{"id":1386,"date":"2016-07-31T22:05:50","date_gmt":"2016-07-31T21:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bcpdt.org.uk\/news\/?p=1386"},"modified":"2023-05-31T18:48:17","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T17:48:17","slug":"garden-i-grew-first-apple-tree-i-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bcpdt.org.uk\/news\/2016\/07\/31\/garden-i-grew-first-apple-tree-i-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Me and my garden: \u2018I grew my first apple tree when I was 12\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

We lived in a suburban terraced house in Luton. My parents grew their own veg in the back garden \u2013 turnips, radishes, cucumbers, herbs, fenugreek, beans \u2013 because that\u2019s what they did when they were growing up in Bangladesh<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"PoweredThis article titled “Me and my garden: \u2018I grew my first apple tree when I was 12\u2019” was written by Jane Perrone, for The Guardian on Saturday 30th July 2016 09.59 UTC<\/a><\/p>\n

I have always tried to experiment. I grew my first apple tree from a granny smith when I was about 12; the apples were dry and quite small but they were great for pickling and we\u2019d make weird fruit salsas with them.<\/p>\n

We lived in a suburban terraced house in Luton. My parents grew their own veg in the back garden \u2013 turnips, radishes, cucumbers, herbs, fenugreek, beans \u2013 because that\u2019s what they did when they were growing up in Bangladesh. They used to sell bunches of coriander to the local Kashmiri stores.<\/p>\n

Now, I don\u2019t need to grow anything in bulk. I am more interested in the process, so you get little patches of weird stuff going on in the garden. I brought some water morning glory<\/a> from an Asian store in Luton, put a stalk in water and it\u2019s rooted. I ate it when I was in Bangladesh with my mum for a holiday \u2013 delicious.<\/p>\n

I want to see what will grow without much from me, because I am a lazy gardener. In my pond I am growing watercress; there\u2019s loads of it, so I use it in the kitchen. At the back of the garden, I have rear-ended some pallets and put grow bags inside them. I\u2019ve planted Japanese wineberry<\/a> to cover the fence and find out what they taste like.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m into foraging as well. I\u2019ve yet to find my first ramsons<\/a> (wild garlic). I don\u2019t necessarily want to eat it, just to know it\u2019s there: it\u2019s this idea that we might enter a post-apocalyptictic world, and I can have a map of where all the edible stuff is.<\/p>\n