(1/1) In Stock Herbs, Spices & Perennial Vegetables
Herbs, Spices & Perennial Vegetables
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Filtered Matches: Herbs, Spices & Perennial Vegetables (17)
Pandanus - Edible
$37.00 ($37.00-$49.00 choose a size)
Widely cultivated for use in Asian cooking and basket making. It has a nutty fragrance and is most commonly used in rice dishes or tied in a bundle and cooked with food. Also useful in flower arrangements. A low growing plant to 1m with long narrow blade like leaves and woody aerial roots. In tropical climates it can be grown as a marginal plant in dams and ponds, used as a bedding plant in tropical landscaping. Outside of the tropics, well worth trying as indoor plant in winter with a warm, sunny aspect. Allow the plant to dry out over the winter months.
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Turmeric - Black
$24.00 ($14.75-$24.00 choose a size)
Turmeric species with blue fleshed rhizomes growing to 1.8m with an attractive red stripe through the middle of the leaf. Rhizome is bitter and fibrous and colour can vary with growing conditions. Used for traditional medicinal purposes. Flowers are pink, arising from the base in summer. Native to northeast and central India
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Cinnamon Tree
$27.00 ($27.00-$39.00 choose a size)
Highly ornamental tree and the source of cinnamon spice. The beautiful red new growth is highly distinctive. The spice itself is the inner bark that is peeled from the branches after 2 years. Scrape the outer bark, then peel the inner bark, leave for a day so that the inner bark curls into cinnamon sticks as it dries. They are distinctive in the many layered quill they produce that, when crushed, will shard rather than snap. Cinnamon is a very elegant and useful aromatic, much kinder to the palate than other spices. It imparts a distinctively sweet flavour when used. The leaves themselves are higher in clove oil than cinnamaldehyde, the active component of the sweet aromatic scent of cinnamon. Weed Warning: Can be invasive in tropical areas
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Ginger - Shampoo
$24.00
A beautiful Ginger plant for tropical and subtropical gardens. It releases a lovely fragrant sudsy liquid when the red flowers are squeezed gently. Grow in full sun to partial shade in free draining soil. Keep the plant moist during the growing season and reduce watering when it is dormant in cooler seasons. Liquid harvested from the plant can be stored in the freezer for use at other times for example if you want the luxury of washing your hair with this gorgeous natural shampoo alternative in Winter. During summer the flowers will refill with the gingery fragrant liquid in 3 to 4 days. Enjoy your beautiful plant!
Buy 1+ @$24.00ea usually:$29.00ea
Pepper - Black
$29.00 ($29.00-$29.00 choose a size)
Cultivated for the fruit which is dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruits are dark red when fully ripe. Immature fruits can be picked as green pepper, black pepper is the fruit dried with the skin on and white pepper is the dried seed only. Black pepper is the worlds most widely traded spice.
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Cassava - Yellow
$17.90 ($17.90-$21.00 choose a size)
The tuberous root is light yellow and flavour is richer than the white, tasting a lot like potato. This is the sweet variety producing smaller but more nutritious tubers. Harvest can start from earlier than 12 months. Tubers are best dug when small and used within a couple of days or stored in the ground on the plant.Cassava is a shrubby plant growing to about 1-3m, with thin stems and attractive large palm-shaped leaves. A perennial shrub cassava produces a high yield of tuberous roots in 6 months to 3 years after planting. The tubers are the main part that is eaten, but the leaves can be enjoyed as a vegetable dish. Cassava is an important daily source of starch for 300-600 million of the poorest people around the world. It is among the most productive uses of subsistence land, producing 40% more starch than rice, and 25% more than maize. Note that all cassava is poisonous!! In some bitter varieties, all parts of the plant are laced with a highly toxic poison (hydrocyanic or prussic acid). Sweet varieties have lower or marginal concentrations of the toxin. But the more toxic varieties produce bigger tubers! Plants from the tropics have evolved toxins as a defence against predators more so than those from temperate climates which is why they require cooking in order to eat them. Thorough cooking dispels or denatures the harmful toxins, and makes the remaining portion safe to eat. Powdered cassava is treated like a flour and made into cakes, unleavened bread, pasta, crackers. Sliced cassava is also made into crisps. Flat bread made from cassava meal can keep for a year without spoiling. Dried chips or pellets are used as animal feed. Young tender leaves are rich in Vitamin B and protein, but also has more of the toxins. They are eaten as a vegetable. Like the tubers, they have to be boiled for minimum 15-20 mins in an open topped vessel to remove their toxins.Best grown without the use of fertilisers as too much vegetative growth is promoted at the expense of tubers
Buy 2+ @$17.90ea usually:$21.00ea
Konjac
$39.00
Cultivated for the edible corm, which must be cooked before eating. The starch from the corm is used to make flour, jelly and noodles. A unique plant producing only one enormous bipinnate leaf a year, up to 1m tall and 2m across. The flower is produced before the leaf, and when grown, the flowers have a fetid smell to attract pollinators, carrion flies and midges and can be up to 50cm tall. Once pollinated the smell abates. Corms may grow up to 25cm in diameter and must be thoroughly boiled or baked to destroy the calcium oxalate crystals contained within, which are toxic when raw. Native to tropical SE Asia and found from Northern Australia to China. It has many traditional culinary and medicinal uses throughout SE Asian cultures. Care must be taken when eating the jelly form as it is very firm and may present a choking hazard.
