Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Preserving harvest by Fermentation - leafy green recipe

Dear Family & Friends

While we are at the stage of planning intensive gardening for the purpose of growing our own organic food, we also have to start thinking how to keep and preserve our harvest excess. The food we grow last us all year around. One way of keeping seasonal harvest is by fermentation.

Some of the earliest crops that will arrive from the garden
Fermenting greens alters their nutritional value in several ways. In a sense, fermentation moves our leafy green harvest up the food pyramid chart. Fermentation introduces bacteria to our food. (Don't be afraid of bacteria...our bodies are full of it and so with our living environment no matter how clean we think we keep them) After the bacteria have had their fill, there is less energy, or calories, remaining in the veggies as many of the nutrients are pre-digested, making it easier to be absorbed in our intestinal tract. Fibrous cell walls are softened, making their contents more readily available to our digestive enzymes.

While some vitamin C and beta-carotene is lost, the levels of B-vitamins, especially vitamin B-1 and B-2, are often increased. Protein quality is also enhanced as the bacterial enzymes alter the vegetable’s amino acid profile. Fermentation also can break down some of the compounds that inhibit nutrient absorption. It's all good for us, but I must admit that a taste of fermented leaf vegetables is an acquired thing.


eat your greens


Now and again, I will be writing and keeping lacto fermented food recipe here for our record and hopefully you will profit from them too. Would you like to journey with me on this? Let's have a go:)

We have quite a lot of argula/rocket leaves that have over wintered, they will be my first bottle to do this year. Mustard green is also another good candidate.

Ingredients:
  • 2 or more bunches shredded leafy greens, enough to fill a quart jar
  • 1-3 tablespoons sea salt
  • 3 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed


Instructions:
  1. In a large bowl combine greens and salt. Massage the leaves with the salt and let rest 10 minutes so that the juices come out of them.
  2. Add half of the greens to a quart jar. Throw in the garlic cloves and pack the rest of the greens tightly on top, pushing them down so that the juices cover them.
  3. Cover tightly and ferment 3 days or until they are bubbly and tangy to your liking. Transfer to cold storage.
Opening a jar of greens is always handy specially when you had a busy day yet still need greens with your meal.

Enjoy and make the most of your day today.

Yours

Annie





Saturday, March 14, 2015

How I Grow My Sweet Potato Slips

Dear Family & Friends

In countries where we get a share of  winter season, growing sweet potato is not as straight forward as in the tropics. Our family enjoys eating sweet potato, but it is not common stuff in the market and a bit pricey in the supermarket. So, growing your own has become my goal.

My sweet potato buried in moist compost for the purpose of growing 'slips' to plant out.

Sweet potatoes are started from slips (rooted stem). You can purchase slips or start your own. Starting slips using sweet potato bought from grocery store may be problematic. There may be varieties that do not grow well in your area, and/or the roots may have been treated with sprouting inhibitors unless they're grown organically.

Sweet Potato sitting in the water inside a bottle cloche to grow some slips

At first, I was so anxious about the process of growing sweet potato slips, that my husband went and found a distributor in the UK who sells ready slips for £2/slip!  No, I'm not paying that!! I insist on growing my own and refuse to be defeated!  I did had my share of failure in the past. I tried placing the sweet potato in a bottle of water to start with...but after a few days, I've noticed it starts getting moldy...so I quickly changed my tactic and half buried it in a tub of moist compost...and gave it a lot of tender loving observation, and kept it warmth by placing it inside the warmest room, even sat the tub in a heated paving stone placed on top of the log burner at night. In 3 weeks time, I got my success! It's still growing more slips... so far, with two sweet potato I can see 10 slips...£20!! Ha! Ha! I can just see pound sterling!!
Another half buried sweet potato growing it's first two slips...more to come!

If you want to grow your own slips, start 6-8 weeks before planting time. Select 1 1/2 inch diametre sweet potatoes. Soak the sweet potatoes in water for two hours, then place them in a flat or pot half filled with soil or screened compost. Cover with 2 inches of lose soil. Keep the soil consistently moist in a warm and sunny spot indoors. When you are ready to plant, cut your slips an inch away from the  "mother sweet potato" to avoid transferring any plant diseases. Slips should be 8-10 inches long when pulled.

Weather is unpredictable.. started some direct seed sowing last week, but this week, it's snow building fun!

Our next process would be the planting side of it. I will post again later on once the weather warms up for us to get things going in the garden.

Hope you have a happy gardening day today too:)

Yours

Annie

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Gardening is way way of life

Dear Family & Friends

I don't know what to classify myself when meeting people. I'm not retired, laid off, unemployed or between jobs. I'm just simply no longer part of that accepted routine that many knows as 9-5 to 65 merry go round! It started years ago when we had our first born daughter.


Nothing beats a homegrown sweet corn.


