Eggplant harvest after a cool summer

Eggplant (Solanum melongena)

Again this year, I had to resort to the eggplant seeds from 2009. I wait for a hot summer, so I again can harvest mature seeds. This year we ate the whole harvest. I harvested on September 30, and the following week we had the luxury of our own tender eggplants.

Rima F3 No.3

The seed envelope from 2009 where I wrote “Rima F3 No.3″ is a treasure. It is with no doubt my best eggplant seed envelope. This year more than half of the plants fruited in the open ground (seedlings was sown indoor before transplant, as the other years) despite a cool summer. However, in this cold summer I can’t imagine they can set seeds. Instead we have eaten them all, except one, which revealed some seeds that might mature, as I cut it open in the kitchen.

In the greenhouse, I have grown their cousins, Rima F3 No.1. (motherplants were siblings). I did so to highly increase my chances to harvest ripe seeds. Since this is the third year in open ground without harvest of mature seeds from my eggplants, I’m testing a new strategy. Should I grow my seedlings in the greenhouse, save seeds from each fruit separately and numbered? Then I can make comparative cultivation out in the kitchen garden, and this way recognize the best seed envelope for next generation (to be grown in the greenhouse…). It will not be quite as dogmatic plant breeding, but maybe it will speed up the process? I will sow my Rima F4 No.1. seeds next year, to learn if this strategy works for me. I would of course prefer to harvest my seeds from plants in the kitchen garden. Hopefully I come to that in the future.

PS. My garden tiles measures 40x40cm.

 

Hawberry Ketchup

Hawberry (Crataegus laevigata og Crataegus monogyna)

There are plenty of hawberries on the commons, in hedgerows and scrubs. This year I couldn’t resist to pick some of them. When I got home, I found a recipe for ketchup based on hawthorn on Jonathan Wallace’s blog Self-sufficient in Suburbia.

Since I always have to try things a little different than stated in the recipe, I ended up making ketchup from: Hawthorn, kombucha, sugar, red wine vinegar, salt, garlic, black pepper, paprika, chilli and tarragon.

Hawthorn Ketchup

The result was 4 glasses of hawberry ketchup. The taste is great, quite similar to tomato ketchup. This is the first time I’ve used hawberries. With this experience, I could not dream of growing tomatoes for ketchup. It is easier to go out on a nice day and pick the small berries, than it is to grow a similar number of tomatoes from seeds, taking care of them spring and summer.

The process is simple. Rinse the berries, cover them with half vinegar and half water (here I used kombucha and a little vinegar). Gently boil them 30 minutes and press them through a sieve. Kernels and stem residues remain in the sieve, out comes a beautiful red mass. The spices are added and the ketchup boiled again, then poured on scalded glasses. I immediately turn the glasses, to let the heat of the content pasteurize the lids.

 

Calamint and Ground-ivy infused Kombucha

Larged-flowered calamint and ground-ivy infused kombucha

Time has started with a lot of seasonal products from the garden. Right now the garden offers lots of calamint and ground-ivy. I’ve only occasionally used the ground-ivy to steep in white wine in May, and the calamint for mixed herbal tea. Now I wanted to mix and cold infuse them in kombucha, and it resulted in a nice refreshing drink.

Kombucha (Чайный гриб)

I have my kombucha from Siberia, where it is called “Чайный гриб”. I feed the kombucha organism with strong tea with 10% sugar, after it has cooled. There should also be a rest of the kombucha tea left in the bottom of the jar. I cover with a cloth and ferment for a week, and then the nice refreshing drink is ready.
At times I make a fresh batch every week. It keeps well in a bottle in the fridge. When tired of the drink for a period, the culture keeps alive on the kitchen desk for months. Over the years I’ve had it survive several periods of inactivity. I was about to take another break, but then got the idea to infuse fresh herbs.

Larged-flowered calamint calamintha grandiflora

Larged-flowered calamint has a nice pleasant aroma, but lack some more rustic elements. It is one of the herbs that are both a herb and a perennial. It lives for several years and self-seeds moderate (easily removed)
Later in the summer there are some lovely flowers.

Ground-ivy Glechoma hederacea

Ground-ivy has a somewhat bitter flavour that is easy to recognize once you’ve tried it. This is both a weed, a herb and a medical plant. In Germany, loved by the name Gundermann. Before hops became universal in beer, ground-ivy was one of the herbs added to spice beer. In my garden it grows overwhelming, spreading by runners into the kitchen garden and establishing it selves even in the lawn. Really a herb for the low care garden.

My previous experience with ground-ivy is adding it to white wine. It should only steep for one hour. If steeping until the next day, the result is very different and in my opinion poor. For that reason I only steep my kombucha for one hour.

 

Salted Ramsons

Freshly picked ramsons, Allium ursinum

Almost every year I pick ramsons in the wood and pickle them in salt, as I learned Siberia. They use a different species, alpine leek (Allium victorialis), but I know that in the European part of Russia they like to use ramsons, and the result is hard to tell apart.

Chopped ramsons

When picking ramsons, take only the leaves, so the bulb can survive. In Siberia, where people forage in the deep forest, they are most particular about only taking the leaves, leaving the onion, and only some of the leaves, to let the plants grow on, and tolerate another picking the following year.

