Get growing

Get growing!!!

02-01-2016...8.20am

Growing your own food on whatever piece of space you can find is the best way of ensuring that you will have good healthy food in the future. Last year when I started feel the panic, the arbitrary sanctions where coming for people like me, I started cultivating both my front and back gardens to grow food. It is generally estimated that it takes one football pitch to grow enough vegetables for one person, but there are no firm figures. One planet development says 7 acres to provide everything from food to fuel but there are certainly successful urban gardens that grow nearly all their food requirements in extremely small spaces. What I am getting at is we all need to think out the box to feed ourselves good food, and we need to be doing now. There are too many people already being left destitute by this government and food banks don’t do fresh food. Your garden is your food bank.

   

From the left, Mashua, Oca, Pumpkins 

Mashua is 11% protein which is high for a root crop. Both Oca and mashua are from south america and grow well in the british climate.

 

 

This is a section of my front garden. It looks a bit sad and empty this time the year, but in the picture above are three trays of grub that I grew in that space. We harvested the pumpkins in October and we have already eaten half of them. The bright pink roots are a root crop called oca, and the big white ones mashua. Both of these are available from the real seed company. You don’t have to grow weird veg or spend much money, sprouted spuds from the veg basket, will produce a valuable source of carbohydrate and vitamins. The green leaves on the left hand side of the picture above are chard, whose lush leaves keep growing back after harvesting and have a better texture and fresher taste than spinach.  The mashua I found really productive, out of one root planted last march I harvested 2 kilos mid December. The only problem was that the front garden is a bit too warm and half them had already sprouted, oh well, looking forward to next Christmas and huge harvest of mashua. The oca roots were eaten a bit by slugs and wireworm, but nothing a good clean and not being fussy couldn’t cure. I am leaving the ground bare for the moment, and scattering dried mealworms over the ground. This encourages birds to come and eat at least some of the wireworm.The pumpkins spread everywhere, including into nearly into the neighbours. I grew two types onion squash and sweet dumpling.

Recipes 

Pumpkin Chana Dahl

1 Onion

1 small firm Pumpkin, peeled chopped and deseeded.

1 cup chana dahl (split chickpea)

 1 teaspoon garam masala

1 teaspoon turmeric

Maybe some cayenne or some chillis

Soak the chana during the day, this isn't totally necessary, but turns out better it find. Drain off liquid.

Fry onion gently in some oil, add garam masala. Add pumpkin and chana dahl toss in fried onion. Add enough boiling water to cover, then add turmeric. Cook on gentle heat for about 20 minutes, stir to prevent sticking. Serve with chappatis or pitta breads. 

We are working on recipes for the mashua and the oca, at moment we are just doing potato type things with them, like boiling, frying and roasting. Mashua tastes like a creamy potato and the oca has a lemony theme. If I come with something amazing I will post it up.