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Global gardens September 7, 2002 No matter where you live in Central Florida, many of your neighbors will have moved here from somewhere else. Most will be transplants from states with less hospitable climates. But a growing number of people have relocated to the Orlando area from other countries with climates similar to or more tropical than our own year-round warm weather. From information gathered during the 2000 Current Population Survey, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the number of foreign-born residents in Greater Orlando increased by 179.3 percent in the past decade. With such growing ethnic diversity, it is not surprising to find a wide range of plants sprouting in the backyard gardens of many immigrant residents. Walk with us through three of these gardens.
India At the rear of the parking lot behind Kantilal Patel's dry-cleaning business in Leesburg is a 60-by-30-foot swath of soil that is lovingly tended by his 84-year-old father, Somabhai Patel. For the past 10 years the elder Patel has been supplying his family and friends with freshly grown vegetables. Somabhai is no newcomer to gardening. In India he owned a 50-acre farm. "We grew everything on our farm in India. All sorts of vegetables, sugar cane, bananas, cotton. The farm was just outside the city, and every morning we took produce to the market," recalls Kantilal, who grew up on the farm. His father, who speaks little English, still spends time each day working the soil. During the hot summer months when most people's gardens lay fallow, Somabhai is busy harvesting food for his family. Tall pigeon pea plants, called toower in India, are the first plants that catch the eye as one approaches the garden. The 3- to 8-foot-tall stalks covered with small oblong leaves have a prominent position in this city garden. Toower is a vigorous, drought-tolerant legume that yields large, easily harvested pods. This pea is a heavy bearer, yielding sweet-tasting peas. It is suited for early summer planting and grows under hot conditions. The Patels like to cook toower alone or with other vegetables, especially eggplant, which grows nearby. Also growing nearby are two vines. Dodhi is a type of edible gourd that grows more than a foot long. Like most squashes, it spreads vigorously, easily climbing and covering a chain-link fence that borders the garden. On a turkey oak tree just outside the fence, a different vine has worked its way into the treetops. You have to look hard to find the tiny 2-inch-long, pink-fleshed cucumbers called tindoras that are hidden among the green oak leaves. Tindoras are used as a pickle or cooked with vegetables. Green tea leaves also grow in Somabhai's garden. Called cha in India, the lemongrasslike leaves are broken into small pieces and then covered with boiling water to make a tasty tea. Not far from the cha are a number of elephant ear plants. A member of the arum family, elephant ears are widely grown throughout the world. In some cultures they are known as taro, dasheen or cocoyam. Many cultures eat the plant's root or corm, but the Patels use the leaf. They prepare the leaf for cooking by coating it in a seasoned paste of corn flour, then folding it up into a small, tight bundle similar in size and shape to an eggroll before frying it in hot oil. Also growing in the garden are several curry trees, known in India as nim. Nim, which looks similar to a cassia tree, is not a component of curry powder, which is made up of several herbs such as cumin, coriander and turmeric. The sweet-scented fresh nim leaves are used in cooking mainly as a decoration or a seasoning.
Korea A sign at the edge of Suk Choon Song's yard proclaims the southwest Orange County property to be a "Yard of Distinction." Song and his wife, Yong Ha, have earned that honor by mixing their favorite Korean herbs, vegetables and fruits among roses, hibiscus, bromeliads and orchids. "We have no separate garden for vegetables," says Suk Choon, 65, an auto mechanic who immigrated to the United States with his family 28 years ago. "Everything all mixed up with other plants." The Songs' flair for mixing flowers, fruits, herbs and vegetable plants in an appealing way is apparent in the kitchen as well as the garden. "Every day I make drink out of plants," says Yong Ha Song, 63, a waitress and mother to five grown children. In the cool morning hours Yong Ha gathers herbs growing in the gardens that surround her lakefront home. She picks a handful of fresh herbs, some Chinese onions that resemble thin chives, a bit of ginger root and a plant that is similar to water chestnuts. These she combines with fresh parsley, spinach, lettuce, cucumber, bok choy, papaya, banana, apple, watermelon, cranberry juice and a heaping tablespoon of a Korean powder that contains ginseng and shiitake mushrooms. Yong Ha then adds a little ice, blends it and creates a green drink that the couple have for breakfast. They believe it helps to maintain their energy and well-being. Papaya, lychee, mango, persimmon, loquat, avocado and guava trees surround the Songs' house. By the lake, calabaza vines have spread onto the boardwalk to the dock. Several large greenish-yellow fruits are almost ready to be picked and steamed for dinner. Ginger grows in a large pot outside the front door in easy reach when Yong Ha needs a root to add to a meal she is preparing. A medium-hot pepper plant thrives in the shaded front yard while daikon radishes flourish in the side yard beneath a fruit tree. Most of the edible plants find their way into the blended drink that Yong Ha concocts in the kitchen. "We very busy with work," says Suk Choon, the owner of Song's Wheel Alignment and Brake shop in Orlando. "My wife works nights as waitress. I work days in my shop, but we always find time to work in garden and every day make green drink."
Jamaica The rolling hills of south Lake County are what attracted Roland Miller to Central Florida. "It reminds me of the mountains in Jamaica," says the retired real estate agent, who left his native land in 1960. Miller, 64, moved to a subdivision in Clermont two years ago from New Jersey, where he had lived for many years. Around the block from Miller's house is the home of his friend and gardening companion, Alfred Williams, 78. Williams and his wife, Imogene, left Jamaica in 1978 and lived in Miami for many years. They retired to Clermont five years ago and immediately began gardening. Miller and Williams find the Central Florida climate suitable for growing many of the foods they enjoyed on their tropical island homeland. The two gardeners discuss which plants to grow and share seeds as well as the bounty from their individual gardens. "Many of the fruits that we try to grow get killed back during a cold winter, but they grow back from the roots. If the next winter is mild enough, they bear fruit," says Miller as he shows off the sweetsop or sugar apple, naseberry, guinep, mango, avocado, pecan and papaya trees growing in his neighbor's half-acre yard. Also growing in Williams' back yard are several ackee trees, the national fruit of Jamaica. But fruit trees are only part of what Williams and Miller grow. Leafy vegetables like callaloo, a Jamaican spinach, and legumes such as pigeon peas grow next to okra, tomatoes and sprawling calabaza vines in the large garden at the far end of the back yard. Also surrounding the various fruit trees are Scotch bonnet hot peppers that Williams calls "living Jamaican fire" and a medicinal herb called Leaf of Life. An herb called fevergrass, believed to help relieve flu and cold symptoms, grows nearby. Not far away are the heart-shaped leaves of sweet potato vines. "In the tropics you have dozens of different root vegetables," explains Williams. "We eat cassava, coco, sweet potatoes and several kinds of yams." Williams has four varieties of yams growing among his flowers and trees. "I have a white yam, yellow yam, negro yam and purple-whitish one called St. Vincent," he says. "Some grow up to 100 pounds from one root." Copyright © 2002, Orlando Sentinel |
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