With small apartments and busy lives, is it possible for us all to grow some produce?
Yes, of course! Everyone can grow something, even if it’s simply one plant. This one plant may inspire more growing or simply connect you with what it means to grow food, what it means to eat seasonally, and connect you with nature.
Five top tips to make cooking for your village easy:
■ First would be to do it together! No one person cooks for the village, it’s a village effort.
■ Pickle, ferment and preserve so you always have lots of diverse elements for your dishes ready to go.
■ Cook beans and grains in bulk at the start of the week and store seasoned and ready for quick, easy and healthy meals to feed many, throughout the week.
■ Cook big! We usually cook and bake at least twice as much as we need so we have lots of leftovers. It takes hardly any extra effort to cook double but it saves a whole second round of cooking!
■ Antipasti boards are your saviour for random drop-ins and extra mouths. We always have cheeses, salumi, pickles, preserves, ferments, bread, oil and butter ready to lay out at a moment’s notice.
What seasonal veg and fruit would you always grow, and how would you preserve them?
■ Summer/autumn: Tomatoes — and make passata.
■ Summer: Peaches and apricots — easy to grow and easy to preserve! Both freeze them and bottle them whole.
■ Winter/spring: Leeks — grow abundantly and easily! Make leek jam (recipe in
■ Year round: Carrots, wombok, chilli and various herbs to make fresh garden kimchi. Citrus fruits to make Sardinian marmalade.
Your favourite go-to meal after a long day in the garden?
Our sardine pasta. It takes less than 30 minutes to make, massively satisfies a hungry stomach every time and feeds many.
Three things about yourselves that would surprise?
Lentil: Loves her some good hip-hop. Matt: Once travelled overland from Saigon to Tel Aviv, hitch-hiking half the way. Both: We don’t get attached to our gardens. We would quite happily grow up a new garden every few years. It’s enough for us to know we’ve left a place more beautiful than we found it if life takes us on another adventure.