frost

back in early november, after the first frost. it was the last day at the garden. many communal gardeners had long stopped coming, and it seemed as if the vast field was eagerly claiming back its ground after the last romantic urban part-time agrarophiles had finally gone home.

happy second of advent (if you are celebrating). this year, i'm lighting candles on a branch found in the woods. i have some, if by far not all christmas presents, but today shall be as quiet as can be. back into the frenzy of work to be completed, and things to be thought of tomorrow.

end of the season

only a few days left, then the season of the garden is over. the communal field will be closed and the patches will be ploughed up. we will go one last time and harvest what we can. we will probably have some leeks, some more swiss chard, winter lettuce, onions. perhaps some more cabbage. i will miss the garden, but now it has gotten colder, i probably wouldn't cycle out. goodbye garden, it has been a good season!

what's your favourite vegetable or dish of the season?

(these photos were taken five weeks ago.)

cheer me up

since march, i haven't had a single work-free weekend. and i'm at my desk, it will be a long night. there's no way round the fact that i have an important deadline tomorrow. can you please cheer me up?

green hummus

coming home from the garden with greens i've never prepared or eaten before is something that happened quite often since early june.

nigel slater's green 'hummus' was one of the things i tried, it took its time but was the happiest green ever and tasted fantastic.

get those broad beans out of their pods
give them a quick rinse
boil them with a little salt (10 mins for big ones, smaller ones perhaps as little as 3-4 mins)
drain into a colander, briefly rinse with cold water
if they're very thick-skinned, slide the skin off
put into food processor with olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and herbs
(i used basil and fresh mint)
process, add more olive oil, lemon juice or seasoning until you have the consistency/taste you like

eat with flat bread or similar

yum!

p.s.: i was given some lovely delphiniums by my 3-year-old friend s yesterday. aren't i lucky?!

garden & something else

these days, when i find time to go to the garden, a long row of sunflowers is greeting me. i'm not usually a fan of that particular flower - so big, so bright, so not subtle - but here it makes perfect sense. it's beautiful. i also love the patches of mixed wild flowers. i think they can happily stand up to all the vegetable bounty. not to be eaten, not to be used in any way, just there to make us smile.

oh, and i must not forget to ask you:

anyone interested in staying in berlin for a week in august? friends of mine are renting out their rather beautiful, split-level apartment in the middle of prenzlauer berg. the apartment is free from august 4 to august 10 (wed-wed). if you prefer, you could also arrive as early as tuesday, 3 aug and get a day for free, so to speak.

if you're interested, please email me (twinklestar at gmx dot net) for more info. the sooner the better!

i might also know of a place in berlin later in august, so please do get in touch if you're interested.

oh, and a very happy 14 juillet to all my friends in france!

the day of the potato

well hooray! yesterday i harvested my very first potatoes in the garden. last night, i had new potatoes with butter, today potato salad for lunch. now, i'll have a little potato break - but how good this felt! like digging for gold, pardon the clichée.

i also ran into a garden neighbour whom i hadn't seen in a while, and we both said that we had gone for the garden project to find out whether it was for us. and guess what--. i will definitely have an allotment, or a little garden outside the city as soon as i can make it happen. and until then, i'll stick to garden schemes like this one, pre-planted or not.

i sometimes think that we know much better what is for us than we think we do. i don't know about you, but i tend to agonise over decisions. just think how much time i could have saved in the past by listening to what i know in my heart of hearts. i need more courage to trust my instincts.

p.s.: this photo was taken on a weekend by the sea last year. in an old garden, with lots of old apple trees.

and another thought: sylee reminded me of this post, which i had completely forgotten about. i couldn't help but thinking, gosh, my writing has gone rather downhill in the past months. it's what too much work and utilitarian thinking does to you, i guess. but i do know, there'll be other times ahead.

garden

everything's growing so fast! honestly, the photo above is already seriously outdated: the spinach is all gone by now (blanched some and put it in the freezer), the peas in the foreground have almost reached half the height of the supporting sticks and have first light green, almost translucent pods. in front of that (outside the picture frame) there is a row of sunflowers, now almost reaching up to my shoulders, but not flowering yet. the tomatoes at the back are growing into a virtual djungle, we now really have to keep breaking off the surplus offshoots regularly and put in higher sticks for support.

a bit of a challenge: we've got potato beetles. nasty little buggers.

last time i was there it was quite muddy as it had been raining heavily, and sure enough, in the end i had to run for cover when another mighty downpour happened.

in my little 'flower garden' (i.e. some big planters outside my window) i planted some white cosmos, a little wild hydrangea bush and some lavender.

i'm feeling quite energised after a bank holiday yesterday - a good start to a busy week. have a good one!

p.s.: the ground looks rather dry, since i took the photo before my watering round. luckily, that's a bit deceiving, it's a perfect loam soil that retains humidity well. scratching the surface before watering regularly shows me the ground is moist just four/five centimeters below the surface.