Arrowroot - West Indian
$19.90
True Arrowroot, a tropical plant with rhizomatous tubers that are the source of the well known flour. Can be eaten raw or cooked but the flesh is fibrous. The flour starch is extracted from the pulped tuber, which is mixed with water and sieved. The resulting starchy water is evaporated and the fine starchy powder remains. Native to tropical Central and South America it does better in frost free areas, growing to about 1.2m. The rhizomes are ready to harvest when 10-12 months old, the stems yellow and fall over in winter and return in late spring. Grow in full sun or part shade with good moisture. Ornamental, lending a tropical ginger look to gardens. Suitable for growing in pots or in Food Forest systems
Vanilla Vine
$29.00 ($24.00-$29.00 choose a size)
The fermented pod of this climbing orchid is harvested from the Vanilla Vine or orchid, an aromatic sweet scents used to flavour cakes, and perfumes. Must be hand pollinated. The only insect capable of pollinating the blossom is the Melipona, a bee (see video) , native only to Mexico so all plants must be hand pollinated within 12 hours of the flower opening. The pods take nine month to develop.
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Tea Plant
$19.75 ($17.90-$19.90 choose a size)
Makes an attractive hedge with the added bonus of providing your own tea if you wish to dry the new leaf tips. The fragrant white flowers are an added bonus to this compact glossy leaved bush.
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Lemongrass - East Indian
$14.90
Aromatic, tall, clump forming lemon scented grass, native to east India. It is a source of the essential oil for perfumery, culinary and medicinal purposes. It likes high rainfall and warm temperatures, and is not frost tolerant. It is more tropical than its cousin Cymbopogon citratus, with thicker, tougher leaves also. In agroforestry, it is well suited as a living mulch and can be cut regularly in the growing season. Vigorous, it can help contain running weeds from spreading when planted as a border. This plant does produce viable seed, so take care that this does not spread into native bushland or pasture
Kencur
$19.90
Perennial small herb in the ginger family, with rounded leaves with a prostrate habit. Pink flowers are ornamental. Young leaves and young tender rhizomes are edible, raw, steamed or cooked. Dried rhizome is aromatic and sometimes substituted for turmeric. It has a camphoraceous scent. Has also been used dried to repel moths from clothes storage. Prefers a humid climate and warm temperatures in a shady environment. Traditionally used in medicinal ways
Lemon Sherbert Coleus
$21.90
Small upright herb with a bright, sweet lemon scent. Soft, hairy, light green leaves with small purple flowers in summer. Bee attracting, gorgeous little plant
Mother of Herbs
$14.90
A perennial aromatic, culinary herb that can be used as a replacement for 'mixed herbs' in various dishes. Super easy to grow, prefers a part shade position and requires minimal watering to flourish. An excellent addition to every herb garden
Achiote - Bixa
$19.75
Also known as Annatto or the Lipstick tree, originates from South America and has spread in popularity to many parts of Asia. It is very popular in Philippine cooking. Grows and a dense small tree or shrub. The heart shaped fruits are brown or reddish brown at maturity, and are covered with short stiff hairs. When fully mature the fruits split open exposing the numerous dark red seeds. While the fruit itself is not edible, the orange-red pulp that covers the seed is used as a commercial food colouring and dye (similar to turmeric). The achiote dye is prepared by stirring the seeds in water, and is popular in South America and Asia to colour rice, desserts, butter, cheese, and many other foods. In the Philippine Islands the seeds are ground and used as a condiment. Tree is extremely beautiful in full flowering and fruiting. Can be grown in a container, prefers a frost-free climate.
Chilli - Birds Eye
$18.75
The fruits are red, yellow, purple or black. Pungent, hot and spicy. The flowers are greenish white or yellowish white. Can be called the Thai Chilli as well. The plant can grow up to 2m tall however very easily stays small especially in pots. It's origins are from Mexico however it is most famous for being used in Vietnamese cooking in soups, stir fries and salads. Thai cuisine commonly uses this chilli and it is because it has a fruity taste and an extreme spiciness. Many of the Thai curries are centred around the flavour of the Birds Eye chilli and it has become so common in Thai cooking that it is often just called the Thai chilli. Because they go well in pots many people who couldn't grow these fruits outside in colder climates can keep them protected and enjoy them fresh rather than store bought.
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Curry Plant
$19.75
The young shoots and leaves are stewed in Mediterranean meat, fish or vegetable dishes until they have imparted their flavour, and removed before serving. It grows on dry, rocky or sandy ground around the Mediterranean region. The stems are woody at the base and can reach 60cm or more in height. The clusters of yellow flowers are produced in Summer, they retain their colour after picking and are used in dried flower arrangements.
