Gardening – Cultivating something new

I’ve probably said this before, but one of my favourite things about gardening and plants is that the learning process never stops. There are just so many thousands of plants, with all their associated pests and diseases, growing techniques and climatic preferences, that it is impossible to know everything.
It is a delight each year to grow something new. Sometimes this is a rare plant (in this country at least) such as Achiote (Bixa orrellana), the source of Annatto, a vibrant orange-red natural food colouring extracted from the seed covering of this lovely small tree. The seeds are also harvested as an additive in Latin American, Caribbean and Filipino cooking.

Several new plants for me are plants that have been cultivated by humans since before the beginning of recorded history. I have a small patch of barley, mixed with chickpeas and another patch of oats mixed with soybeans. The theory is that the chickpeas and soybeans, being legumes, will help provide the barley and oats with nitrogen, while helping suppress weeds. It seemed to work well for the first couple of weeks, but now there is a prolific crop of weeds to deal with.

I’ve never grown any of these four crops before and I suspect most home gardeners haven’t, which is reason enough alone to learn how to grow, harvest and process them. While it may not be the most cost-effective way of growing food compared to the vast industrialised fields growing worldwide, I consider it to be a useful addition to my skill-base. In this increasingly uncertain world, who knows when the next international calamity will restrict food supplies or disrupt supply chains.

On a less basic food level, but just as new, to me at least, are some of the herbs that I’ve started growing. One that I’ve potted up just today is Balkan mint (Micromeria thymifolia). Native to the Dinaric Alps from north-eastern Italy to Albania, this is an intensely fragrant, small leaved mint that forms a dense ground-cover over time. Chewing on just a few little leaves creates a taste explosion in the mouth.

Another equally fascinating herb is the blessed milk thistle Silybum marianum, native to the Mediterranean region and also known as St Mary’s thistle, with the distinctive network of white on the leaves being referred to as St Mary’s milk. I’m growing this for the seed, which is reputed since ancient times to be very good for the liver, a claim which has more recently been supported by some scientific studies. The showy purple flowers will be a bonus, both for their ornamental value and for the bees which will swarm to them.

In another part of my food forest, I have a slightly over-successful recent addition to the garden. A small plant of apple mint (Mentha suaveolens) has exploded over the course of a year to cover several square metres. Obviously, there is not a lot of difference in growth habit between this one and the more common garden mint. Lesson learned, now I just need to summon up the energy to pull it all out and contain it in a smaller area. At least I’ll have plenty of mint tea to freshen up with afterwards!