A Visit with Shannon Draper at the Gravel Garden

 
On Tuesday, I spent all of a lovely morning with Shannon Draper of The Gravel Garden in Somerset West. After a warm welcome and a great cup of coffee, Shannon showed me around her garden where she grows organic and heirloom varietal vegetables.

Heirloom Varietals are any variety of vegetable that has not been hybradised. They are open-pollinated plants that produce true seed. In other words, seeds that will grow into a plant that is the same as the parent plant that they come from.

From a hybradised plant the seed will give you a variety of results, throwbacks to one of the kinds of plants that were chosen to make up that vegetable to increase its shelf life, produce uniform fruit for packing and shipping and often compromising on taste.

Shannon's beds were being repositioned and she was in the process of turning their old swimming pool into an underground storage facility for rain and greywater. An eco-friendly solution in what becomes a very hot Somerset West in the summer months.

In the meantime though, I was able to see her seedlings in their greenhouse, a structure that again was saved and made useful in it's current form. Seed containers are cleverly made out of newspaper (see below) so that they can simply be put straight into the ground.

Other containers sported the names of tomatoes  that were reminiscent of far-off times and places and whose words left a TASTE  of the exotic and the historic on your tongue as you said them.

The picture of what they would be was complimented by colour descriptions such as pink, red, black and brown, green, orange or, more exotic and tantalising: striped tomatoes!

After a brief peep into the chicken run, Shannon took me out back to a shed and deck that she is building where  other gardeners can come and swap their own produce for  what she  has or what other  people may bring to the stall.  The idea being to   reuse and recycle and not let the excess produce of people's gardens go to waste.

Eventually, she adds, she would like to invite local chefs and foodies cook in something like a closed door restaurant.  Having had ideas of a pop-up restaurant  for some time myself (watch this space), I found this idea wildly exciting.

 

But what I really appreciate about Shannon's approach to growing her produce, is that more than anything, it is a starting point to foster a sense of community.

Shannon's beautifully presented THE GRAVEL GARDEN seed packs

Shannon sells her seeds online. She is very particular about making sure that no cross-pollination happens and that her seed is true seed. See her website THE GRAVEL GARDEN. Also take a look at some of her beautiful picture of the fascinating heirloom varietals that she has grown.

I bought seeds from her and will certainly document with anticipation and great excitement the arrival of their fruit - an excitement only surpassed by what I can then cook with these wonderous "new" varieties at my disposal!