At your service

This year our vegetable garden will be at the service of our camp site guest. They can pick their fresh organic vegetables for free in it. However it is appreciated if they help us a hand with keeping weeds under control (and they did!!!).

Imperial potatoes

Just bought an early potato variety named Sissi in Hungary! However a short research on the internet showed that it is a German variety. I do not want to spoil my illusions - we will have imperial potatoes this spring.

Gardening fever

Melting snow and the days growing longer give me serious gardening fever! The first onions have been planted and seeds sorted out - let the Spring begin.

Garden - beginning of the Summer

Last weeks flowers start to become fruits! Peas, Courgettes (summer squash), broad beens, beetroots, carrots will be ready soon. Now we have new potatoes (!!!!), mangetouts, spinach, lots of lettuce, rucola, onions and russian kale on our plate.


Flowers and fruits


Cabbages and kale (savoy, russian, red, brocolli)

Gardens like sunshine

Last year our vegetable garden was a nightmare - too much rain and no sun. Now we haven't had a drop in weeks but we can use our pond to water our garden. Everything is growing very well! Lettuce and spinach are on our plate several days/week. Soon we can add mangetout and broadbeans. Potatoes are also doing great. One of our guests said he hadn't seen such beautiful potato plants as ours this year - and he used to work in the agricultural sector. Since we had some very cold nights I did cover the plants with a thick layer of hay, luckily they survived. I make fun of my Slovak neighbours waiting till May before planting them, If mine would have died from night frost they wuld have had a nice laugh!

Very busy

With great wether, camping season to start soon, gardening season started and lots of young live on our farm we are rather busy!


However we got help from our new electrician, if she is not too busy playing in her sandbath, she assembles the elctricity for our campsite.


Lambs are doing well, eating, growing, getting used to their new environment. Goats are less happy, they have lost complete freedom till at least end September. We fenced a field around our pond for them.


The garden is, although it is very dry, doing fine. Potatoes are sprouting, peas have germinated, spinach too and was then eaten by a chichen :-(, red beets, lettuce, onions have surviced chicken attack.


And last but not least - our road is about to be finished! We have been scooping many cubic metres of gravel on the stone-filled tracks.

Garden

One kilo of white and yellow seed onions, more than 150 garlic cloves, some red beets seeds, peas, mange-touts and broad beans have touched our soil. Two weeks earlier than last year: Belana, Magda and Vera, covered with a thick layer of straw and hopefully our neighbours will again not notice that I did plant potatoes before Ice Saints (half May!!). We love early potatoes so it is hard to wait another 8 weeks before local traditions and beliefs allow us to put our first tubers into the soil.

And the heating is on

The cold has returned. So no digging or other outside jobs. I went through my vegetable seed collection to select this year varieties. Nice job with this kind of weather.

I made my selection of this year's peppers and tomatoes.
- Garderner's delight cherry tomato
- Caro rich orange tomato
- Marina the earliest and tasties red tomato
- Habanero hotter than hot pepper
- Kalocsai Hungarian hot pepper
- Alexander sweet red pepper
- Slovakia sweet green pepper
- Sweet pickle medium hot pepper (yes for pickles)
A nice short list of great varieties!

Gardening season 2011

The gardening season has started. I am digging (again), spreading manure on the future vegetable beds and I did put a new fresh layer of compost in the cold frames. Two scoops have already be broken, our friend Stano will of course weld them for us. It is nice to see how the soil is improving every year thanks to adding organic matter, minimum tillage and no tractors compacting the soil.
This year's crops will be more oriented towards the needs of our campsite guests. A common joke is that Dutch tourists always travel with a sack of potatoes in their caravan. Because they are afraid of not finding the right potatoes for a decent price abroad. No need for this when they come to our campsite!

Smelly Business

Gardening season 20111 has started. Fresh hungarian garlic has been planted in the vegetable garden.

Storage

Getting colder - moving vegetables into our cellar.

Braised Red Cabbage with Apple

From the garden: apples, a nice red cabbage, few onions
From the shop: bacon, salt, pepper, vinegar.

Crisp the bacon in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Fry until evenly browned then add the onions. Continue until the onions soften and lightly brown, stirring up any brown bits from the bottom of pan. Add the chopped and boiled (10 minutes) cabbage, some vinegar and apples in slices and season with salt and pepper. Lower the heat. Stir as the cabbage begins to wilt then cover with a tight-fitting lid and slowly simmer until the cabbage is tender, 15 minutes or so.

Thou shalt not cross pumpkins

Last year I grew two varieties of small orange pumpkins: Small Sugar and Uchi Kuri on the same vegetable patch, I kept some seed although I am well aware that pumpkins easily cross. However what would it matter if the small sugar and the uchi kuri would mix? I forgot that I also had another cucurbitacea on the same patch: a round variety of courgette.
So I now have loads of Courgkins or Pumgettes.... and I do not know what to do with them except feeding them to our billy goat.

Fairy bench

A shelf fungus - or as we call it in Dutch a fairy bench (elfenbankje).

Buzzy