Two years ago when interviewing kitchen gardener Professor Tom Calma, he mentioned that his Deputy Chancellor at the University of Canberra, Dr Sarah Ryan, was a keen vegetable grower. Now we have met. Sarah has come to the end of her nine-year term on the University Council but she has a new role as Chair of the ACT Bushfire Council.
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As a keen bushwalker with a group of 20 Canberrans who started the walks 35 years ago, and as a climber of hills in the ACT, Sarah has extensive knowledge of remote and local locations where one needs to keep an eye on the management of nature’s garden. Her father was a forester and she grew up on forestry settlements at Mt Crawford and Mt Gambier in South Australia.
Sarah’s PhD was in agriculture, specifically plant breeding, and she spent most of her career at the CSIRO where she worked in the environment, water and natural resource management area. In 1991 she moved to Watson where there was little in the garden. She was interested in garden design so read books and did a CIT community course, then laid out her own garden plan. It included a vegie patch.
In recent years the vegetable beds have become a focus. Sarah’s grandparents and parents were all keen gardeners and her daughter’s French grandmother grew acres of vegetables on their farm near Murrumbateman for many years. As Sarah says, the seeds were sown early! Her daughter is growing vegetables in the garden of her shared house in Melbourne too.
This season Sarah has 18 tomato plants, about half of them raised from seed saved from the variety ‘Boss’ which she bought as seedlings. ‘Boss’ is an F1 hybrid, which she forgot, so the progeny are segregating. The parents of ‘Boss’ are heirloom tomatoes, large juicy Italian Costoluto Genovese and Brandywine, with potato-leaved foliage and pink beefsteak-shaped fruit. Her plants are taking on foliage from one type and fruits from the other. There are also quite a few cherry Roma variety plants raised from seed saved last year.
Sarah says she tries not to spend too much money on the garden - plants or water - because the economics are dubious but she really likes the flavour and freshness of produce when picked fresh from the garden. The old varieties seem to taste better and she finds the different shapes and colours interesting. A rainwater tank collects rain from the house roof and garage which has been terrific this summer with our periodic rain
There are two capsicum plants ‘Wings’ which is disc shaped with lobes and is mild, eaten green or red, and ‘Amigo Purple’ which is a sweet bell-shaped capsicum, high in Vitamin C. There are two eggplant bushes, ‘Hansel’ which has dark purple clusters of small fruit, and the miniature ‘Fairy Tale’ violet and white striped eggplant which is good for grilling.
Sarah loves food, home-cooked by herself and friends who care about food and she regularly shares dinners that are sometimes nationality themed so they cook from all over the world. Recipes come from old Australian cookbooks when nostalgia begs, to Yotam Ottolenghi and Stephanie Alexander.
Her bookshelves are filled and she also has a savoury and a sweet folder organised alphabetically by each vegetable and fruit with recipes cut from newspapers and magazines and shared by friends.
When her tomatoes really come on she will be making a 2017 David Herbert recipe of roasted chickpeas with Middle Eastern spices which uses a kilo of ripe tomatoes of different shapes and varieties. There was a picnic theme at her gourmet group dinner a week ago and she was given a recipe to make which we share here.
Tunisian carrot salad
1kg carrots
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2-3 tbsp lemon juice
3-4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
pinch of cayenne
sea salt and pepper
1 bunch dill or coriander, chopped
Garnish
12-15 black olives, pitted and halved
1 punnet cherry tomatoes, halved
Peel and slice the carrots and place in a saucepan with water to cover and a little salt. Cover and cook until just tender. Don’t overcook them as this would make the salad mushy. Drain the carrots and allow them to cool somewhat. Then pulse-chop in a food processor or mash with a fork; it doesn’t need to be very smooth.
Add the garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, cayenne, salt and pepper to taste. Mix in the chopped dill or coriander, saving a little for garnish, and chill until required. At serving time, decorate the salad with the black olives and cherry tomatoes.