First I chop the leaves, then I weigh them, and add 2-4 grams of salt per 100 grams of ramsons.

I use a tool or my hands

The chopped and salted ramsons will now be squeezed, so that the cell walls are broken apart and the juice becomes visible. I started out using a wooden pounder, but it came to my mind that I always end up using my hands. It’s faster, easier and more comfortable by hand, but I could not take a photo at the same time. After this process, the leaves have become quite dark and covered with its juice.

Salted ramsons packed airtight

As with sauerkraut, the ramsons must be packed airtight. I used a zipper-lock plastic bag and apparently it worked great. There was less residual air left than when I pack in glass. But the very next day I had to recognize that plastic bags are not aroma proof. The whole fridge smelled intensely of ramsons, even on entering the house you could notice the smell of ramsons.

Cheremsha – salted ramsons in small glasses

The solution was to pack the salted ramsons in small roe glasses. Now they can be stored in the refrigerator without any leak of aroma.

I call the result for Cheremsha (Черемша in Russian), as they name it in Siberia. The aroma is even stronger than in the fresh ramsons, so a little goes a long way. The intense chemical sense on opening a glass should not upset you, as it is how it should be. Once it gets mixed with sour cream or other ingredients, the wonderful flavour comes out, a true delicacy. Cheremsha is also used in meatballs and other recipes with minced meat.
I think the salt pickling process enhance the umami component in the taste of ramsons.

Where I pick my ramsons?
It’s a secret, but I can reveal, that they are very common in woods around Copenhagen – just keep off my little spot of ramsons

Here’s a YouTube from Khabarovsk in Siberia (jump 2½ minutes ahead):

 

Digging the Oca

Oca, Oxalis tuberosa

Now I couldn’t wait any longer. I just had to dig into the ground under my oca plants.
This year, several of the tubers have a reasonable size.
Other years they have been too small. There are still many small tubers, so I dug up one plant and let the other two remain in the soil. Since frost and snow can come any day (or maybe only in a month), I chose to cover them with several layers of bubble wrap hold down by wood. The leaves have died from frost long ago, but many of the thick succulent stems are still fresh, and they can quietly nourish the tubers to grow significantly. I want to see how long I can wait to harvest the last two plants. Now that I have dug up enough to put oca again next year, I dare let the time go before I harvest the rest. There seems to be a chance to taste them this year.

Had to use a flash, as it is dark now after work. These dark-dark afternoons are typical of advent and Christmas.

 

Kale in the lawn – an update

Red Russian kale (Brassica napus) in the lawn

These kale grew up in the grass from seeds I spilled last year. The only care they have received is that I spared them when I mowed the grass. I wrote a bit about them in July, but since then they have grown considerably larger. They deserve a new post.

It is apparently possible to grow this kale in a lawn without any attention, apart from not mowing them, when mowing the lawn, and then of course the harvest and cooking in the kitchen. Nobody should tell me any more, that they do not have the strength to cultivate a few vegetables

PS. The green netting in the background is covering the garlic bed, so neighbourhood cats will not dig up and play with the cloves. I will remove it no later than when I notice the first small garlic sprouts.

 

Eggplant Harvest

Eggplants for seed

Another step in my attempt to breed an northern outdoor eggplant

Today was the day. I think eggplants development in the garden has come to a halt now that autumn is cooling the garden down. I took the scissors, and cut all the plants off the root. I had plants scattered across the bed, but could now dig the labels out of the ground by each plant, and sort according to their parents in the last generation. It gives me an idea of​the value of parental plants in breeding – it is what Carol Deppe call “Power Breeding”.
To get an idea of What it would be without power breeding, imagine what it would look like if I had simply mixed the plants as they stood in the garden, without sorting according to parental plants.

Rima F3 No.1

Mother plant to Rima F3 No.1 in its time hurried into setting a tiny eggplant, which was so early that the mature seeds rotted and dried up, while the other plants were still struggling to set fruits. This year, the plant to the right is especially interesting because it has set 4 big beautiful fruits in the open ground. My concrete tile measures 40x40cm for comparison (40 cm = 15.7 in).

Rima F3 No.2, and in the box the fruits from the best plant of Rima F3 No.1

Mother plant to Rima F3 No.2 is certainly not to rely on. One plant put a small eggplant, another nothing at all! No need to dig into the seed bag a second time, practising Power Breeding!

Rima F3 No.3

Mother plant to Rima F3 No.3 in turn has potential, and it is hereditary! All the plants set fruit, almost all up in the attractive size. 3 out of 7 plants set the abundant fruits in big size!
A favourite seed bag found. Hope I get seeds out of just some of the fruits.

Rima F3 “Largest fruit in the F2 generation”

This I grew a lot of last year as the mother plant had such a great fruit. Last year, it produced no fruits, when several of the others produced some fruits, however, no seeds. For this reason it is not my favourite line (Power Breeding again), but since I do not want to risk losing potential seed, I still saved the biggest fruits for ripening the seeds – imagine if it were the only ones who make seeds this year!

