Soy-Marinated Daikon
Tien Hung’s Kendall garden grows lots of produce year-round. “I love using winter radishes like daikon, watermelon and green loubo radishes for this but any varieties will do,” says Tien. This is her ...
A Delectable Day in Tien Hung’s Kendall Garden
How a registered dietitian and mother of four went from growing a few plants on a tiny Boston balcony to a suburban food forest
that feeds her family
With seven-month Oliver propped on her lap and her three daughters playing inside their house, Tien Hung is explaining how only a decade ago, she would never imagined she’d be growing her own food.
As a newlywed in Boston with some planters along the edge of a 4x6-foot balcony, she would daydream about a bigger space for an edible garden. “My harvests were at best unremarkable, but enough to sow the love for gardening in me to last a lifetime,” she says. The birth of her first child jump-started her goal to start an edible garden and today she is surrounded by raised beds overflowing with leafy greens and a lush backyard border of fruit trees.
In Vietnam, Hung says her mother and grandmother always planted a garden. When she was 7, she and her family came to the United States and ended up in Jacksonville, where her parents still live. “It was cold, everyone was homesick,” she says. But her resourceful mother started a garden and got creative in the kitchen. “Nuoc mam made everything all right!” Hung went on to study food science and nutrition at the University of Florida, where met her husband, Ruben, in chemistry class. Ruben, whose family is Chinese, came to the U.S. from Venezuela as a boy. The couple married, moved to “dark and dreary” Boston, and eventually ended up in Miami. They found a house on an 8,900-sq-ft corner lot in the Calusa development in Kendall where Hung was able to start the garden of her dreams.
Photo 1: Avocado squash
Photo 2: Vego Garden modular metal raised beds
In the west-facing front yard, Hung has set up raised beds, which include older wooden frames and new metal beds, and well-pruned fruit trees. A jujube tree is fruiting with large green apple-like fruits. “They’re crunchy and add sweetness to soups and stews,” she says. Clusters of mustard greens will be pickled for the upcoming Vietnamese New Year. A few bunches of fennel from a previous season remain, not for human consumption but for butterfly larvae – “I keep them for the swallowtails,” she says. Chrysanthemums for tea, yard-long beans, oak-leaf lettuce and chili peppers add color and texture to the garden. A deep-green border of garlic chives is prized not just for its use as a tasty herb some compare to ramps, but its ease in growing. “It’s virtually pest-free,” she says.
Along the side of the house, irrigation lines run from the house faucet to the front and back gardens. Fruit trees and vines line the perimeter of the wooden fence, along with bamboo poles harvested for use as stakes. In the corner is an array of composters. Hung combines compost with all-purpose fertilizer, ground-up crab shell, alfalfa meal and bone meal. Pots, raised beds and a strawberry tower hold more plants, including Vietnamese produce: wild betel leaves, used as wrappers for ground meat that’s grilled; katuk, a year-round shrub rich in beta carotene and vitamins B and C; and river leaf, used in sour soup. Pandanus leaves add emerald-green color and flavor to desserts. Magenta plant leaves color sticky rice bright purple. Hung dries butterfly pea flowers to make blue tea that turns lemonade pink. “My kids think I’m a magician!”
Hung, a registered dietitian and diabetes educator, is able to work from home and care for her kids. She also hosts two blogs and social media accounts: Delectable Day for her gardening tips on growing in Zone 10B, and Nourishing Pursuit for cooking. She features Vietnamese recipes that use Asian produce, such as canh kho qua don thit (stuffed bitter melon soup), ga kho gung (ginger chicken); canh bong bi suon non (squash blossoms and pork spareribs soup); and what she calls the easiest and tastiest garlicky vegetable side dish, a recipe that elevates kale, broccolini or any leafy green with the addition of garlic and a little oyster sauce.
Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of Hung’s edible garden is engaging with people in the gardening community, both in person and via social media, she says. “Don’t be afraid to grow in your front yard!” Neighbors spend time chatting and sharing gardening tips, seeds and of course fruits and vegetables. “Before, it felt so isolated. Now, people stop and we talk.”
Photo 1: Cranberry hibiscus and butterfly pea flowers to dry for tea
Photo 2: Radishes ready for the dehydrator
What’s Growing in Tien’s Garden?
Fruits: Jujube (below), carambola, gak, jakfruit, nam wah bananas, Barbados cherry, bamboo, dragonfruit, loquat, strawberries, fig, star gooseberry
Vegetables: Mustard greens, peppers, fennel, garlic chives, tomatoes, oak leaf lettuce, yard-long beans, radishes, arugula, Asian leafy greens, Chinese cabbage, mizuna, cow peas
Flowers: Nasturtiums, chrysanthemums (for tea), butterfly pea, vanilla orchid
Follow Delectable Day
See her websites, DelectableDay.com for gardening tips, and nourishingpursuit.com for recipes.
Follow @delectable.day and @nourishingpursuit on Instagram.
Soy-Marinated Daikon
Tien Hung’s Kendall garden grows lots of produce year-round. “I love using winter radishes like daikon, watermelon...
Communities Near You
Related Stories & Recipes