Green thumb
All vegetables are best when harvested and eaten on the same day.
Atropical vegetable garden produces great abundance at this time of the year, so many nourishing vegetables that grow in the extremes of tropical heat, humidity and rain. To maintain a healthy body we need to consume good quality, nutritionally-rich leafy vegetables regularly.
To do this in Far North Queensland we need to think outside the square and away from the temperate grown vegetables that are sold on supermarket shelves and have travelled many miles to reach us.
All vegetables are best when harvested and eaten on the same day, and that can easily be achieved by growing vegetables at home.
It is amazing how much produce can be grown in a few large containers, if a backyard is not available.
The tropical abundance can be such that there will always be surplus to make pickles, chutneys, dehydrated chips, and frozen vegetables.
Snake beans are one of the best summer vegetables to grow as there are a number of varieties to choose from, dwarf or climbing, black, brown or red seeded.
The most profile is ‘yard long’, Vigna unguiculata, and it is bean fly resistant. Snake beans require a soil high in organic matter, that needs to be well drained in order to keep the roots of the plants strong.
Prepare a raised bed with added compost and adjust to a pH of around 7. Plant seeds 10cm apart into the raised bed, water daily, early in the morning and the plants will be up and growing within the week.
The vine will start to flower in around five weeks and the beans will develop quickly.
To obtain high quality beans harvest the beans, at least every second day, and in the cool of the morning. Snap the beans away from the vine carefully so as not to damage emerging flowers.
The beans can be cut into small 5cm portions and steamed, stir-fried with garlic and turmeric or made into a substantial meal as a casserole with tomatoes, onions and other vegetables. Snake beans are at their most versatile when lightly steamed then pickled in cider vinegar. Add some finely chopped onions, turmeric and ginger slices for added flavour.
Regularly top up the soil around the roots of the beans with enriched compost to keep them growing healthily and producing lots of beans. Remember it is important to harvest all the mature beans at least every second day. If beans are left to go to seed the vine will stop producing flowers.
At the end of the beans’ productive time, cut the plant back and combine into the soil, cover with compost and a little dolomite and the bed will be ready to rotate with next season’s tomatoes which should be planted over Easter.
With the warm humid weather at this time of the year the Pacific spinach, Abelmoschus manihot, grows tall with huge leaves.
This leafy green vegetable is high in the essential vitamins; carotenoids, protein, magnesium, zinc, manganese, calcium, sulphur, iron, and potassium.
This is a vegetable for complete nutrition, and best of all can be eaten raw or cooked.
Pacific spinach will grow as a tall productive shrub, and there are dozens of varieties. Some with dull, tough, green, fingered leaves and others with tender extremely large palmated foliage. Pacific spinach will grow in full sun or part shade in the backyard or in a pot on the patio.
To maintain its leafy productivity sidedness regularly with enriched compost and the rakings of the chicken cage. Grasshoppers can be a problem with some varieties but a chilli spray or interplanting the shrubs with tall chilli bushes will keep the grasshoppers away.
Harvest the leaves early in the morning and pile them in layers on a damp tea-towel. The stalk can be used as a substitute for celery in recipes and the leaves used raw in salads or as a substitute for spinach in all recipes; particularly delicious in spinach pie.
This is a versatile vegetable that will grow throughout the year with little maintenance, and the only pest is grasshoppers.
These two vegetables can provide all the leafy greens needed to keep a family healthy at little to no cost, and with a little effort and learned gardening skills the varieties can be expanded as there are many other vegetables that can be grown easily and all year in coastal Far North Queensland.