Tiny Veggies!!!
by Tze Khaw - Thursday, September 08, 2011
What would you think if I told you my team of chefs and I have been swapping our tall hats for gardening gloves?
You see, we have our own sustainable micro garden out the back, not far from the worm farm actually. We’re growing pint-sized herbs and vegetables in a whole bunch of 60cm x 40cm trays. They’re supplied to us by fruit and vegetable wholesalers, AMJ Produce, complete with all the soil and nutrients we need to produce up to 80 individual plants in each tray.
Since June 2011, we have harvested something like 12,800 petite breakfast radishes, micro purple carrots, tiny turnips and fennel bulbs! It’s a great system because we only pick what we need when we need it – which means it pretty well goes straight from the garden to the plate. How fresh is that?
Here’s where the science comes in… AMJ and their grower partner FALG Nurseries have over 80 years’ experience in horticulture, a lot of it working with the hospitality industry. They understand that in our business consistency of quality is essential and every item on every plate needs to look and taste no less than mouth-watering, always. After a lot of experimenting, AMJ discovered a clever way to grow micro veggie and herb varieties consistent in size, shape, colour and, most importantly, flavour.
How does that work?
Generally plants are grown at FALG in specially designed ‘micro houses’ for 2 – 6 months, the time from seed to plate varies greatly depending on the plant variety. All plants at AMJ and FALG are only grown in the correct season, so Mother Nature does most of the work, and there’s no need to chew up resources for unnecessary heating, cooling or watering.
The plants are then delivered to us for the last 4 weeks of their growing cycle. While they’re under our care, we feed them our own worm pee and worm poo fertiliser (which, of course, comes from vegetable scraps in the first place) and they respond beautifully!
We don’t do this just for the flavour though.... The whole process fits perfectly with our commitment to sustainability, “gold service, green attitude”, and we like to choose our suppliers based on shared beliefs!
We love our micro garden and can assure you that when you get to experience the produce at your next dinner or food tasting with us, you will love it too!
Comments:
Darrence
Nov 3, 2011
Nov 3, 2011
I can't hear atnyinhg over the sound of how awesome this article is.