Growing food, cooking seasonally and making the most of what the garden gives us.

There’s something rather wonderful about walking outside to decide what’s for dinner instead of opening the fridge and wondering what on earth to cook.

That’s the idea behind my living pantry. Not a perfectly organised vegetable garden with neat rows of produce ready to harvest on demand, but a collection of vegetables, herbs, fruits and edible plants that help feed our family throughout the seasons.

Some weeks the garden is incredibly generous. Other weeks, the weather, wildlife or sheer chaos of family life have other ideas.

And this month? We’ve had a bit of everything.

From frosty mornings and disappearing potatoes to an overflowing greenhouse, plenty of cauliflower and more herbs than I know what to do with, spring in the Southern Highlands has certainly kept me busy.

But that’s the beauty of a living pantry. You work with what you’ve got, rather than expecting everything to go according to plan.

What Exactly Is a Living Pantry?

When most people think about a pantry, they picture shelves filled with pasta, rice, flour, tins and jars.

My pantry includes all of those things, but it also extends beyond the kitchen door.

It’s the sage growing beside the garden beds, the rhubarb returning each spring, the leafy greens ready for picking and the seedlings waiting patiently in the greenhouse.

It’s also the herbs I dry, the vegetables I freeze and the leftovers I turn into another meal.

A living pantry is about having food available in different forms, at different times, and making the most of what you already have.

You don’t need acreage or an elaborate greenhouse to create one. A pot of parsley, a few salad leaves or a tomato plant on a sunny balcony is a perfectly good start.

The goal isn’t to grow everything you eat. It’s to become a little less dependent on buying every ingredient for every meal.

A Month in My Spring Garden

Spring always feels like a fresh start, particularly after a Southern Highlands winter.

But anyone who gardens in Bundanoon knows that spring doesn’t necessarily mean the end of frost.

We’ve had a couple of particularly cold mornings recently, and some of my potatoes haven’t appreciated the experience, despite being covered.

Meanwhile, the greenhouse is bursting at the seams.

There are tomatoes, cucumbers and other seedlings waiting for their turn outside, but I’m reluctant to rush them into the garden while the nights are still unpredictable.

Then there’s the cauliflower.

I seem to have produced rather more cauliflower seedlings than the designated cauliflower bed can accommodate. A lovely problem to have, although I’m not entirely sure where they’re all going yet.

The broad beans are growing, the asparagus is waking up, the rhubarb is looking promising and the herbs are doing what herbs do best — growing wherever they please.

My oregano has been particularly enthusiastic, self-seeding in several places. The sage has become enormous, and the sorrel is providing plenty of fresh leaves for cooking.

Of course, I’m not the only one interested in the garden.

The rabbits have been investigating, rodents have been digging where they shouldn’t, and the local birds have developed a taste for anything remotely interesting.

It’s hardly the picture-perfect kitchen garden you see in magazines.

But it is productive, and more importantly, it gets used.

From Garden Bed to Dinner Plate

One of the biggest changes I’ve made to the way I cook is starting with what’s available rather than deciding on a recipe and buying everything for it.

A handful of herbs, a few leafy greens or some vegetables that need using can completely change what ends up on the dinner table.

Here are a few ways the garden has been influencing our meals lately.

Sage, Brown Butter and Homemade Bread

Sage is one of those herbs that can transform something simple into something rather special.

With so much growing in the garden, I’ve been finding more ways to use it.

Recently, I made a brown butter and sage focaccia. The nutty flavour of the butter with the earthy sage was absolutely delicious.

It’s a reminder that home-grown ingredients don’t always need to be the main event.

Sometimes they’re what makes an ordinary dish memorable.

Sorrel, Strawberries and Halloumi

One of my more unusual recent combinations was a pizza topped with strawberries, halloumi and fresh sorrel.

Yes, strawberries on pizza.

And it was amazing.

The salty halloumi worked beautifully with the sweet strawberries, while the sorrel added a fresh, slightly sharp flavour.

A drizzle of honey and some fresh mint finished it off.

The strawberries were shop-bought, but the herbs and greens came from the garden.

That’s another important part of my living pantry philosophy: you don’t have to grow every ingredient for a meal to benefit from growing some of them.

Cauliflower: A Good Problem to Have

With so many cauliflower plants waiting for space, I’m already thinking about how we’ll use the harvest.

