I left London 23 years ago and moved to a farm in East Sussex to grow my own food and flowers. Perch Hill is 90 acres on heavy clay in the beautiful wooded, hilly country of the Sussex Weald.
We have made a three-acre garden-as-trial-ground here, where we experiment with new varieties from around the world for my mail-order plant and bulb company. We’re always on the lookout for the tastiest and most beautiful food and flowers that grow easily in this country without massive TLC. Walking out in the early morning, or in the evening, a little before we want to eat, and picking whatever looks most abundant and best, is one of my daily pleasures.
At this time of year, I can go into the greenhouse and choose the tomatoes that have ripened that day. If you grow and pick a range of varieties, you’ll find they all have slightly different tastes, with varying levels of acidity or sweetness. I am addicted to the sharpness of ‘Tigerella’ with its stripy skin and firm texture; I love the intense sweetness of the yellow-orange cherry variety ‘Sungold’; but my overall favourite for eating raw is ‘Black Krim’, from the Crimea. It has a strange crimson-black skin and green-black jelly around the seeds that can look a bit off-putting, but how wrong that is.
We also grow a good range of salad leaves, so that I can harvest a garden salad here every day of the year. I was once taught how to construct the perfect salad, to turn a bowl into something that deserves to be a course in itself. The basic rule is to have at least one thing from five different categories of ingredients. The first is the lettuces, which give gentle flavour, background bulk and sometimes crunch. Next come the salad leaves, the rockets, mizunas, mustards and cresses to provide strong tastes and good splashes of colour. The third addition is one of the salad herbs — sorrel, lovage, basil, parsley, coriander, sweet cicely, leaf fennel, chervil or mint. You only want a sprinkling of these. Then you may want to add one or two different salad veg: some radish, bulb fennel, fresh raw peas, pea tips or mini broad beans. The final group is the edible flowers — a pansy, viola or primrose, or the petals of a marigold, rose, nasturtium or dahlia. Then you are guaranteed a delicious and good-looking bowl that even the most greens-wary child or meat addict will find hard to resist.
With all these things growing outside my door, cooking good food is easy. There are a few recipes here that I often make at this time of year. Panzanella, with just-picked tomatoes that have never seen the fridge, is the best starter you’ll ever eat. Follow this with a crunchy, peppery mix of salad leaves topped with marinaded fillet of beef, with a side dish of punchy-orange sweet potato dauphinoise for extra colour. You can make the beef feed many with the thinnest slivers of well-rested meat, or you can cut thicker slices, with just a few salad leaves on the side.
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Finish your summer garden feast with raspberry meringues and edible flowers and berries. Rose and dahlia petals are all edible and they’re ideal for August puddings. Just choose the colour to complement your food.
Special seed offer
To buy seeds for these varieties and more vegetables, salads and flowers, visit sarahraven.com. Sunday Times readers will receive 15% off their order by using the offer code TST17SD before September 30. For details about Sarah’s events at Perch Hill Farm, including an open day for the local hospice on August 30, see her website