Eats shoots and leaves: The Edible Garden at the Botanics

By RUTH WALKER
Published on Sunday 29 January 2012 15:00

CULTIVATING edible crops is not usual practice in Edinburgh’s Botanics, but a new scheme is doing just that to encourage us to grow our own food

In the recent storms that battered Scotland, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh lost 34 of its beloved trees, while the celebrated glasshouses were also badly damaged, leaving many rare plants vulnerable to the elements. The newly installed polytunnel, however, home to the Edible Garden project, stood firm, resolutely planted in the rich Botanic soil.

Right now, the biggest risk facing the rainbow chard, spinach leaves, parsley and spring onions currently growing there is not the country’s erratic weather fronts – the wind and rain and frosts that are the bane of many a gardener – but the pests visiting from the nearby wildlife garden, looking for a tasty snack.

Just as I arrive, Ben Dell, one of the gardeners who tends the crops, has just caught a mouse mid-nibble through the shoots of mizuna leaves (tasty in a stir-fry, apparently – grab a handful from the pot at your back door, toss it in the pan and let all that crunchy oriental goodness work it's magic).

But hang on a minute. Growing fruit and veg? That's not really RBGE territory. They're more your endangered fern from the farthest-flung corner of Nepal type of chaps. If there's a rare orchid or a bonkers plant that only flowers once every 100 years and smells like vomit, give them a call. But apple trees and gooseberry bushes? “It's a real departure for us,” admits Ian Edwards, head of exhibitions and events at RBGE.

“Technically, we're about rare plants. We're about pure species from somewhere in the Himalayas or Borneo but not actually about common or garden vegetables.”

In reality, however, it’s almost a case of the garden going back to its roots. “In 1670, when we first started,” says Edwards, “we did grow quite a few fruit and vegetables and are responsible for introducing to Scotland some interesting things. Rhubarb is the classic. We supplied the entire country at one point.”

The Edible Garden project is the centrepiece to the innovative Science on a Plate festival, and it has just welcomed Neil Forbes, the charismatic chef-director of Edinburgh’s Café St Honoré, as figurehead. “I'm a very keen gardener and growing things you can actually eat is hugely exciting for me,” he says.

“In my garden at home, I have fruit trees, lots of greens, roots, purple sprouting broccoli ... in the summer there are berries. I spend so much time indoors, in the sardine can of a kitchen, to get outside and get my hands dirty, it's such a joy. To pick that apple off the tree in December and give it to one of the kids to taste – there's something very special about that. Or seeing their faces light up when you pull something out of the ground and they remember planting that seed six, ten months ago, that's science.”

And he’s not wrong. Even in a chilly January, the Edible Garden – which is funded by the People’s Postcode Lottery – is thriving. Soon they’ll be planting beans, peas, cabbages and peppers, much of which will be destined for the kitchens at RBGE’s own restaurant, while the trees and bushes – the gooseberries, blackberries, morello cherries, currants, apples, plums and even apricots – will take a little longer to bear fruit. It’s all part of a plan to encourage more of us to grow our own food, whether that be tomatoes on our front doorstep, herbs and leaves in a windowbox or even just a pot of chillies on the kitchen table. “Everything we buy in the supermarket these days has to be perfect and evenly shaped and sized,” says Forbes.

“You can buy strawberries in January, and that's just abhorrent to me. I want to get excited about going with my children to pick strawberries in June and looking forward to the next season. People sometimes ask me, ‘What's your favourite season?’ and I always say, ‘The next one, because I'm bored of this one.’ You do get a bit bored of roots and carrots, but the next season there will always be something new.”

A father of two young boys – “one is extremely fussy and one will eat absolutely anything” – he knows the value of getting children to engage with the food they eat. “They go to this fab school in Leith, which has a great little garden where they're growing butternut squashes and tomatoes and stuff like that – it's just phenomenal. We need to get this message into more schools; understanding where food comes from at an early age is hugely important.”

Science on a Plate begins this week with a showcase at the Scottish Parliament, followed by a student challenge that invites youngsters from Edinburgh and Aberdeen to come up with a three-course sustainable Scottish menu. Then, as part of the Edinburgh Science Festival programme, there will be events ranging from interactive cooking demonstrations with top chefs, to an aphrodisiac canape reception, a fair trade tea party and a foraging walk and breakfast.

Ah yes, foraging. That’s mushrooms and – er – what else? “Oh, there's tons of stuff,” gasps Forbes. “What is great just now is sea buckthorn. There are buckets of it on the East Lothian coast. If you can imagine the most tropical-tasting fruit – pineapple, paw paw, mango, that type of flavour, add sugar to it as it's a bit bitter on its own – it tastes better than that. This is grown on our shores, there's tons of it, we need to use it. Let's bottle it up and let's sell it ourselves. It tastes phenomenal.

“Next will be the first of the wild leeks,” he says, warming to his subject, “then the wild garlic. It's just really delicious and I think when something's wild the flavour is more intense. If you get some bulbs, scatter them in your garden, they'll come back next year. Just give them a damn good wash, make sure nobody's been walking their dog in that area ... give it another good wash ... then sauté it in butter, put it in a stir-fry. Wild garlic is great with lamb.”

But he cautions, “Do buy a good book; don't go picking mushrooms unless you know what you're doing.

“The original idea of the Edible Garden was to introduce people to growing plants in a way that was easy and non-threatening – anybody can do it,” adds Edwards. “But we're interested in food on a global scale as well, so have linked up with science, the food industry: groups like Marine Scotland, the Rowett Institute, the Scottish Agricultural College, farmers' markets, micro breweries, people smoking everything from venison to salmon ...”

But he says, “Working with the chefs is something new for us – they understand what people want to eat. Scientists are often very out of touch with people. They're wrapped up in the other end of it so much.”

He sees the festival addressing some of the big questions facing the food industry today: issues about the welfare of animals, for instance. “Should we keep eating veal?” he asks. “Is chicken something we have to keep away from?” Then there are the food myths. “Do raspberries really boost your immunity? What about oats – are they really something special? We’re trying to blow away the myths, of which there are many, and produce the facts.”

But perhaps the fundamental question is this one: why does Scotland have the finest produce anywhere in the world yet the people have the worst diet?

Forbes believes things are changing and our diets are improving, but adds, “We need markets like the farmers' market for everybody in underprivileged parts of town. It's all very well for people who don't have money problems, but it should be for everyone.”

Then it doesn’t take long before he’s back on to his favourite topic. “When you’re out there gardening, you're getting a bit of exercise, you're growing healthy food that hasn't been flown from the other side of the world – it's all good, good, good.

“And there's nothing better than having people round for supper. You have provided the salad leaves for the starter, the roots for the main course, the tatties, the herbs to put in the lamb or the chicken and the berries for the pudding. How smug are you when you can do that?” n

• Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (rgbe.org.uk); Edinburgh International Science Festival, 30 March to 15 April (sciencefestival.co.uk)

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