncertainties in our food supply and it’s been a tough time to be mindful despite supermarkets insisting they won’t run out of food.
Jessi, how has the pandemic changed your gardening habits?
[In Lockdown] There was nothing in the shops, I thought I must grow everything! Every single little crevice of the garden was used [for growing food], every single little spot, little mushroom tubs became places to grow pea shoots, bean sprouts.
Whilst waiting for the fruits of her labours to ripen, London’s Lockdown restrictions were gently being lifted, just in time for foraging edible plants like elderflower, (which has a multitude of different uses: cordials and fritters are easy as pie, and right now, it’s blackberry picking season!)
This years quietude has certainly given us the opportunity to explore our local environment more than ever before. On your walks you may have noticed sightings or should I say ‘sniffings’ of abundantly growing edibles without realising. You may have even caught a whiff of ‘3 Corner Garlic’ (great for garlic pesto!) or Jack by The Hedge (a mustard green) and Jessi is particularly excited about a nearby mulberry tree about to ripen.
Usually, a wholesome activity at this time of the year, but due to her concerns around COVID, when foraging in crowded parks Jessi suggests gathering spoils like elderflowers and berries that grow above the potential 'sneeze height’ of passers-by.
We still know little about COVID-19. Experts have maintained that UV light may limit viruses but we don’t know if it completely kills this virus. So, if you’re picking in the city where lots of people have been picking before you, fight the temptation to pop that blackberry in your mouth before washing it. Even though they have been basking in the sun before you pick them, it’s always best to wash foraged fruits and to cook things thoroughly (in which the boiling process in making cordials or deep frying for fritters does.)
Despite the completely unreal feelings of uncertainty many of us are experiencing about getting back out there in the world, foraging is a gentle way to get us out into the open, exercising and exploring. It’s a wonderful way to appreciate the bounty of the changing of the seasons and supplementing our diets, but it’s also an activity that can help combat anxieties. It’s an activity that can help us with focusing independently on all of our senses and allows us to be deeply present.
Jessi has also joined Lend and Tend to share some of her garden.
We’re very aware that we're really lucky that we have an outside space, because lots of people in London don't have outside space.
Jessi didn’t always have an edible garden, on her blog she documents the very heavy task of removing 30m2 of flagstones and brickwork to expose a growing medium underneath, which is now her gorgeous edible garden.
I’m often asked how to expect edible gardening results quickly, so it’s really encouraging to read about Jessi’s realtime progress on NotaHorticulturist.com along with, both her failures and successes.
You could pay professionals, but if you have the patience, you can do everything [yourself] and all really really cheaply.
Some of Jessi’s tips include avoiding buying (expensive) mature plants.
Buy a tiny blueberry from a Pound shop. But be wary, if it says ‘tart’, it does mean sour, don’t be fooled, but if it says it's a ‘sweet flavour’/ ‘has a long season’. Go ahead and buy it.
If you're willing to wait, buy things in the autumn and wintertime: like bare fruit stocks, bushes and fruit trees, they're much cheaper then.
It takes patience, doesn’t it?
Going back to patience, lots of adults get very easily put off when their plans fail, this month, so many of my things have have died from just slugs. I lost a melon and a Wine Berry and I'm like, I don't even know why it died!? I don't have a clue. I've had some powdery mildew, too but that's all part of it.
Other than unfathomable garden struggles, how can gardeners get a head start, particularly in a city like London?
One of the hardest places to garden sometimes is a very, very sunny spot. And if there's no shade at all, the ground bakes hard and no amount of watering (especially on clay soils like London soil) is going to help you because it just runs off.
To help retain moisture and to help grow better crops, it’s particularly useful to take a look at some tried and tested methods from people like Charles Dowding on mulching, building up organic layers of plant cuttings, vegetable scraps, that build layers of matter to increase biodiversity; the little creatures that chomp though breaking up that really hard earth.
[Building layers of matter] creates mycorrhizal networks, naturally present in the ground. (For a quick start) You can also buy it in packets and sprinkle it into the roots of things that you're planting. The symbiotic relationship can help the plant find nutrients, help plants absorb water.
There’s still room to grow for one lucky Patch-Matched Lend and Tend garden Tender in Jessi’s garden, but for everyone else, Jessi also has some super advice for other Lenders and Tenders.
Jessi’s tips if you’ve only a small amount of space to grow food:
Grow vertically, if you have a small ‘Footprint’ I love Tromboncino (a member of the butternut squash species) which vines; it grows vines of 20 odd feet if you let it and you'll get a tonne of fruit, for the space.
Grow a high yield plant with a small foot print, like Purple Tree-Collard. It's perennial, winter hardy, also easy to propagate by cutting a bit off, then planting it in damp soil.
