Super Silverbeet

I remember years ago as a child, my dad used to grow silverbeet. Often we would go crabbing, and all the leftover shells would go around the base of the silverbeet plants. Every now and again we would get silverbeet with dinner, boiled in salted water, and as unappealing as that sounds I used to enjoy it immensely.

It seems a little strange to me now, considering it took me about 20 years to try and grow it myself!

Silverbeet is a great vegetable for Canberra. It tolerates both cold and hot, and can be planted in most months, as long as it has enough warmth to germinate before winter. Silverbeet can be planted into the ground as early as August, and transplanted in the ground from July. You should avoid planting in March through until June.

I started my garden late this year and put seeds into punnets in December and transplanted into the ground in January.

When transplanting I made a nice thick hill of soil on the ground, and planted 6 plants which I germinated in a punnet. I mulched around the plants and kept watered. Once a week I fertilised with a mixture of seaweed solution and Charlie Carp.

Back at the beginning of February the plants looked like this;

Here is what the plants look like today;

I have harvested leaves on three occasions before this picture, including last weekend, and I am super happy with the way these plants grow, and how much they produce!

The plants produce so many leaves that I was kind of confused with what to do with them all, and have been thinking that 6 plants are way too much!

Today I harvested about 1kg of leaves and cooked them up using a recipe I found recently. I am a big fan of Indian curries, and this dish works well as a side, or even a stand alone vegetarian meal. I have included the recipe below.

This is what I harvested, and how the plants looked afterwards. Silverbeet is great in that as long as 2-3 leaves are left on the plants you can continually harvest week after week.

Potato and Silverbeet curry:

Ingredients:
1kg Silverbeet leaves (leaves about 500g cooked and de-stemmed)
1kg new potatoes- quartered
2 onions- halved and sliced
2tsp black mustard seeds
4-5 curry leaves (optional)
2tsp minced garlic
1.5tsp minced ginger
2tsp salt
1tsp coriander powder
1tsp cumin powder
.5tsp fennel powder
3 cups water
Chilli powder to taste
2-3tbs fresh coriander

1. Take your silverbeet and removed the central stem. Wash and cut each leaf into strips. (Note; you can use the stem if you wish, boil it for 3minutes before step 2, I added mine to the compost)

2. Add the leaves to a pot of boiling, salted water. Boil for 4-5 minutes and drain through a strainer and rinse with cool water. Set aside.

3. Whilst the leaves are cooling prepare the other ingredients; halve and slice the onion, quarter the new potatoes and prepare the spice mixes one bowl with the mustard seeds, and one bowl with the salt, cumin powder, coriander power, fennel powder and chilli powder. (The curry and coriander leaves in this picture are home grown!)

4. If the silverbeet is cool, squeeze the excess water out, and set aside.

5. Heat some oil in a pot and add the mustard seeds. Fry for 2-4 minutes until they begin to pop and splutter.

6. Add the onion, garlic, ginger and curry leaves and sauté until the onion is soft and has browned slightly, about 3-5minutes.

7. Add the potato, coriander, cumin and fennel spice mix and mix well. Add 3 cups, or enough water so that the potatoes are covered.

8. Simmer until most of the liquid is gone and potatoes are soft. If liquid is getting low, and potatoes are not soft, add some more water.

9. Once liquid is reduced, turn heat down and add silverbeet, mixing well. Cook for 5 minutes and turn heat off. Stir in the fresh coriander and remove from the heat.

10. Serve!