The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has suggested that curry ingredients currently imported could be grown in Britain. Farmers and kitchen gardeners already produce many such ingredients – potatoes, onions, garlic and tomatoes. Chillies are increasingly popular with home gardeners and are easy to grow, although the wet weather is slowing them down. Grown in the same way as dwarf peas, chickpeas have such attractive foliage that they could find a home in the flower bed. The chickpeas we buy in the supermarket have been allowed to dry on the plant, but the peas can also be eaten fresh and green. You'll need a few plants for a good harvest, though, as each pod contains only one or two peas.
But they are not yet grown commercially here in the UK: no seed varieties have been developed for our climate. Riverford Organic5 are planning on trialling lentils on their farm in France, and are always on the look-out for potential new crops.
It's too late to grow chickpeas this year, but you could try coriander – an essential herb in many Indian dishes that is already produced commercially in the UK. Fenugreek can produce a crop of spicy leaves in just six weeks. And if you order saffron crocuses now, you could be flavouring curries with the world's most expensive spice for years to come – carbon-free.