Since we moved to Bulgaria, I became more conscious of becoming sufficient and fancied a simply way of living...more homegrown sort of stuff. It suits us well. After all,  I'm homeschooling our two girls too. With the privacy of a walled garden, I try and test my gardening skills...and no one is really at my back as unwanted supervisor:) I've learned through trial and error...and enjoyed what I'm doing. The whole family benefited:) 


Fruit trees just yield year after year once established

We grow a lot of food for our year's consumption, never had the need for those things from supermarket since! Forsook frivolous amenities, battering with neighbours and mastering the art of re-purposing. We live without air conditioning, TV and much of everything else modern society deems essential. This is not life of deprivation. It's just mean that it doesn't include relying on government aid or charity. Instead, we focus on and build for ourselves what we truly want from life.


Daily harvest - a bit of everything, depending on what the season brings

Life at home is busy...wonderful kind of busy. As you can see, one cannot afford to be lazy. Yes, I'm not working...but I've got a list of jobs to tackle and tick each day:) Gardening is just one of them.

Yours

Annie

Friday, February 27, 2015

Employ Tools Minimally

Dear Family & Friends

My husband have a few garden tools stored in the barn.... the shovel, the fork, the pick ax  etc...and I notice it is expanding by the year too!

Garden Tools Maintain
Every morning when I head to work (in the garden, of course!)...I just carry with me 3 things: my fashionable handbag, I mean a bucket...and inside - a hand trowel, an old pencil colour, and a scissor. Life is just that simple!

The bucket handbag can hold the pulled weeds to take to the compost bin...or to hold some collection of harvest to take back to the kitchen for the day's use. That's actually what I call my 'pay' but I don't need a wallet for that, nor a lips-stick in my handbag for the matter ;P

Highlands-12l-Galvanised-Metal-Bucket-With-Handle-Water-Fire-Coal-Garden

My girl's old pencil colour is a good recycled tool for poking holes and lifting seedlings out of pots. The hand trowel is useful for digging bigger holes for planting, so finger nails don't get damaged, and for picking bugs you don't like to touch etc...

The scissors is also handy for opening new seed packets, specially the foiled secured packets where no nails or teeth can tear, and for harvesting veggies and flowers...or just snipping old death plants to tidy up a bit. When feeling cruel, to snip slugs before they escape! (now that's gross!...better to just let the chickens do the job ;) so, use the hand trowel...scoop it and toss in the air... be sure to have it land inside the chicken pen!

What tools do you carry to work each day? Any powerful weapons for a powerful job?

Happy gardening day!

Yours


Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Vegetable Growing Cheat Sheet - Guide Reference

There's so much to get excited for the coming spring garden...First of all, the excitement of planning what to grow and the thoughts of harvesting homegrown good food for the family. 

Every year I want to do better than the last and I refer to my guides and notes of the past to aid me. 

Here is a concise vegetable growing cheat sheet than I find easy to follow at a glance and is keeping it for reference. The veggies listed are what we would grow, and I more or less adapt the vegetable sowing guide to suit our gardening conditions. I found it from this website: http://overgrowthesystem.com. 


Thursday, February 12, 2015

Gardening in the Winter Season

Dear Family & Friends

There's not much you can do in the garden during winter time. Probably it's gardener's rest time, but I just have to do some growing even in the middle of winter! Even when our temperature can come down to as much as minus 20.

Five Rosemary cuttings propagation in a soda bottle cloche:)

In December, I did a few cuttings from our Rosemary plant in the garden. I filled soda bottles with compost and planted my cuttings in. My simple way of propagating this herb. I'm hoping to get more plants to use as garden hedging in Spring time. For the moment this bottle cloche sits by the kitchen window.

My first propagated scented geranium is doing well by the window sill.

Sometime ago, a lady in our village passed this plant stem with a few leaves. I did not know what plant that was, but the leaves are very aromatic. I was told to use them in my fruit compote making. Unfortunately, most of the fruits were eaten fresh by the two girls. So, I decided to place this plant stem in the water and determined to search it's identity on internet. It's scented geranium!! The stem took roots in the water, and I planted them in a yogurt pot afterwards. It's doing well by the kitchen window. I will plant them outside when weather warms up and would want to have more of this charming plant later on.


My DIY mini green house for seeds and seedlings.

We often have bright sunshine during winter. More soda bottle cloches were made, I filled them up with home made compost, and lined them by the window ledge to sunbathe. My intention is to warm up the soil and use them to sow some vegetable seeds. We have no greenhouse, so this is my DIY mini green house to get some head start for this year.

Gardening is fun:) Let's make garden.

Yours

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Comfrey Tea Recipe For Garden Plants

Dear Family & Friends

Why buy liquid feeds when you can make your own? It's so easy, it is free, and you know it is organic. Here are a few tips for making liquid feeds for your garden plants.
Comfrey tea is the classic organic liquid feed. I brought with me a couple of comfrey plant roots all the way from England to Bulgaria . Our farmer friend thought I was going bonker to want to plant comfrey, for he considers them as weeds in his farm land. But I'm determined to have a ready supply in our garden for this use.

