Homegrown

The fact that we can buy different types of fruit and vegetables all year round is actually strange: we have only been able to eat avocados during western European winters and Brussels sprouts in the summer for a few decades. It’s time to find out what grows best when, how and where at home.
For centuries, we had neither the transportation options nor the refrigeration methods to eat anything we wanted all year round. We have largely forgotten what our own country has to offer and when. Many people see the drawbacks, including lack of sustainability. That is why many chefs, restaurant owners and home gardeners are reverting to the traditions of our ancestors: home-grown, seasonal fruit and vegetables are appearing on the menu. There is a greater focus on local produce. This raises the simple question of why one thing grows here and another grows there once again. It's not that complicated: just try growing a banana in a Dutch garden.

FROM SMALL TO LARGE

It’s always satisfying: you sow the seeds, the seeds germinate, the plants grow and you eat them. Even if you don't have a garden, terrace or a balcony, a bowl for sunflower or radish sprouts gives you home-grown microgreens soon enough. It would be difficult to build a vegetable garden indoors, but simply placing your seeds on the windowsill you will get further than you think. Lots of light works wonders for chillies, tomatoes, peppers and herbs. With hydroponics, you can even grow things just with water. A home grow kit from Rotterzwam or Fungi Factory is all you need to produce your own harvest of oyster mushrooms. If you have a little more space but a little less patience, radishes and courgettes might be for you. They grow easily and quickly. A built-in germination cabinet enables you to grow them at home, but many professional kitchens also have larger germination cabinets. The system regulates light, temperature and watering so that you can grow perfect seeds and herbs.
Urban gardens and kitchen gardens come in all shapes and sizes, but during a crisis people tend to start growing vegetables and fruit en masse, either together or individually. The English have given this the eloquent term 'Victory Garden': in times of war and hardship, the government also allocates special plots, where they are encouraged to start community gardens so that they can grow fruit, herbs and vegetables. This isn’t just happening outside the concrete jungle of the city: in New York and Chicago, city dwellers have been practising community gardening for years. From small community projects to Brooklyn-based Gotham Greens, which has now built more than 40,000m2 of greenhouses running entirely on solar and wind energy.
Start your own vegetable garden, buy a grow box, grow your own salty vegetables on your balcony, start a communal garden or plant an avocado seed in your living room: you can create your own secret garden by growing your own fruit and vegetables. And we promise: a carrot really will taste like a carrot. Your cutting station will become your new pet in no time.

DIY BUSINESSES
Of course, we do not have to get our own hands dirty. Well-loved restaurants such as De Kas in Amsterdam and Brasserie Staverden near Ermelo have had their own greenhouse and/or vegetable garden for years and have served their harvest from garden to table. At Mediamatic, things are a bit more experimental: you dine in a miniature greenhouse, with food brought to you from the Mediamatic Biotope on the IJ in Amsterdam.
Among our southern neighbours, you can enjoy Michelin-star quality food at L'air du Temps, where chef Sang Hoon Degeimbre cooks using home-grown produce and works with local producers of meat, dairy and snails. Further afield, American chef Dan Barber honours his grandmother's Blue Hill Farm by only working with home-grown seasonal produce – from eggs to vegetables, from wheat to veal and pork. It is a holistic organic empire with a research centre and seed lab, but at Blue Hill in New York you will eat a sandwich made from real wholemeal flour or an egg from chickens fed on red peppers. Enough inspiration to start your secret home garden.

TINY TIPS
You can do zombie gardening using your vegetable waste. Simply plant your leftover vegetables (spring onion roots or lettuce heart) in the earth and they will germinate into new edible plants. Don't just throw away your avocado pit, either. There is only a small chance that an avocado will grow from it, but if you peel the seed and put it in a damp cloth in a warm place for a few weeks, it may germinate and grow into a beautiful little plant.