potager
kohlrabi ready for stuffing
Finally the kohlrabi is big enough to harvest and my Mum is here to share her cooking experience and family recipe with me. She was so thrilled to see me bringing her fresh roots right from the garden and set to trimming the leaves immediately, flinging bug eaten or withered parts right into the compost. After the quick hosing off and trimming we brought them into the kitchen and finished the preparation. She relished peeling the tender green little kohlrabi’s tossing the puppies slivers as treats. We had just enough for one layer of the little hollowed out rounds stuffed with meat and rice to make the perfect pot of stuffed kohlrabi, or Töltött karalábé . It was a wonderful day ending with warm fresh bread right from the oven and a deliciously beautiful bowl of my favourite traditional childhood food.
Here’s how we made it: Recipe. I hope you try it and like it too.
update 11- 7-2014
Some wilting of leaves in the squash, cucumbers and beans, whiteflies? I’ll have to try a homemade spray?
Tomatoes are actually doing ok.
Shade is overtaking the black pot area, which tells me in winter there’s no sun and summer it’s a furnace.
That idea is a complete flop.
I picked the first green beans and they are wonderful, nibbled on some greens too. Turnips and kohlrabi are looking good.
First cucumber this week, “sweeter yet”
ninth bed
Sun is lower so pots are getting even less sun. Cherry tomato is hanging on. Beans are doing well, setting fruit. Csi Csa thinks its her domain. She loves the bean poles and does her slalom run through them all.
She is a pest and companion. I shoo her away and she’s right back again. Love what Chris Condello has to say about cats in the garden.
eighth bed
Yesterday I put in the eight bed. Found the wonky poles behind the shed, won’t be able to see how crooked they are after the beans grow on them.
Yellow squash seed in #1
Thinned bush cukes in #2
Kinko carrots & pot transplant #3
Nasturtiums & pole beans end of #4
Nasturtiums & pole beans end of #5
Marrow squash transplant from black pots, nasturtiums & pole beans end of #6
Carrots, corn & pole beans, nasturtiums end of #7
Pole beans, carrots, parsnips, turnips #8
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Panoramic view of my progress:
compost
I’ve been doing it wrong, throwing everything in the bucket pile, scraps, shredded paper, clippings, I’m not bringing free compost from the municipal holding tank like I did years ago, so at least the toxins I’m throwing out are my own. No consolation whatsoever. I ordered the paper copy of Steve Solomon’s book after borrowing it from the library. I’ll need it as a good reference for the soil balancing. I also downloaded compost book. It’s free. I cleared an area next to the first bed and fenced in the new compost area. I don’t have all the straw and clippings and all the right stuff recommended, but I will at least put in healthy, clean stuff from the garden.
Csi Csa is mad she can’t get into the pile.
black pots
“Is there any kind of gardening you do that doesn’t involve black pots?”
Well, apparently not. I was pricing grow boxes which are beautiful and perfect for this location, but the budget said use what’s there already…which are “black pots”. I’ll move them out if my ship comes into some beautiful cedar garden boxes.
So, I spent the day monitoring the sun. The location where I used to try to grow things gets a whopping 2 hours a day. The only place close to the house that gets close to eight hours in sections of it is a miserable 27’x13′ patch between the house, shed, porch and fence.
That should be perfect, but the water softener, A/C unit, wall a/c and hose reel live there too.
That’s the project. Here’s the beginning.
sprouts
Watching, waiting, watering for signs of life is what keeps me poring over seed catalogs and filling my fridge with seeds. Happiness is sprouts, pure and simple.
As usual I’m going to try to grow something that will actually become part of an edible meal, or even just edible. Not going into how many years, garden types, wasted seeds, compost, plots and plans in the past, hope and planting season springs eternal and so I’m off to yet another round of creating an edible garden.
I’m more of a dabbler and dreamer than a gardener. No green thumb here, I just love being outside with the plants, soil, bugs, butterflies, frogs and assorted wildlife. I’m amazed how all these gardeners and garden blogs make it look so easy. They are clean, not sweaty and stuff grows like crazy for them. One day…..
And Seeds 