5 plus a day: The rainbow in my garden

 I’d argue that you get more when you grow your own food organically and eating freshly out of the garden. I had a little think about some of the fruits and vegies I grow and what colours they are:

Greens

I’ve got the greens covered 12 months of the year, at the very least there is always silver beet, bok choy or cabbage ready to eat, plus there are herbs like parsley, oregano, mint etc… so I’ve got greens covered and we pretty much eat only greens from the garden. In the summer when the garden is pumping, we have courgettes coming out of our ears (we have to give them away, it’s not possible to eat them all), green peppers, cucumber, fejoas in winter, spring onion, leeks, beans and broad beans.

Purple/ Reds

Purple is sometimes covered, depending on the season. So I’m a fan of Maori potatoes, the long purple ones called Urenika or Peruperu, but they don’t keep that well. Then we have tamarillos, yes I know they say you can’t grow them here but I do and they grow well. Then there are raspberries, now they have a real short season and frankly rarely make it inside. They just get scoffed, and that’s about the month of Christmas. We also have passionfruit, the vines are getting stronger and stronger, now into their 3^rd season. There are black currants, a pretty sour fruit which I chuck in the plum jam pot. Oh yes plums, we have the early ones in December. They are small and yellow fleshed and we have to beat the birds. Then at about the start of February we have the big fat damson and black doris ones. I have a grape vine but haven’t had much luck with that so far… I think it needs to get more established. Ok so that’s my purple. (Note: also growing your own garden means you can try vegies that you might not usually see in the fruit and vegie shops like purple beans, purple tomatoes – a big fat beefsteak one called Black Krim, and purple (also known as red) cabbage. Some of these could also be in the red column, like the apples from our little apple tree and the beetroot. In the reds of course we need to include the tomatoes which I try and make sure I grow heaps of so that I can roast some for bottles of pasta sauce throughout the year.  

Yellow

Yellow, hmm let me think? Pumpkins, Crown pumpkins are yellow on the inside, and on the menu right through winter, as are butternuts. They’re good keepers so the season is quite long. In the summer we have butter beans and yellow cherry tomatoes. I wonder if I can count the silver beet rainbow chard which has yellow (and other coloured) stems. I think so. We have yellow tamarillos called Teds, gold I think too. I think passionfruits would come into this category too; the sticky stuff with all the flavour is yellowish. Then there are the citrus fruits, we have a lemon tree, a mandarin tree, the grapefruit hasn’t fruited yet, but I’ll give it a mention to encourage it. The flesh of the moemoe potato is very floury, buttery and yellow. Corn, as sweet corn or maize, is a staple cereal crop. I also have a range of capsicums and peppers, yellow and orange included.

White/ Browns

White: that would be our white corn (kanga ma), a pearly gem that can be ground up to make cornmeal porridge to warm us up in winter. I have a white currant. The starchy potatoes and even the waxy potatoes are the big white players. This leads us into browns like the Jerusalem artichokes, the onions. I have grown mushrooms a few seasons ago and even though I do encourage it, my children are not mushroom fans. I like them but can cope without them.

I’ve always loved pretty much all vegetables, and the children are expected to as well. I think the only thing they don’t like (surprisingly both of them) is mushrooms, and the thing I must admit I do avoid are Brussels sprouts. I had them when I was a kid and I wouldn’t have problem if I never have them again in my life.

I happen to agree with the health promotion on this one. When something is at the peak of its season, we have been known to gorge on them e.g. mandarins, fejoas, passionfruits, plums… and indeed… there are way worse things that our family could be doing than getting the peak vitamins at the peak time from the most delicious fruits.

Here are some of the fruits and vegies from the colour groups:

Of courses your family’s tastes will be different, and likely if I was to draw up a table next season it would be different. Ah the variety of life.