Beans are really good because you can get a trailing variety. Grow alongside trailing Nasturtiums - you can eat everything, the flowers and eaves. They're very spicy.
If you have a shady area, a really great edible plant for overlooked city garden spaces, there's Caucasian spinach which thrives in Jessi’s shadiest corner, which gets no sun whatsoever. It grows in countries like Scandinavia and the winters are very cold there.
It’s a spinach that you can eat raw or cooked and they've got tiny little flowers and they're edible too.
Watch the video to see how this spinach grows abundantly in Jessi’s shadiest corner of the garden.
Maybe call a friend if you get a glut of Tromboncinos like these?
Jessi’s garden structures, look enchanting, thornless blackberries reach out and cascade around her, fruiting plants vine towards the sky but it’s all made with ‘cobbled together bits and bobs’
You don’t to spend loads and loads of money. I’m a big fan of using what you have.
I’ve seen some amazing things done with repurposed clothes airers, recycled bits of pipe for trellising. Other great places to find garden paraphernalia are freecycle.org and iloveFreegle.org Join your local community group for brilliant things for free and you’ll often see plants and seeds up for grabs too.
Growing your own Vs Shop Bought produce
Once you get the taste of homegrown, there’s no comparison to the cold stored stuff from the supermarkets and you don’t need to have a background in science like Jessi to know that growing your own organic food is better for you. But one of Jessi’s reasons (before Lockdown) for wanting to grow more of her own food is do not only do what’s healthy for her family, but what’s healthy for the environment and the processes in which industrially intensively produced food is farmed, certainly aren’t.
The biggest problem with industrial agriculture, big fields of wheat or corn is, there's not enough bio diversity. For example: A field of potatoes continuously takes the same nutrients out of soil, which is why crop rotation really important. But, actually, rather than growing one massive crop, growing lots of things together, means soil retains its quality for longer.
Which is why composting, is a great thing because (when you do it yourself) it’s free and you're providing nutrients to the soil.
Why it’s so important for more people to grow food and garden at home.
Inorganic fertilisers Vs. organic (preferably) homemade fertilising techniques
On Jessi’s blog, she’s posted articles about fertilisers. It’s a science lesson on why they’re actually not great for the soil. Admittedly like most people, Jessi has in the past used a bit of fertiliser, but in a domestic setting “when we have the choice”, Jessi encourages you to limit your use of inorganic fertilisers.
Partly because they cost money and they need to be stored.
(The tragic incident in Beirut recently demonstrated the catastrophic potential these chemicals have.)
Fertilisers can also burn [plants] if over-applied or applied to wet leaves and I’m not particularly good at following exact directions.
Fertilisers were invented it as part of chemical warfare. It was a poisonous gas. It’s a basic gas. So if you mix [fertilisers] with water it becomes alkali (breathing in ammonia gas means that you get alkaline your lungs, which is bad), don't breathe in ammonia kids!”
The guy who invented fertiliser (Haber) wasn’t great. But [fertilisers] are now so important to the world because of our population. We have such a big population, that without fertilisers, it wouldn't be possible to produce enough food to feed the population.
However, inorganic fertilisers are soluble so they leach matter from soil into ponds, where they cause pond death.
Don’t worry another informative blog post from Jessi explains it all. (I have learned a lot since our meeting last month!)
This biology topic Jessi excellently explains is eutrophication, whereby fertilisers lead to pond death. Rainfall causes run off from fertilised land and causes algae on water mass to bloom.
Ponds covered with algae, block out the sun. Pond life underneath can't survive. They need the sun to produce oxygen and can’t photosynthesise to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen, and sugars.You're left with fish that have no oxygen and plants that can't survive either. The (Haber) process (of creating fertilisers), requires a very large amount of energy to do so, energy and hydrogen, generally from natural gas. So, fossil fuel! Then you have to store them, you have to transport them.
Hmm. Overall a problematic issue. So, recycle your food waste yourself where you can - create your own compost. How? Jessi’s a big advocate of something called hole composting,
[Hole-composting] is literally digging a hole and putting your peelings into it, covering it with good amount of soil and it will break down much, much quicker than putting into a composter because it gives access to the worms. They just go straight through it.
Why is composting so important right now?
An insightful documentary The Need to Grow highlights a frightening estimation:
With only 60 years of farmable soil left on Earth, "The Need To GROW" offers an intimate look into the hearts of activists and innovators in the food movement. Executive Produced & Narrated by Rosario Dawson. A Film by Rob Herring & Ryan Wirick.
Delivering alarming evidence on the importance of healthy soil - revealing not only the potential of localised food production, working with nature, but explains our opportunity as individuals to participate in the regeneration and restoration of the Earth.
The film also follows a 6 year old food activist’s plight to challenge the corporation, The Girl Scouts of America corporation, to stop the use of ingredients grown with fertilisers in the cookies that they sell.
