With the change of season, I am looking forward
to those beautiful winter flavours,
those sweet frosted brussels sprouts,
roasted carrots,
but I'm also looking to broaden my flavour horizons.
You know, humans, we can taste salty,
we can taste savoury, sour and even bitter flavours.
And I want to plant them all,
starting with this cold-climate classic.
In Australia, bitter flavours aren't really that common,
but in places in the world that experience a really deep winter,
they are celebrated.
Their flavours cut through that really traditional rich winter food.
And here in the Central Highlands, well,
we get really good winters.
Last year, it even snowed.
So radicchio is a perfect crop for us.
You will find a couple of varieties available in seedlings,
but if you want diversity,
you've gotta do it yourself.
I'm a bit obsessed, so I've grown six Italian varieties from seed.
I actually prepared this garden bed about a week ago.
I gave it a really good aeration with a fork,
just wriggling it about, and then put a thick layer of homemade compost on
and a bit of lucerne mulch,
and then I put a bit of water on it, so it's absolutely raring to go.
These are quite big plants
and, growing in the cooler months, they are also prone to rot,
so you need to give them a bit of space to grow -
about 30cm to 40cm between each.
Keep track of the varieties. Just some pegs with the names written on.
Then I'll know what I'm growing.
Once the plants are established and the cooler weather hits,
that's when those delicious hearts start to form,
and to make them even tastier,
you can do a thing called blanching,
which in gardening terms means that you stop the light hitting the plant.
Now, you can tie some of those coarse outer leaves
up around the top of the heart with a bit of string
or you can do something like pop a big old pot over the top.
I'm gonna do some experiments.
I'll let you know how I go.
This is a plant that I have wanted to grow for such a long time.
It's true liquorice, and I love the stuff.
And apparently this is something like 50 times sweeter than sugar,
so I reckon it's gonna be a welcome addition to the garden.
Now, it's a little Mediterranean shrub.
It's herbaceous, which means
it'll die right back down to the ground in winter and then shoot away,
and it's best in a full sun position or a little bit of shade.
Now, it does need really, really good drainage,
so in the garden, you need to make sure it has it,
or, in a container, make sure it's got a really good drainage hole.
Part of the plant that you actually harvest and process and use,
the sweet bit, are the roots, and...
..you do that every two or three years.
You need to let the plant get quite large to do it.
Don't worry. I'm into the gardening thing. I can wait.
And when you do that, you'll harvest some of those roots,
use them to make ice cream or something else interesting,
and then you replant what's left
so it can grow on and you can do it again.
Sweet.
When it comes to sour flavours, sorrel is the absolute queen,
and it's really, really good through the cooler months.
I like it in small amounts in salads, but the French make a fantastic soup,
and it is so easy to propagate.
Just lift a plant out of the ground
and divide it.
This might look pretty brutal, but I promise they can take it.
In fact, in the wrong garden,
they can be a bit of a weed.
Any piece with a little bit of root will shoot away.
I'm just removing the excess leaves to make sure they don't dry out
before they re-establish.
Might find it hard to believe,
but celery is actually really high in sodium,
particularly when you're a bit mean to it, as I tend to be.
If you want to grow celery
with really lush, succulent, water-filled stems,
then you need to do that in the milder months
and give it lots of water and nutrients.
If you just want a few sticks to chuck in a soup with lots of flavour,
you can bung 'em in anywhere, which I do.
A couple of plants does the trick.
And give the rest to a friend.
And now to the last flavour, which is a little bit hard to describe.
How do you describe an indescribable flavour?
Is it earthy or meaty?
We call it savoury, but the Japanese call it umami,
and it makes food delicious,
and one of my very favourite umami ingredients
is the Japanese daikon radish.
They really are as easy to grow as any other radish,
so always from seed.
They are a little bit bigger, so as they come up,
you want to thin them to about 10cm to 15cm between each plant,
but they are the most fantastic food.
You can eat them raw.
You can pickle them or ferment them or cook them into soups,
where they take on all the flavours.
They are absolutely fantastic for winter.
Of course, I am still enjoying the last of those sweet summer crops,
but my eyes and my tastebuds are firmly fixed
on the complexity of winter.
It is a wonderful time to garden.
So, what are you waiting for? Get growing!
Captions by Red Bee Media
Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation