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.

 

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.

 

Garlic harvest started

Garlic, Allium sativum, “Grethes Supermarked”

Now it’s time to harvest the early garlics. The bulbs are beautiful this year. But the leek moth have been foraging on my garlic. I have sorted them so that the healthy garlic dries with the top, the ones attacked with out top. I found one garlic where the leek moths larva had gnawed a hole out from a clove. That garlic is now on the kitchen table to be cooked these days.

When I decide to harvest the garlic, it’s after counting the leaves. The leaves wither one by one, starting with the lower leaves, from the bottom up. Only the green leaves can makes the scales covering the garlic cloves. By counting the green leaves I can figure out how many scales the dry garlic will have after curing. At least two scales are needed, as the upper leave only produce a scale for the inner half of the cloves. The next leave produce a scale covering the first scale (with its cloves) and the second row of cloves. In some cultivars there can even be more than two rows of cloves, thus needing more scales. I’ve decided to harvest when 4-5 green leaves remain. But as garlic increase size significantly in the weeks before harvest, one also want to harvest as late as possible.

 

A Gift from the Underworld

Shaggy ink cap (Coprinus comatus)

Unexpected a shaggy ink cap pop up from a world below the garlic bed. Actually, several popped up. It was cooked into a lovely soup with clams, shallots and Thai mint, adding a dash of coconut milk.

Will it damage the garlic? I do not know. So far I see no problems.

Shaggy ink cap on the garden table

Shaggy ink cap grow occasionally where the soil is well manured. Here it appears in the garlic bed, which last year was a melon bed on a trench of horse manure. I’ve never in 16 years seen it in this garden. It can pop up from it underworld from summer till autumn. I might have a chance to harvest it again one or more times this season.

It’s perishable by nature, must be harvested young, before the ink starts to drip. After harvest it must be used within four to six hours, as it deteriorates rapidly.

 

Late Oca Harvest

Oca (Oxalis tuberosa). Small but beautiful

In spring, I received some oca tubers. They were planted and cared for reasonably well. But our autumn weather, I can not do much about. The frost came early this year but I pay attention to the weather forecast, and managed to put some bubble wrap over the bed. Later, when the snow arrived, I dug up two plants, but yields were not high. I decided to leave the last plant in the ground, covered in bubble wrap, and deep snow, hoping for it to size up the tubers in early winter.

If the tubers could feel the cold, they would tremble pitifully

The much longer time in the soil, they tolerated well. Soil, bubble wrap and the thick layer of snow has managed to keep the frost away from the tubers. However, there has been so cold that the tubers is not greater than if I had dug them up with the first. It was otherwise my quiet hope that the extra time in the soil would increase yields.

Oca is not a candidate to be an important crop in my garden before people like Ian Pearson of Growing Oca, Rhizowen from Radix and others have selected some clones that can form tubers much earlier under northern conditions (they must be less day length sensitive). Originally it was the same problem with the potato, but it was solved by plant breeding. Can it be done again?

The beautiful seashell (from scallop) I was sent from Anselmo in Asturias, filled with his fine chilli. His gallery is filled with stunning images from his country house and the region.

PS. Do not ask me how oca taste! I still just dream about it.

 

Lemon-grass

Lemon-grass Cymbopogon citratus grown outdoor

Some years ago I brought a piece of lemon-grass home from Thailand. It was grown in pots, inside our house during winter, on the terrace in summer. Size was bearable, and I was really pleased. But then I heard that pot is crucial to how large lemon-grass grows. The biggest pot I can get is my garden, so this year they were planted out in June. They grew well out in the garden, and my tender loving care could be reserved for other crops. The yield was higher because I had planted more plants.
Before frost, I took one of the plants into a pot so that it can overwinter in our glass bay window – it might as well hibernate on a window sill.

Apparently lemon-grass recover quickly from division and transplanting, growth halt for 14 days, and then growth begins again, exploiting the new conditions. It’s my impression, that lemon-grass isn’t especially heat-dependent. Actually an easy plant to grow if you don’t mind caring for it in the winter season.

The fresh taste of lemon-grass is somewhat similar to lemon balm. A delightful and slightly rough lemon flavour. Lemon-grass has the advantage of preserving the lemon taste well when dried. The disadvantage is that the plants has to be overwintered indoors. Well, left in the garden it will not be invasive up here in the north

One need not travel to South-east Asia to acquire a plant. You can buy seeds, or plants from garden centres. Sometimes I find fresh lemon grass in some immigrant shops and supermarkets. It roots easily.

 

Melon Miracle

Farthest North Melon Mix (Cucumis melo)

This post should have been written a month ago – her it comes anyway

This year, the melons was grown according to the dogma. Not out of desire, but of necessity. The fact that some melons developed to ripeness are a bit of a miracle in this rainy summer.

The two dogma rules are:
1-Sow directly in the open ground, no indoor start! The melons were sown 5th June. The other years I have sown on 1st May inside the warm house.
2-No cover, no plastic or non-woven fabrics. No black plastic on the ground to heat it up. No plastic or fabric covering the plants at the beginning of their growth or later, when the weather gets cold.

Especially one plant thrived, even grew faster and bigger than my winter squash Turks Turban plants (They did not like the cold weather). It set four fruits, each weighing nearly 250 grammes and and of good taste, though not spectacular. But great taste I can not expect after such a rainy August. The taste was better than most supermarket melons anyway.

I sowed 47 batches of 6 seeds, 41 batches Farthest North Melon Mix, the last 6 batches were Sweet Granite, Pineapple Melon, Streit Freiland Grüngenetz, Rodond, Piel de Sapo and De Bellegarde (12 seeds). Although the last 6 batches all resulted in 1-2 plants, I had no ripe melon from them.
Farthest North Melon Mix had 21 batches not germinated. 14 batches germinated 1-4 plants, but provided no ripe melons. 6 batches germinated 17 plants, many of whom produced ripe melons, but not all. In total I harvested 17 melons growing according to the dogma method – I was too pessimistic in June!

To squeeze in that many melon plants, I provided only 20 cm for 6 seeds.

Some of the melons of the year, still resting on the bed

 

Ulluco Harvest

Ulluco (Ullucus tuberosus) harvest of the year, lest “Pisac”, right “Cusco”

This time I succeeded getting a tiny ulluco harvest. I planted three different clones. One died. Of the two survivors, only the one from Cusco made a notable harvest. Well, not that the tuber are sizeable at all, but the output was heavier than the input! In their favour I must note, that they sprouted very late, in late June. Maybe they need a few growing seasons to overcome the move from Andes to Denmark?
Compare the size with the parent tubers below:

The three tubers planted in spring. The small to the very right sprouted first, but only to fade away.

I was away a week in December. When I came home, the ullucos and their pots was frozen solid. An other week passed, before I managed to dig them out of the still frozen pots. The tubers in the surface had all died, but those deeper buried, but still frozen, survived to a large extent. Some died during the first week indoor, but most of them are still in good shape.

Don’t ask how they taste! I didn’t taste them yet. I believe a number of gardeners would like to try them in their garden. All will be saved for replanting in spring.

Ulluco – again an older post

 

A Garden Revisited

Garden with a view

I revisited Merete and Ejners garden. First visit was in spring, this second visit was after the first frost. The garden is situated in a village, with a view over field and wood.

Sage (Salvia officinalis)

The huge sage with the wrinkled stems made me think of
the oldest oak in Denmark. Age is an important dimension in our garden plants. Never saw a more beautiful sage.

Kirsten and Merete deeply engaged in garden talk

People fond of gardening always talk a lot, when we meet in a garden. It still surprises me, how different we people can grow our gardens. Even with same plants in same climate. We ate us through the different fruit trees; cooking apples, table apples, pears, prunes, filberts and grapes.

Old grape wine growing in the apple trees

A very old grape wine has conquered the tops of some of the apple trees. In old days there was a greenhouse around it, but since it perished, the grape wine has continued to grow with no protection. Could it be the old variety Frankenthaler?

Leaf chicory

There still is a lot of vegetables in the garden. The leaf chicory was served for lunch – mmm…. We also had leek and a mayonnaise spiced with ‘Susan Delafield’ garlic.
Thanks for a nice day.