While I am a complete novice gardener, my year old vegetable garden has so many merits that I am wondering how we ever lived without it.

I love the fact that I can walk out each day and pick fresh spinach, carrots, silverbeet, broad beans, beetroot and herbs and know that they are fresh and untouched by sprays and chemicals.
I say “untouched” lightly, meaning that they are not sprayed in my garden and most of the compost is either organic or homemade.
I have set aside a north facing area that is not usually seen by others for “wld” herbs.  Packets of rocket, coriander and basil have been flung into the compost and left to do their thing.  I did this last year and had a continuous supply right through summer and winter.  Coriander of course is best grown this way as it tends to go to seed as soon as you transplant it – hence the difficulty with buying seedlings.

The joy of growing, picking and then cooking is so huge that I am seriously now eyeing up lots of other areas – trying to work out what else we can possibly grow and reading Lynda Hallinans article on peanuts ^[1] in the lawn sounded really interesting!

As we currently have loads of spinach and silverbeet we are eating lots of spinach and feta pies ^[2].  I like to scrunch the filo over the top and scatter with pine nuts.  These are often best added either at the end or towards the end of cooking so that they don’t burn.

My glorious beetroot draws complaints from some family members although all over 12 seem to like this recipe for lamb, beetroot, feta and walnut salad. 
Make sure you use good quality NZ walnuts – they are so superior!

Lamb, beetroot, feta and walnut salad ^[3]

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