(our patch is the one with the many supports, to the right of my baskets and watering can. it's a bit of an unusual concept: many people sharing a big field. our patches are only seperated by small trampled paths.)

garden

what's been happening recently:

gathered sticks by the wayside to support the peas, soy and tomatoes
harvested plenty of spinach, rocket, radishes and swiss chard
saw the mizuna peeking out of the ground
ate apple cake in the garden, before watering the plants
got lots of mosquito bites
planted some dahlias and other flowers
got some self-made pesto, which katja made from our very own rocket crop
traded it for some self-made strawberry jam (store-bought fruits, i'm afraid)

p.s.: if this looks as if i've got an impressive green thumb, i'm afraid i'll have to disillusion you. the deal with this garden project is that the farmer pre-plants the majority of the plants. when we first came, many of them already had a decent size, they were pre-grown in glasshouses and put out as seedlings, or bigger. also, the ground is amazingly fertile and we had a beautiful mix of sun and rain last month. so basically, i'm just standing by, watch proudly, carry the watering cans, tie up some plants and talk nicely to them. oh, and we planted some seeds, that's true. for anything else, i couldn't take any credit.

last weekend

i'm very happy to report the garden is alive and very well. we have so much spinach, lettuce and rocket! i spent a lot of time there on saturday, loosening up the soil, planting and watering, i was limping around with sore muscles on sunday. oh, and i found a good way to cycle there, which takes me an hour each way.

also made some strawberry jam, and tried my hand at baking a simple white loaf from nigel slater's 'appetite'. it turned out huge, and quite pretty. have any of you tried his recipe for olive foccaccia?

what was your weekend like?

the garden

well, the garden isn't really a garden, you know. it's the slither of a proper vegetable field that we're renting for one season. a friend had heard of that idea, and although i had my doubts at first, i jumped on the wagon. the field is huge. i don't even know how many other city romantics are trying their hand at gardening there (the locals must think we are slightly insane). but everybody is super friendly, and i've embraced this project, really enjoying it. the good thing about doing this with friends is that we can take it in turns to go and water the plants and take out the weeds, also we can share the crop. this will be really good once summer's here. last year we had weeks without rain and temperatures over 30°C. not a good idea then to not go and skip the watering because you're lazy (i'm talking about myself here, you see). so we'll see how that goes.

so far, we have pre-planted lettuce, rocket, spinach, red swiss chard, carrots, beets, potatoes etc. we also planted some more unusual plants like mizuna (a japanese plant similar to rocket), some pak choi and some broccoletto (tender broccoli stems that can be blanched or stir fried quickly). basically, it seems like we have too much of everything to eat it all, so will be giving some of the crop to friends and neighbours.

i'll be taking pictures throughout the season and post them here in a little garden series. hope you don't mind! otherwise, you know, just skip any posts titled 'garden'. easy, no?

happy weekend!

p.s.: can't wait for the plants, and particularly the flowers, to grow higher. it all looks much too 'tidy' for my liking just now. so grow, little plants!

friends

how on earth would i do without friends? not at all, that's how. nadja made us some pizza and lemon cake for afters. so good.

this morning, i met up with paul to talk about the garden. we will order some more seeds here. red chard and lemon melissa, and other good things.

have any of you seen miranda july's new film?

garden days

when we went to the baltic sea earlier this month, we stayed at a friend's house. i'm so in love with that old garden.

last weekend was full of sunshine, friends, shared food and drinks and time for catching up. what was yours like?

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corner view: garden

i wish i had a garden, but i don't. so instead i'm showing you some photos from the cottage garden in the cotswolds where i recently spend a weekend with a friend. (and if you can still take it, there are more to come over the next couple of days - it was a place i got rather snap-happy.)

for more links to corner views around the world, check out the sidebar at jane's spain daily!