It is part of an initiative where a "Goodwill Garden" was developed in December 2013 to provide access to garden plots for asylum seeker and refugee clients of Red Cross and Companion House. This enables them to cultivate their own vegetable produce with support, advice and assistance from the 26 plot holders in the garden and a handful of volunteers and friends.

Direct costs of participation in the program, garden plants and materials are met by the Kambah Garden community with contributions for plot fees from Red Cross and Companion House. The modest venture came out of Neville Jackson's service as a Red Cross volunteer working with asylum seekers. He says they have had six Ilankai Tamil clients involved over the life of the program and one from Myanmar, all enthusiastic and keen to learn. They have had to adapt to the challenges of the non-tropical environment and understand the demands of growing food organically because this is one of the Canberra Organic Growers Society gardens.

The new participants' knowledge of traditional food plants from Illanka has been part of trials with some success and a generosity of spirit. The program has immediate potential to help more participants from sponsoring organisations. Monthly meetings are held in the garden with afternoon tea. Visitors are welcome any time a member is in the garden and especially on the annual Open Day.

The garden is behind Kambah woolshed (and beside a green Nissen hut) and this was farming land from 1875 to 1970. When digging, gardeners have found old horseshoes and metal parts of ploughs and carts which are collected in a corner of one garden bed.

Some of the plots are planted for winter with a green manure crop of barley, peas, lupins and vetch to be dug in soon to enrich the soil. A Chinese/Malay couple have planted vegetables in the Goodwill Garden as their first experiment before retiring from full time work and looking to enjoy a new hobby.

Since March, when plot holders had a bounty of late tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and chillies they have been delivering vegetables to the Communities@Work pantry at Tuggeranong and, for the past year, they have been delivering freshly picked vegetables each week to Companion House.

Neville Jackson has lived in Kambah since 1977 and, with his wife, raised two children there. The Kambah Community Garden was established in 2001, he joined five years ago and was elected 'Convenor', a role which is very much 'hands-on'. In his plots and the sharing garden vegetables have been grown from seed sourced from online suppliers Green Harvest, Eden Seeds, Diggers and The Lost Seed, favouring heirloom varieties and diversity.

He became seriously committed to organics a decade ago, once he understood the ecology and science of soils and the health and sustainability benefits of growing edibles organically. He uses seaweed solution occasionally and compost tea from his brewer kit. Soil improvement in the garden comes from compost, mulching, green manure and crop rotation and the Kambah clay has been transformed to peak fertility.

Neville has been an enthusiastic home cook as long as he can remember and he has eclectic tastes. His venture into serious and authentic Japanese food, which he loves, meant he had to grow many vegetables himself.

New to me was Tokyo Bekana cabbage with loose, bright green leaves in winter, quickly raised from seed and Neville likes it pickled. Other plants he is growing are daikon, a large white type of radish that is also excellent pickled, mizuna and bok choy.

Handsome Romanesco broccoli and huge globe artichokes grow near the tender mache or lambs lettuce which is good in a salad or with pasta. Nettles are allowed to thrive and are then carefully picked and steeped in boiling water to remove the sting, chopped finely and added to ricotta which makes a delicious bright green spread for bread. A bed of purple and green asparagus with crowns planted three years ago promises a spring crop.

Neville says you can grow food for the kitchen year round, even in the middle of a Canberra winter. Through August he has been picking broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower and leafy greens. Having eaten all his crop of Cime da Rapa (Broccoli rabe) he is now using broccoli shoots in pasta and soup. Escarole or rainbow chard cooked lightly with garlic and olive oil goes well with soft polenta.

A favourite recipe of Neville's features komatsuna, Japanese mustard spinach, which has a nutty mustard flavour yet with no bitterness and it can be eaten raw or in a stir fry.

KOMATSUNA WITH TOFU

(Komatsuna no Satto Itameni)

two bunches of komatsuna

250g fried tofu

25g fresh ginger

100ml dashi stock (made from kelp, available at the Korean shop in Civic)

2 tsp mirin

1 tbsp sake

1 tbsp light shoyu (soy sauce)

2 tbsp grapeseed oil

1 tsp kuzu starch (a thickener, from Fyshwick markets Asian shop)

Wash, strain and cut the komatsuna in 10cm pieces. Steam for two minutes then strain, squeezing out excess moisture. Heat a large frying pan with the oil. Fry the finely chopped ginger for half a minute, add the strained komastuna, half the dashi, and all the mirin and sake. Simmer for two minutes, then add the tofu, sliced into strips, with the shoyu. Add the remaining dashi with the kuzu dissolved in it. When the sauce has thickened, serve garnished with a few leaves of coriander and a sprinkle of nori flakes.