My favourite simple lunch is the one I just pick before eating from my little salad garden beside my verandah. In this space I grow a diversity of plants for a deliciously diverse salad. I love to forage to see what's looking good each day and able to spare a few more leaves.
Growing local food is actually one of the ways I exercise my activism streak - this lunch has no food miles, no chemicals, no GMOs, local seeds, it supports diversity, has lower water needs, is soil regenerative (you know what I mean). I love the way the kids will graze on the salad too and help me harvest. I'm not only cultivating food, I think I'm cultivating young activists too.
The types of plants growing in there now in this winter garden are: many types of lettuce, rocket/arugula, coriander/cilantro, green mustard spinach, red mustard spinach, frilly mustard spinach, sacred basil, sorrel, cherry tomato, parsley, snow peas, garlic chives, fennel, carrots, Brazilian spinach, English Spinach, Welsh onions, ruby chard, curly kale, Mexican tarragon and broccoli - and more....
I plant more lettuces every couple of weeks so that I always have young tender leaves. I like them the best.
Mix of open hearted lettuces - just a leaf or two off each every day.
My instinct is that a diet of diverse plants, which all accumulate different vitamins and minerals in their leaves, has got to be a good thing. I just walk around picking a leaf of this and a leaf of that - and the salad tastes AMAZING! I toss in a few legumes, and possibly some olives or fetta cheese , or tahini, sunflower seeds, cubed tofu and toasted sesame seeds...mmmm! Oh, and a slurp of apple cider vinegar.
I use the leaves and flowers of the garlic chives (Society Garlic)
Even in a series of small pots, you can grow so much salad - using those self-watering milk bottle pots I mentioned last time is a super simple way to get started. There are just so many places we can grow things, even if we don't have our own gardens - community garden ... on the verge... at school .... at work ... balcony ... rooftop ... courtyard .... windowbox ....?
Where do you grow your salad garden?
What is your favourite salad mix?
Brazilian spinach is an abundant perennial
Sacred basil - not only food and flavour, but habitat too.
If you live in the region, come and explore my garden with me during my Permaculture Life series of practical workshops - particularly The Simple and Abundant Garden session if you're into the gardening side of things.
