Everyone who has ever eaten a freshly picked, heritage variety tomato knows that there is nothing whatsoever like it in the supermarket. (I am trying not to drool as I remember the last one of the autumn, though we still have a few cherry tomatoes to pick). But what other luscious items can only be grown, begged from next door, or, just possibly, found in a farmer’s market?
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Apricots
If you do not have an apricot tree, plant one now. If you don’t have a garden, still plant an apricot tree in a large pot so you can plant it when you do have a garden … or present a tree to a friend on the understanding that you get some picking rights.
Every commercial apricot I have ever been lured into tasting has been floury and tasteless. Apricots don’t get sweeter when picked, though they do get softer and more orange coloured - but apricots need to be picked green, floury and flavourless or they bruise when stored, cold stored and transported. The best apricot is ripened till fully coloured, then eaten still warm from the sun. Chilling destroys the flavour and texture in many foods - apricots more than most.
Sweet Corn
Modern varieties have been bred to stay sweet when picked, but at the loss of flavour. Buy an old variety - I love Honey and Cream - grow, then do the classic ‘‘run from the garden to the pot of boiling water’’ - or barbeque them at once, husk and all. Magnificent.
Kiwi fruit
Contrary to most experiences, a kiwi fruit is more than a tasteless green slice to decorate a pavlova. Kiwi fruit only really sweeten when they have been softened by frost - and when softened by frost they don’t travel well. Try a fresh one, with the top cut off and eaten with a teaspoon, like a boiled egg.
A rose
Florist roses look stunning, but they have been chilled and refrigerated, and their variety will have been bred for long keeping. A home-grown rose may look floppier and less perfect, but it will be more fragrant; and a bunch just bunged together will give more delight than any amount of florist artistry. Well, unless the florist is really brilliant …
Parsley
Just picked parsley stands up straight and can be snipped into tiny firm fragments instead of chopped with a knife. The taste may not differ, but the texture of ‘‘just picked from the garden’’ parsley is unbeatable.
Carrots
This may be debateable: most backyard carrots are crooked, hairy, have ingrained dirt in creases and will turn limp within a few hours of picking. How can a hairy, grubby root compete with a stalwart crisp clean supermarket carrot?
The answer is flavour, plus nutrients. If I add two shop carrots to a tomato soup, we have red soup. If I add the same amount of backyard carrots, rich in carotene, we end up with orange coloured soup. And the flavour has a deep, glorious richness. Home grown carrots are the secret to my potato and carrot soup. Everyone is sure there must be an ingredient I won’t disclose. But it’s simply the quality of the carrots (plus onion sautéed in butter and whatever stock is on hand, even the packaged stuff).
This is the week to:
- Hunt through the nursery for winter’s bare-rooted fruit trees and shrubs before someone else grabs best ones.
- Hope someone presents you with a potted cyclamen for your desk. Potted cyclamen need a well-lighted spot, away from heaters and hot windows. If your house/office is heated, put them in a cool spot at night. Water cyclamen from the bottom, not the top – if you water over the corm it can rot and your plant will wilt or die.
- Eat beetroot. They’re sweeter, more tender and less sulphurous in cold winters. Leave them too long when the soil warms and they turn woody.
- Give all your indoor plants a thorough soaking – they really dry out when you have a heater on.
- Cover that mess of weeds, dead flowers or gone-to-seed veg with half a metre of mulch or autumn leaves. By spring it’ll be weed free and ready to plant again – no hacking, backbreaking or herbicides.
- Imagine that Superman has offered to plant a full-grown tree wherever you’d like it in your garden. Now plant a baby specimen of that tree. In five or six years it’ll be big and beautiful without the aid of superheroes.
