We all need to be encouraged to grow more edibles and have garden barbecue feasts or kitchen root roasts and there is a book to encourage us.

A decade ago I reviewed One Magic Square by expert gardener Lolo Houbein, which explained how to grow your own food on one square metre.

Now Houbein has teamed up with organic farmer Tori Arbon as authors of Magic Little Meals (Wakefield Press. $49.95) to make the most of homegrown produce.

Arbon was inspired by the first book to create Magic Harvest, an organisation that connects neighbours who grow edibles and share cooking workshops. Both authors live in Adelaide. There is a photo of Tori’s Beetroot Spectacular, a baked dish, on the cover of the book.

Every earth to table recipe incorporates at least one vegetable you have grown and the meals are for one to two persons; just multiply for more.

At the southside farmers’ market last Sunday I bought a young globe artichoke plant for autumn planting and leads the alphabetical range of vegetables, herbs, spices in the first two chapters of the book.

Kitchen mysteries are unwrapped and these include the recipe for falafel, which follows.

They are very popular in Canberra’s cafes but, as Arbon says, a falafel is basically a bean patty usually made from broad beans or chick peas. You can make it from scratch and keep some in the freezer.

The apple harvest at Pialligo is well underway. Last Wednesday a Canberra Times photographer, with an intern, and I visited Pialligo for a story to share with you next week.

First, I went to Beltana Grange Orchard (first on the right as you enter Pialligo) where Mike and Pam Hauptmann were in the shed among rows of freshly picked apple varieties.

I was taken to see one of my heroes, Bert Hauptmann who turns 97 this month. Bert has been there since 1952 and eating apples and drinking milk from the family cow surely contributed to his good health as well as working in the orchard.

A white goat was “mowing” his lawn, Bert’s eyes twinkled as ever with his ready smile. His favourite apples are Jonathan and Granny Smith and the Hauptmann family was the first to grow Gala apples in Australia.

Here is a possible first for local gardeners: a Canberra gardener with a plot at a Canberra Organic Growers Society community garden since 2016 has managed to raise edamame (soybeans) to their full maturity. Tammy Hamers bought the seeds for this crop from Green Harvest Organic Suppliers although on a previous occasion edamame germinated in her green manure/compost mix picked up from Bellchambers.

She chose to grow this crop because she likes to attempt things that are challenging and not known to be easily done. Soybeans must be cooked before eating and Tammy eats them in salads and soup.

1 cup dried chickpeas or broad beans (soak overnight in cold water)

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

chilli to taste, seeded and finely chopped

small bunches fresh parsley, coriander, celery and mint, finely chopped

1 teaspoon each ground cumin and coriander

3-4 tablespoons chick pea flour (besan) or rice flour

1 egg

breadcrumbs

oil for frying

Drain the peas or beans and mash, or process in mixer with as little cooking fluid as possible. Mix onion, garlic, chilli and fresh herbs into the mash.

Add salt and ground cumin and coriander, stir and taste. Add more spices if you wish. Stir in the flour, spoon for spoon, until you have a sticky dough.

Roll small balls and flatten between hands before dipping into the whisked egg, then in breadcrumbs to cover both sides.

Heat the oil, but not to smoking point, and slide in the falafels one after the other, frying them slowly to a nice golden crumb on both sides.

You can freeze some when cooled, or you can freeze the balls before dipping and frying them - they defrost quickly enough.