A peck of peppers

While researching plants for the Secret Garden Club’s GrowYour Own Curry workshop last year, I found few plants that couldn’t be raised in the UK, indoors and with a little environmental control. Many spice plants grow in jungle areas, or are forest floor plants, so like a warm, humid climate and perhaps surprisingly not too much sunshine. I found myself advising placing plants in bathrooms quite often.

Since the first Grow Your Own Curry I've discovered a couple of other spice plants which will grow happily in the UK given the right conditions.

Out in the open ground, I’ve transplanted a Szechuan pepper tree (Zanthoxylum bungeanum), bought from Crug Farm in Wales. Szechuan pepper seedpods have the distinctive peppery heat of conventional peppercorns, with a hint of citrus. The plants themselves are very attractive with dark glossy leaves – and also some vicious spines, both on the main stems and along the leaf stems as well.

These should survive the British winter outside – my plant originated in Korea where winters can be harsh - but I will give it some protection if the temperature drops much below freezing. It spent last winter in the greenhouse where it succumbed to red spider mite, and so it is still catching up after quite a severe check in growth.

I’m also growing a pandan plant (Pandanus amarylifolius), pictured top, which has blade-like leaves with a sweet, aromatic flavour, ideal for infusions, for scenting rice puddings and cakes. It's often compared to vanilla - indeed the site in the last link calls it 'Asian vanilla', but it's not a direct substitute.

I've placed the plant in a north-facing bay window –so light, but not direct sunlight and in group with the cardamom plant (not in its third year), and the ginger plant grown from root. This group of potted plants stands in a very large saucer with a layer of gravel which I keep moist to keep the humidity levels up.

Review: A Taste Of The Unexpected

Mark Diacono specialises in ‘climate change’ crops at Otter Farm in Devon and is also head gardener for River Cottage. His premise in A Taste Of The Unexpected is that too many of us grow potatoes, cabbages and onions when there is no real need to do so: they are cheap and plentiful in the shops and we could be spending our time and labour on fruit and veg which is unobtainable elsewhere. I think this rather glosses over why people grow the crops they do but it certainly chimes with my own ideas on what to grow.

Mark writes engagingly with enthusiasm for flavours and scents – there are some gorgeously sensual descriptions of scrunching up leaves in your hands and tasting the produce . The author also does a good job of making a case for the inclusion of each fruit/vegetable here. It would be too easy to write about crops just because they were unusual. Here each one has to earn its place on the page. Peaches and nectarines, for examples, are included because “unless you’ve grown your own, or had the fortune of being in an Italian peach orchard in the summer, you have yet to enjoy all that a peach has to offer”. Even so I would on the whole have liked to see more on the culinary uses of the produce included here. I feel a bit as though not enough is made of the unique properties of, say, Chilean guava, or Carolina allspice: more is said about how they can be used in place of other more familiar ingredients.

I also succumbed to the combined pleasure/annoyance of seeing vegetables I already grow in here. Admittedly a somewhat smug pleasure: Ha! – I already know about romanesco cauliflower , borlottis and globe artichokes too. The annoyance is that I no longer have exclusive bragging rights over the quinces (and look, he has medlars too, s’not fair). Actually I would have found this book useful for the section on kai lan alone. From the description and the pictures, I am certain that this is the same plant that I grow as kaaillan, but Mark Diacono seems to get so much more from the crop that I do (Cut and come again? Survives the winter?). Intrigued, I will be following his growing instructions to the letter this year and will hopefully boost my yield to something approaching his.

I also like the fact that guidelines for sowing, care and harvesting are kept concise and simple. And although he makes gardening sound like an easy no-brainer activity, it’s probably not a book for the raw beginner  - even though The Directory section gives information as basic as a list of gardening tools needed.

I’ll be using this book: it’s made me think about Szechuan peppers and those wineberries, and I think it’s convinced to dump the cabbages as well.

A Taste Of The Unexpected
Mark Diacono
Quadrille Publishing Ltd