There are flood warnings current for so many rivers in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania that you scroll and scroll on the BOM page – Peel, Namoi, Macquarie, Bell, Bogan, Lachlan, Tumut, Murrumbidgee, Murray, Edward, Culgoa, Birrie, Bokhara, Narran, Barwan, Darling, Beluba – and that’s just the major flood warnings. But here, the garden is looking so lush in this La Niña spring. Often spring is dry and windy and by mid November I am looking forward to thunderstorms to cool cracking soil. But this year, here at least, it’s been just wet enough, touch wood. We celebrate what luck we can get in this era of climate chaos.
Just cool and wet enough to keep the leafy greens lush and the bolters calm, just hot enough to get the curcubits and the nightshades going, so as a result I have the last of the winter crops still bearing and the first of the summer ones and there’s a smorgasboard to choose from. This is last night’s dinner, almost entirely (except for oil, vinegar and feta) out of the garden: broad bean ful medames, roasted beetroot, carrots, radishes and red onions tossed with feta and rocket, butter beans, cucumber tzatziki with lots of mint, and cherry tomatoes tossed with basil, chives, balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
Today I harvested the last of the green cabbages and a big bunch of carrots, to be made into coleslaw with mayo made with our spring egg glut. Maybe with broad bean felafels, avocado lime and coriander dip, pickles, and both summer and winter salads. The avocado isn’t ours this year, but two trees are loaded with baby avos so maybe next year. I harvested a big bowl of cherry tomatoes today too, and some red onions and the first of the season’s garlic and the first tromboncino, and I have a jar of nasturtium capers ready to start using. So a pasta puttanesca is on the cards too, or maybe pasta with parsley caper sauce, or kale pesto, or …. the options once I start thinking pasta are endless.
It is year three of this retrosuburbia challenge, and most days now we are eating substantially what can be produced from this little, 500m2 suburban block. No food miles, no packaging, no energy loss through processing or storage. With important gaps – cooking oil, dairy products, flour – but also with some surplus shared with neighbours, and at least in spring of a la Niña year and not taking our luck for granted, we eat very well.
