Last year, Jim Kerr of Macquarie and his daughter Heather Kerr of Hughes started selling vegetable seedlings on a stall at Jamison Trash and Treasure Rotary Markets believing they would do it once or twice. However they got hooked on the thrill of sharing gardening stories and chats with the locals.
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Heather is currently revising their planting schedule for this month and the stall will return early in October (Sundays 7am-noon). The tongue-in- cheek name for this backyard business is The Seed Empire.
In spring, the best sellers are, of course, tomatoes and the Kerrs have more than twenty varieties of seeds to sow for this season. Zucchini and cucumbers are also popular. They only sell heirloom and traditional open pollinated varieties and order seeds online from Australian suppliers including Eden Seeds, Diggers Club, The Seed Collection and a new Tasmanian supplier called Seed Freaks. The Kerrs make up their own seed raising mix using a combination of coco-peat, premium potting mix and coarse sand or vermiculite.
Heather was born and raised in Canberra and her Dad, Jim, was born in Ipswich, Queensland, but Canberra is now his home town. Jim says he likes wandering around his own garden and eating raw fresh food. His dad grew rhubarb pumpkins, radishes and onions and that's what got him interested in growing food. He also likes the idea that it might save him a few dollars at the store.
Heather says her grandparents kept beautiful gardens and her dad kept a vegetable garden her whole life so she grew up watching how they cared for their gardens and made edible things grow which gave meaning and health to their lives. From her teenage years, Heather wanted to be a farmer and she worked briefly on a dairy farm in Western Australia. Going through a rough patch in her late 20s, Jim took her to his backyard and got her planting vegetables. Heather says growing food is the best therapy.
Heather learnt from her former employer and colleagues at Gardening Girls Canberra, an all-female domestic gardening business and she is currently studying for Certificate III in Horticulture at the Canberra Institute of Technology.
In their home gardens, both Heather and Jim are currently growing garlic, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, mustard greens, kale, spinach, silver beet, cos lettuce, broad beans, snow peas, carrots, fennel, parsley and coriander. Jim also has asparagus and rhubarb.
Heather has a number of lemon trees, some grown from cuttings from her grandmother's lemon tree. Jim has mandarin, lemon, orange, plum and fig trees, feijoas, several pear trees plus blueberries and blackberries. He had lots of stone fruit but, because he doesn't like spraying for pests, he removed them.
We visited Heather on a day of sleet last week but her smile and the bright red flowers on one block of her broad beans were cheering. She also has large block plantings of Aquadulce broad beans with their black and white flowers.
Heather and her partner are renting the house in Hughes from a friend so they are allowed to develop the garden - she does the growing and he does the landscaping and they share the cooking. On a hall table is a tableaux of homegrown butternut/crookneck pumpkin and large Kent pumpkins. On a dining room dresser are jars of homemade kombucha and sauerkraut. Last season Heather grew Diggers cold tolerant painted Mountain corn which is dehusked, kernels dried and stored and they can be ground for flour.
At Redfern in Sydney, Heather recently did a course with Milkwood Permaculture, based in Victoria, on growing mushrooms. She has obtained freshly cut oak logs and has mushroom spawn in the fridge with which she will inoculate the logs.
Heather's favourite homegrown vegetable is always silver beet which grows so well in spring. She also enjoys mustard greens and kale as they just power on through the frost. Jim says his broccoli is great at the moment and the tatsoi was a winner this year. However both of them had failures with their cauliflowers.
The newest book on Heather's kitchen bench is a gift, Julie Goodwin's Homemade Takeaway. The dishes which most appeal are chargrilled vegetable salad and a chapter called The Chicken Shop which includes lots of salads and vegies served with the roast chicken. However she has shared a simple weekend dish from the household when you can wake up late on the weekend, rustle up some greens from the garden and cook them for a lazy breakfast.
Weekend breakfast omelette
4 eggs
1/3 cup milk
1 tbsp butter
100g (approx) each roughly chopped mustard greens, kale and silver beet (or any fresh home grown leafy greens)
8 small button mushrooms
parsley to garnish
Beat the eggs together with the milk, season with salt and pepper. Heat a large non-stick fry pan, melt the butter, add the chopped kale and cook until softened. Add the chopped mushrooms, cook approx two minutes, add mustard greens and silver beet and cook until wilted. Add the egg mixture, gently folding it towards the centre as it cooks and thickens. Serve on top of crusty wholemeal bread and garnish with parsley.
Susan Parsons is a Canberra writer.
