GET GROWING!

HOW DOES HER GARDEN GROW?

Image credit: Rekha’s Kitchen Garden by Rekha Mistry.

By LADYBUG

Welcome to Rekha’s kitchen garden, an urban plot  packed with fruits and vegetables – the very best of seasonal produce all year round.

Seasonal produce all year round? Aha! There’s the catch! The words don’t even belong in the same sentence for those of us who garden in northern climes, eking out a “harvest” in a few short months in which spring summer and fall are all squished together

So yes, this garden, too, is on English soil. But don’t let that phase you. Let Rekha show you how to make the best of your space (and seasons) as she shares tips and tricks learned over years of gardening.

Her journey began in Zambia, she writes, helping her mother in her little kitchen garden. From there to a small urban plot in London where her vegetable plants were no match for her children’s “flying footballs”.

So she signed up for a plot in a community garden. Her garden and her commitment grew rapidly. She bid goodbye to a successful 25-year career, started a gardening blog, discovered a love for photography, signed up for a program in horticulture and began a new career as a garden and food writer and TV host. Just reading this makes me want to go out and play in my little patch of soil!

With tips from Rekha on growing organically, composting and harvesting rainwater.

I read the bits on natural pest control with great interest.

Rekha, like me, eschews chemical fertilizers. But Rekha, unlike me, has come up with solutions that actually work. Like luring slugs and snails with cheap beer. Or discouraging the dreaded spider mites that love dry heat with humidity. And using netting to keep insects and birds away. Of course, she also has a helper neither I nor most gardeners have – her “trusty hawk kite” Henry!

Many people grow tomatoes and peppers in pots, but she grows radishes in pots, too.

From leafy vegetables and salad greens to eggplants and cucumbers (who knew they had male and female flowers and that pinching off most of the male flowers results in a better harvest of cucumbers?) carrots and beans... you’ll find them all and more.

She includes kitchen tips and family recipes (including one for muthia).

It’s like having a friendly neighbour whom you can chat with – and consult – over a backyard fence.

Rekha’s Kitchen Garden by Rekha Mistry is published by DK, $28.99.