A young comfrey plant

To make comfrey tea for your plants, simply steep the comfrey leaves in a bucket of water (preferably rain water)for 10-14 days, when it starts to really stink, use the liquid. Dilute with water 15:1, to water the plants directly. As for the remaining sludge in bucket, I either add more water to brew some more, and wait another 10-14 days or use the comfrey sludge as a top dressing.
Many plants benefit from liquid feeds. It  gives them a boost during their growing period, particularly hungry crops such as; tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, cucumbers, courgettes, pumpkins and beans. The benefit of liquid feeds is that the nutrients are immediately available to the plants in soluble form, they are also easy to make and easy to apply regularly.

Let's make garden...and grow our own food with great success:)

Yours

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Another year to get sweet potato to grow

Dear Family & Friends

I'm desperate in growing Sweet potato! It's a challenge for us because they need a very long, hot growing season. I did tried for the past two years. The first year was a struggle because I grew the potato slips too late. The second year, I managed, but the soil was not warm enough and the plant took a while to get going. Only few leaves for a delicious stir fry was harvested, plus a couple of cute sweet potato, before our cold weather set in.

Two expensive sweet potato I bought in hope that I can some in our garden.

This year, I'm determined to try again for the better. I'm starting early. Sweet potato is not common here. In fact, I can only get them from certain supermarket and quite expensive too! They're not organic so I'm not sure if they will easily grow slips for my planting use. As I have no choice, I can only try to find out! 

Sweet Potato sitting in the water inside a bottle cloche to grow some slips

I've decided to place the sweet potato inside my DIY cloche soda bottle with water. It's sitting by the sunshine for some needed warmth and I'll bring them indoor later to maintain the warmth, in hope that they will sprouts some slips for planting. I do try hard;P 

Hopefully the next time I write about my experiment with growing sweet potato would be the planting part of it.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Propagations in winter

Dear Family & Friends

There's not much you can do in the garden during winter time. Probably it's gardener's rest time, but I just have to do some growing even the the middle of winter! Even when our temperature can come down to as much as minus 20.

Five Rosemary cuttings propagation in a soda bottle cloche:)

In December, I did a few cuttings from our Rosemary plant in the garden. I filled soda bottles with compost to put my cuttings in. My simple way of propagating this herb. I'm hoping to get more plants to use as garden hedging in Spring time. For the moment this bottle cloche sits by the kitchen window.

My first propagated scented geranium is doing well by the window sill.

Sometime ago, a lady in our village passed this plant stem with a few leaves. I did not know what plant that was, but the leaves are very aromatic. I was told to use them in my fruit compote making. Unfortunately, most of the fruits were eaten fresh by the two girls. So, I decided to place this plant stem in the water and determined to search it's identity on internet. It's scented geranium!! The stem took roots in the water, and I planted them in a yogurt pot afterwards. It's doing well by the kitchen window. I will plant them outside when weather warms up and would want to have more of this charming plant later on.


My DIY mini green house for seeds and seedlings.

We often have bright sunshine during winter. More soda bottle cloches were made, I filled them up with home made compost, and lined them by the window ledge to sunbathe. My intention is to warm up the soil and use them to sow some vegetable seeds. We have no greenhouse, so this is my DIY mini green house to get some head start for this year.

Gardening is fun:) Let's make garden.

Yours


Sunday, January 11, 2015

Drip Feeding System in our garden

Dear Family & Friends

Most people in our village maintains at least a couple of properties for gardening purpose to sustain their extended families with garden food. But for us, our garden which measures an average size of 750 square metre, is enough to grow food for a family of four, for the whole year...plus some to share.


our vegetable garden plot with drip feed irrigation all set up

Today I'm sharing with you about the idea of using a 'Drip Feed System' to water a garden.




At the height of summer, the heat can be so intense here that I can't be out in the garden for more than ten minutes before I start to feel faint. I can't imagine how the plants in the garden must be feeling. Without regular, consistent watering, plants would suffer dramatically. To prevent this, we set up a drip irrigation system, which can be partially disassembled over the Winter. You can't expect me to water the garden by hand.

plants are watered gently, slowly and direct to where you want it

In the past, we tried putting trench along side row of vegetables and flood it with water but it takes a lot of water and drench collapse after a while. So, it's not the best and efficient way there is, although most of the villagers here uses this gardening method.




Our drip feed system is very basic and simple. Water is fed into plastic pipe tubes, that lies on the ground, by gravitational force from above ground water tank which is filled with a free underground water source. The plastic pipe tubes are flexible and are sold very cheaply by the roll. Cheap and cheerful stuff but that's all that's available in this country for the moment.

So there you are...just a glimpse of our gardening chore and system tht we maintain here.

Yours