To the chef au cuisine

Eventually there were all those lovely, shiny aubergines with no chance to mature seeds. They will be cooked in the kitchen and enjoyed in meals the next days. My dream is that most of my eggplants can go into the kitchen. But as long as the plant breeding work need to be consolidated, I mainly try to save seeds.

 

Today’s Harvest

Today’s harvest

Today’s harvest included:

Eggplants/Aubergines. Solanum melongena I harvested some of the late fruits, certainly failing to produce seeds. They are grown in open ground, because I am trying to develop an open-air variety. This summer’s heavy rains made me pessimistic, but now many of the plants stands out there in the rough weather with one, two or more fruits. I wonder if water was a limiting factor in the other years I’ve grown eggplants out in the garden?
Apparently they have thrived with melons in the same bed. The melon plants was growing fine all summer, but the rain have prevented any pollination – no melons this year

Groundcherries. Physalis sp. In the bowl is what I picked up from the ground today. I last cleared the ground two days ago. I find the taste very similar to cape gooseberries. The fruit is somewhat smaller. They are grown outdoors, and gives a good yield, in contrast to the low yield of cape gooseberries in my climate. The fruit should not be picked from the plant, but picked up when they fall to the ground. They are protected by the delicate husk, so they don’t get bruised or dirty.
This year I got a much better yield than last year. Primarily I think, because they have a more fertile soil. I grow two cultivars, one without a name, and one called ‘Goldie’. There is no big difference, they taste the same, but ‘Goldie’ is probably a bit bigger in growth and fruit.
Some fruits are ready to eat picked from the ground, others have to further mature for a few days. The berry turn yellow when the delicate aroma and sweetness emerges.

Sweet pepper. Capsicum annuum Purple bell peppers (No cultivar name) and red-orange-yellow ’Alma Paprika’ FS584 apple pepper, both from outdoors. ’Alma Paprika’ FS584 is known to be early, and it has lived up to my high expectations. The plant is densely packed with fruit, and even though I’ve picked these 4, it still seems overloaded with fruits The purple bell pepper is the big surprise. I thought it was a greenhouse variety, but it has fared well in open ground, and set four purple bell peppers.

Tomatillo. Physalis ixocarpa We have been pleased with the tomatillos. They do not taste of much, or in any way significant, apart from slightly acid. But in sauce and casseroles gives a wonderful taste to the other ingredients. Could it be the umami taste? They go well with most ingredients in the kitchen, are easy to grow, and gives a good yield. It might be clever to tie them up a bit. But when the fruit comes with its own wrapper, you can safe time and just let it ramble along the ground. This is one of the vegetables you can eat daily.

 

Watermelon Harvest

Watermelon Citrullus lanatus, my F1 hybrid (Sugar Baby x White Seeded Besvirino Assyrian Watermelon).

Today we ate the first watermelon, 3kg.
It was sweet, but seeds were not all mature, so a few more days had perhaps made it even better. I also think the rind is very thick.
For me, watermelon ripeness is bit of a mystery. It does not smell aromatic, so there must be something else to look for.

Tendril

On the clever internet, I have read that you should harvest watermelon when the tendril closest to the stalk wither. This seems to be the case.

Yellow spot

Elsewhere on the clever internet, I have read that the bright spot where the watermelon is resting on the ground, should change colour to yellow. This has happened, but exactly how yellow should the yellow be??

One should also be able to tap and listen. I did too, and this watermelon had a much deeper quiet sound than the obvious immature watermelons crisp bright tones. But for us who do not have absolute pitch, it’s a bit difficult.

Fresh watermelon seeds

The last method I haven’t seen on the internet. The seeds ought to be mature when the watermelon is ripe. It doesn’t seem to be the case here. Pity I couldn’t see the seeds before I harvested the watermelon.

It is easy to collect and clean the seeds. Spit them into a bowl when eating the watermelon. Afterwards, rinse them in clean water, so they’re ready to dry in a thin layer on a plate.

Will the seeds germinate next year? I believe in the darkest of the seeds will, but the lighter are probably not mature enough. I have to wait and see.

 

Garlic Competition in Denmark

Time: Saturday 13 August pm. 14.00.
Location: Garlic & Wine Skuderupvej 9, 4640 Fakse
Registration before 6th August to Søren Holt tel +45 31 52 24 31 or email skrubtudsen(insert “at” here) gmail.com

Bring your finest homegrown garlic. We compete in the following categories:

Biggest garlic
Whitest garlic
Darkest red garlic
Most Beautiful Garlic braid

In competition we pretend to be serious

Lotte Ravn Lei tells briefly about professional cultivation of garlic in Denmark
We have varieties presented.
We must find the winners.
We will also try tasting garlic cultivars.
How does our local soil influence garlic flavor? Same clone grown in different gardens.
How can we compare taste of different clones? Which clone do you like best?
For tasting, we need that you take some garlic. It need not be the garlic with winning potential.
It is possible to buy coffee, tea and cake.

This year’s garlic competition is organized in cooperation between Frøsamlerne and Garlic & Wine.
One need not be a member of Frøsamlerne, but the garlic must be home grown.

Www.froesamlerne.dk www.hvidlog-vin.dk