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SETHA DAVENPORT

CO-FOUNDER, ALONG WITH PARTNER RODDY BRANAGAN, OF SETHA’S SEEDS WHICH PRODUCES ITS HERITAGE CROP SEED IN TUTIRA, HAWKE’S BAY.

From her late teens, Setha Davenport has had an interest in sustainable and organic agriculture, focusing on it at university, in Maine, US, and going on both to intern and later work on organic farms, in the US and in New Zealand. She eventually moved to New Zealand full-time in 2005. Along with Scottish-born partner Roddy – and eventually their daughter River Rose – she has been producing heritage seeds for 14 years.

EGGPLANT ‘EARLY LONG PURPLE’

Setha and Roddy were struggling to find any eggplant cultivar which would even produce a crop and friends at Millstream Gardens, Hastings, recommended this variety. “It’s a stunning producer,” she says. “We highly recommend it. There’s so much fruit on the plant, it’s the first to crop and it keeps pumping fruit out. Last year we got confident and thought let’s try something else and were shocked at the low production that we got off another variety!”

CARROT ‘WHITE BELGIUM’

Setha recommends ‘White Belgium’ partly for taste; it’s delicious as a baby carrot and great roasted. “They used to use it for making vegetable stock because it has such good flavour.” But she also feels it’s not grown enough… because of the colour! “There’s nothing wrong with orange carrots, they are great. But I think the other colours get overlooked because of people’s obsession with the idea that carrots should be orange!”

PEPPER ‘ALMA PAPRIKA’

Setha says she and Roddy like to produce a lot of their own food, and since they use a lot of paprika decided to try growing their own suitable pepper for drying and grinding into paprika (which is traditionally made from Capsicum annuum varietals in the Longum group). “Turns out homegrown paprika is just out of this world. I just want to eat it plain. If you love paprika, you have to try growing your own.” You can eat ‘Alma’ fresh too, she says – “we made lots of Greek salads with it” – or leave it on the plant to turn red, dry it and grind it. “We have a smoker set up now, so we might try smoking the fruit this year for smoked paprika.”

TATSOI ‘YELLOW FLOWERING’

The brassica tatsoi is a firm favourite, Setha says. It’s great for stir-fries, or salads if you pick the leaves young. “It’s actually Roddy’s favourite green to eat raw.” Plus it produces through winter – and Setha says Tutira gets hard frosts between June and August, and the odd late frost right up until January. “Chop it off about an inch from the ground and it’s a great cut and come again crop too.”

BROCCOLI RAAB ‘SPRING RAPINI’

This cool season bitter green (“more bitter than mizuna but less than chicory,” Setha says) is delicious sauteed with olive oil and garlic, and it makes a great side dish to Italian food or anything in a rich sweet tomato sauce. The leaf, stem and florets are all edible.

HEIRLOOMS

en-nz

2021-09-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuffmagazines.pressreader.com/article/282097754791723

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