Our vegetable garden seems to be growing before our eyes! Every day there is something new to see or taste.
For a while now, we have been snacking on plump pods full of sweet green peas, and little woodland strawberries. At mealtimes we are enjoying lots of tasty vegetables from the garden. These are the tastes we dreamed of as we saved our pennies for the purchase of some land, and as we dug garden beds and hauled mulch and manure. The fruits of our first year’s harvest on the Farmlet bear the sweet taste of dreams realised. This food is fuelling us for more work in the garden, and firing us up to embark on further projects.
Squash down low, beans climb high
About a week ago, I dug our first potatoes of the season — a New Zealand heirloom variety called kowiniwini. After putting some of the potatoes aside to take to my parents, we used the rest to cook a special meal, made almost entirely from ingredients grown here on the Farmlet: Potatoes, zucchini, sugarsnap peas, green beans, green onions, and dill. We sauteed the vegetables in butter made here on the Farmlet using fresh cream from a nearby farm. The salt and pepper came from the shops! As time goes on, we hope to be eating many more meals comprised almost entirely of food grown on the Farmlet.
Harvest meal
We were delighted to be able to supply new potatoes for the family Christmas dinner yesterday, as well as green beans and zucchini. Being able to share good things from the garden with family and friends made this Christmas extra special and joyful for us. We wish you all the very best this festive season.
I don’t have the words to express how happy I am for you both.
I agree, and mixed in with that happiness is a little jealousy… (32 and snowing tonight here in upstate NY) Looking forward to the 2007 harvest even more now!
Freezing rain and fog here in the Westeifel, but I’m saving the jealousy for the peak of berry harvest, when Rebecca and Kevin post ever-so-enticing images of large bowls of fresh strawberries/raspberries et al.
The envy will begin in the vicinity of my salivary glands, working its way slowly down the digestive tract until it rests just below my stomach. Call it “enteric envy”, while I do my best not to dribble on the laptop keys.
No green feelings about the lovely plate of garden greens though, as a proper winter garden in the northern latitudes will produce greens all winter long. What Mia the garden meister calls “feldsalat” (field salad), along with local cold-weather staples like Brussels sprouts.
Our below average cabbage crop from this year is already in the root cellar fermenting into sauerkraut. The carrot crop rests alongside, packed into antique ceramic vats (10-50L), and we also made several jars of lacto-fermented “ginger carrots” ala Nourishing Traditions.
Or there’s fresh carrot salad, made with shredded carrots and an apple from the orchard, raw double cream from Gisela’s girls, a fresh egg from our chickens, a splash of cold-pressed oil, balsamic vinegar and spices to taste.
Honestly, winter is a necessary seasonal respite from the organic routines of spring-summer-autumn. Time to catch up on reading and all those little chores left undone and stacking up throughout the year. Unless you’re renovating old stables, in which case you’re having at the interior walls right about now…