It’s inspirational viewing and highlights that the choices we make as consumers, really can do something to help. Whether that’s in the quietly radical act of Garden-Sharing which looks out for people in our communities, allows us to garden unused space to grow food to sustain ourselves more healthily, improving soil and on a small scale the biodiversity of our immediate environments and teaches children how to grow and care for the planet too.
In the recent months of consumers panic buying, it has shown there are issues in our food supplies and there has at times, not been enough fresh food on the shelves; so it’s inspiring that in a small garden, Jessi’s garden is proof that in as little as two, three years, you too could grow an almost entirely edible garden.
What age can we start teaching children to grow?
My little one knows lots about flowers, fruit and vegetables, as since she turned two I let her free in the garden. Teaching her what she could and couldn’t eat, part of the reason why my garden is edible or non toxic at least, so I wasn't really worried about her toddling around, putting things in her mouth.
How did you get in to teaching gardening?
It kind of came about quite organically, I was also doing reading at [my daughter’s] school and wanted to get involved in the community. I sent the headmaster my blog, said “look I’m really passionate about this and this is something I could do!” and they gave me the job! So once a week (before lockdown) I was going in and teaching all the different year groups, between four and eight kids at a time, doing planting, some seed sowing, made trellises out of the leftover pruning from the apple tree.
Not everyone's as lucky to have a gardening class (or a wonderful teacher like you Jessi) at their child’s school, so how do we get kids interested in putting down the iPad to do some gardening?
IT’S HARD. IT’S REALLY HARD. [When] you have to work, as a parent, it's really hard to engage your kids sometimes. Especially when you have [other] jobs do. Yes, there is some responsibility with the parents, but there are limitations.
It is unfortunate, but the task to get our kids outside does lie heavily with schools.
If your school has a good gardening project, getting them interested at a young age with somebody who's passionate, it’ll set your kids up for life.
Fund your school, encourage them, donate plants, anything you can to help them get started.
Among the benefits, Jessi’s students (and daughter) also seem to like a wider variety of fruits and vegetables.
And another thing to mention is, food generally does taste much better, when you grow it yourself.
I tend to grow a lot of things in the garden that I wanted [my daughter to] eat because she wouldn't touch it if it came out of the fridge. Once food came from the garden, she was a lot more interested and she ate a lot more.
Things like blueberries and raspberries, do not travel well or store well when they're ripe. They're they're picked at the farm underripe and then they don't taste good. When you pick up your own, when it’s perfectly ripe, it's beautiful and when things are cold, (from the fridge) it doesn’t have as much aroma.
Respect for the food that you eat
Sweet things like berries, do taste a lot sweeter when homegrown, but sometimes, veggies like lettuces, taste ever so slightly bitter, but don’t fear! Many nutritionists advocate ‘bitter is better’ for gut health.
In The Need To Grow, a gardener harvests a lettuce and it drips with juicy sap. Compared to lettuce in the supermarket, the stub, that end bit is brown and completely dried out and the lettuce tastes of nothing. A sure sign of depleted nutrients.
If you are already growing, do try and persevere with organic methods of fertilising, instead of being tempted by commercial fertilisers, for nutritional value if nothing else.
Inorganic fertilisers do help plants put on growth more quickly. All living beings require nitrogen in some form because that's how you build proteins, from amino acids which are built from the nitrogen. Plant hormones which control growth and the rate of ripening, which also requires nitrogen. So hormones are basically proteins, but just because something does grow big, doesn't mean they’ll ripen [or have a rich nutritious value or taste better].
In my experience, using a lot of fertiliser also leaves plants vulnerable to disease. So if you are going to try an edible garden, try things like seaweed fertiliser or making a nettle compost tea.
Go forth and grow wonky veg. Get used to what home grown kale and potatoes taste like.
The science of deliciousness
Try growing asparagus, however, asparagus unlike other starchy veggies starts converting sugars into carbohydrates as soon as it’s picked. So, unlike, plants like artichokes or squashes whose starches turn to sugars when roasted, (when that yummy caramelisation happens), asparagus goes the other way (sugars turn into starches, so the more time that passes after picking=blandness).
Proper asparagus aficionados will put the water to boil or put the oven on to roast it or grill it, before they go pick it. They literally pick it, and cook it straight away.
So when you think about it, shop bought asparagus, has been from the farm to the shop, then sits while in the fridge which just means that it loses so much of the sweetness and flavour just being stored. The thing about kind of growing your own is, things taste better, not just because of ripeness but, you get this whole new respect for the food that you eat: I’ve grown this! I’ve put all this effort and time into growing it, I don't care how it looks, I'm going to eat it and it's a really good lesson for our kids to learn as well.”
Learn more about the science behind gardening and more brilliant tips from Jessi at NotAHorticulturist.com