Story: Neville’s Weird and Wacky Edible Plants
Episode: 2
Presenter: Neville Passmore
Air Date: 9th March 2024

Join Neville for some culinary adventures, growing exotic delights in his garden oasis!

• Childhood dining experiences shaped Neville’s love for diverse cuisines, especially Chinese, where chopsticks and exotic flavours became familiar to him at a young age.
• Neville is currently cultivating unique plants like ladies' fingers, also known as gumbo and okra, which originates from Africa and is known for their mucilage-rich fruits.
• Miniature pawpaw, carefully selected for its bisexual characteristics, promises fruit on singular papaya plants when it flowers.
• Hand-pollinating the delicate flowers of the climbing vanilla orchid plant has proven challenging, with the aim of eventually yielding precious vanilla pods.
• Longevity spinach, a fast-growing tropical shrub with edible leaves, boasts a host of health credentials and the leaves can be eaten fresh in salads, as well as a stir-fry or vegetable soup.
• A particular dragon fruit, called Sheryl’s Pink, produces a small dark red fruit with purple flesh which has an intense berry-like flavour.
• Next up is an Aztec fruit from South America, which ripens like an avocado, where you need to store the hard fruit in the kitchen for a couple of days before it softens. 
• A micro dwarf banana called Nathan can produce full size fruits on a one-metre high stem, one tip for growing this variety is to remove the babies quickly as they slow the mother plant down in her fruit formation.
• Finally, taro is an aquatic plant, and this is a Thai variety called Toon, which is the only taro Neville’s aware of where both leaves and stalks can be eaten raw.