Cauliflower is incredibly versatile.

It can be roasted with spices, added to curries, blended into soups, baked with cheese or tossed through pasta.

And if several heads are ready at once, I’ll blanch and freeze some for later.

Growing your own food means learning to deal with abundance as well as shortages.

Sometimes the question isn’t ‘What’s for dinner?’ but ‘What on earth am I going to do with all this cauliflower?’

The Herbs That Earn Their Place

If you’re new to growing food, herbs are where I’d recommend starting.

They take relatively little space, can be harvested in small amounts and often make an enormous difference to the flavour of a meal.

In my garden, sage, thyme, oregano, rosemary and mint all have their place.

Some are doing better than others. My rosemary is having a rather uninspiring season, while the oregano appears determined to take over.

But that’s gardening.

You learn what grows well in your conditions and build around it.

Fresh herbs are also a simple way to make everyday meals more interesting without relying on expensive sauces or complicated ingredients.

A little thyme in a tray bake, mint through a salad or sage with roasted vegetables can make all the difference.

And when the herbs are growing faster than we can eat them, I dry or preserve what I can.

When the Garden Doesn’t Cooperate

It’s easy to romanticise growing your own food.

But the reality includes frost damage, insects, hungry wildlife, failed seedlings and occasionally discovering that something has eaten your dinner before you’ve had the chance.

This month we’ve had potatoes damaged by frost, garden beds disturbed by rodents and plenty of negotiations with the local wildlife.

I’ve learnt not to rely on any single crop.

Instead, I try to grow a mixture of plants that mature at different times, keep some seedlings protected and make use of what survives.

And when something fails?

We try again.

Food resilience isn’t about being completely self-sufficient or never visiting a supermarket.

It’s about having options.

A freezer with a few prepared meals, a cupboard with useful staples, herbs outside the kitchen and the confidence to substitute ingredients can make family cooking much easier.

How to Start Your Own Living Pantry

You don’t need to transform your garden overnight.

Start with the foods you actually enjoy eating.

If you regularly cook with parsley, grow parsley. If you love tomatoes, try a tomato plant. If you use leafy greens several times a week, consider growing a few varieties that you can harvest gradually.

Think about your kitchen pantry and garden as two parts of the same system.

For example, pasta, tinned tomatoes and beans provide a useful foundation for meals. Add fresh herbs, greens or vegetables from the garden, and you’ve got plenty of possibilities.

A few simple habits make a big difference:

• Grow ingredients you use regularly rather than planting things simply because they’re fashionable.
• Choose a mixture of quick-growing crops and longer-term plants.
• Preserve or freeze surplus produce before it goes to waste.
• Keep useful pantry staples that complement your home-grown food.
• Learn to substitute ingredients rather than shopping for every recipe.
• Plan meals around what needs harvesting or using first.

And remember, growing food should make life more enjoyable, not become another impossible job on the to-do list.

What I’m Planting Next

As the weather warms, I’m preparing for the next stage of the growing season.

There are more tomatoes and cucumbers to plant, beans to sow, leafy greens to establish and flower seeds waiting for their turn.

I’m also looking forward to seeing what the strawberries produce, assuming the birds leave us some.

The greenhouse will gradually empty as the seedlings move into their beds, although knowing me, I’ll immediately fill the space with something else.

There’s always another seed to sow.

And that’s part of the pleasure.

A living pantry is never really finished. It changes with the seasons, with what your family enjoys eating and with everything you learn along the way.

A Little More Food Freedom, One Harvest at a Time

For me, growing food isn’t about achieving perfect self-sufficiency.

It’s about reconnecting what we grow with what we cook.

It’s being able to step outside for a handful of herbs, turn a few vegetables into dinner or preserve something now that we’ll enjoy months later.

It’s teaching the children where food comes from and showing them that meals don’t always have to begin with a trip to the shops.

Some days the garden gives us an abundance of food.

Other days it gives us a lesson in patience.

And occasionally, it gives the rabbits a very nice dinner.

But every season brings us a little closer to a kitchen where the garden, pantry and dinner table work together.

That’s my living pantry. Not perfect, not entirely self-sufficient, but growing, changing and feeding us one meal at a time.

Happy growing and cooking,

Mrs E