Looking forward to next year

We had a good season this year. We had a lot of fun and we learnt a lot of new things! We ate from our garden plot right through the summer. Yum!

We grew a lot of herbs, vegetables and fruit: grapes, courgette, strawberries, beans, aubergines, cucumber, spring onion, beetroot, cauliflower, broccoli, tomato, lettuce, spinach, chilli, radish, carrot, mint, coriander, and basil.

...but what about okra? Although we grew a few plants, we were not as successful with the cropping this year as we would have liked. We started too late, and the white flies spoiled our crop. So, we need to try harder next year!

We have a lot of our seeds from the Victoriana nursery ready for next year:  Aubergine Seed 'Black Beauty';       Bean Seed - Climbing French Bean 'Blue Lake';  Beetroot Seed 'Boltardy';  Broccoli Seed - Calabrese Long Season Cropping Blend; Carrot Seed 'Resistafly'; Cauliflower Seed 'Snowball'; Chilli Pepper Seed 'Bhut Jolokia' (CPI); Chilli Pepper Seed 'Joe's Long Cayenne'; Courgette Seed 'Zucchini'; Cucumber Seed 'La Diva';  Lettuce Seed 'Hendersons Black Seeded Simpson; Okra Seed 'Mammoth'; Onion Seed - Salad Onion 'White Lisbon' (Spring Onion); Radish Seed Spring, Summer & Autumn Blend; Spinach Seed - Little Grandad's Original;  Tomato Seed 'Abraham Lincoln';  Tomato Seed 'Matt's Wild Cherry'.

We have quite a challenge raising these from seed! We'll have to plan carefully and work hard.

Autumn and the Leaves Turn Colour

Autumn is here and we have already have our first snowfall! The leaves have turned colour - brown, yellow, golden.

It's time for our garden plot to rest. We've taken out the standing plants to get ready for next year!

For Whom the Courgette Blooms

We have two courgette (zucchini) plants that are cropping well.

These make absolutely great fritters (or bajji), and best of all can be removed harmlessly as the courgette begins to grow. For each flower you will need to make a batter of one tablespoon of breadcrumbs, half table spoon of cornflour, salt and garam masala to taste. Tastes delicious when deep fried!

Green Hot Chilli Pepper

One of our dreams for this year was to grow our own chillies.

We have three plants, all coming nicely.

Producing enough at a time for Mirchi ka Salaan. Maybe later.

Getting Saucy with Pizzaz

A wealth of tomatoes - different kinds. What to do? Pizza sauce, Indian Style!

Start with 1.5 kg of tomatoes. Bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, dry roast a spoonful of mustard with some peppercorns and a sprig of mace. Keep a couple of star anise handy.

Chop some onions. Add a couple of spoons of oil to a frying pan. Put in the star anise. Add the chopped onions. Mix in the ground spices. Cook until the onions turn brown. Set aside.

Time to prepare a bouquet garni that will infuse its aroma and taste into the sauce. Take some cinnamon, allspice, black pepper, cloves and nutmeg.

Tie up the spices in the bouquet.

Pulp the boiled tomatoes in a mixer. Remove skins. Add to the sauteed onions. Put in the bouquet garni and simmer. Add salt and sugar to taste, and two spoons of white vinegar.

Cook on medium heat for 40 minutes until the sauce begins to have glazed appearance.

Now for the pizza! Get the veggies ready - onions, chilli, tomato and basil: all home grown!

We favor Buitoni fina for the base and Galbani mozzarela. Slap on the sauce and pile up the veggies.

Slap into the oven, 205 degrees C, for 10 minutes.

Mmmm...Ab ayega mazza!

Juicy Culture

We also found that the birds have been very busy!

Quite a lot of the grapes have been pecked at. Many bunches are simply black shrivelled skins.

It's another one of those times when you make omelettes from broken eggs!

We had a cold refreshing glass of grape juice. 

Aah.

Gone to seed

We came back from four weeks of holiday.

Apprehensive about what might have happened to the plot (although we had neighbours cropping the veggies  for a couple of weeks).

The coriander plant has gone to seed!

Well, never mind. Omelettes out of broken eggs, then!

We harvested the seeds.

Just in time to make the "Double Coriander" Carrot palya the whole family enjoys.

First, lightly roast and dry grind the coriander seeds.

4 medium sized carrots, cut lengthwise into strips and then chopped up
1 small onion, diced
2 spoons cooking oil
1 spoon of coriander power
Salt to taste
A pinch of paprika (optional, the Younger can't take it)
Half a bunch of coriander leaves

Add oil to hot skillet. Brown the diced onions. Add the coriander powder and salt. Add carrots after a minute. Add paprika, and the the coriander leaves. Cook until carrot pieces start to get charred.

And enough seeds left over to plant - think about it, growing the seed for our own coriander plants!

Aubergine by any Name

Call it what you want: Aubergine, eggplant, or brinjal...

Tastes delicious, especially when picked right of the plant!

We bought this plant at the COOP Garden Center in Villeneuve. It has performed spectacularly.

A Good Crop

Early July, and the plot is firing on all cylinders!

Broccoli, broad beans, green onions - these went into a vegetarian Thai green curry.

The Morges Lettuce went into the salad.

Back to Brassics

The Younger likes vegetables from the Brassica oleracea family (broccoli and cauliflower).

In fact his favourite any time food is steamed broccoli (without salt or seasoning).

We got a few saplings from the Schilliger Garden Center in Gland.

By late June, the broccoli were ready to eat!

How Ya Bean?

We decided to grow two kinds of bean plants: french bean and broad bean.

After the saplings were up, we planted them with stakes in the plot.

This picture was taken in mid-June. Right in the middle you can see the small red flowers.

Pretty soon, we see some beans sticking through!

We haven't had much luck with beans before, so we hope they'll come out okay this year.

The Beet Goes On

Beetroot is the Younger's favourite vegetable so we thought we would grow some from seed this year.

We put the seeds in a small tray. We transplanted the seedlings to the plot.

Some time later we had the beetroot coming through the ground!

It is just as well that the Moroccan mint plant survived from last year.

Here's the recipe for the Beetroot Palya the Younger likes:
-One spring onion (we were lucky, we grew some!)
-A couple of beet root
-Small sprig of mint leaves
-A spoonful of coriander power
-A pinch of paprika powder (optional, the Younger doesn't have it)
-Salt to taste
-A spoon of oil.

Heat a small frying pan. Pour in the oil. Slice and fry the spring onion. Dice the beet root and add to the pan. Chop up the mint leaves. Add coriander and salt (and paprika if you want to). Let it fry until the beet root is nearly charred. Tastes yummy, especially if the beet root is fresh!

Strawberry Avalanche

The ten strawberry plants were very active as soon as early June rolled around.

We had one lot of strawberries. And then another! And then another!

It was sunny and warm. So the strawberries were really tasty and juicy.

One week in June we picked over a kilo strawberries three days running.

Here's the Plot

Here is a picture of our vegetable plot.

The back and left hand sides are framed by grape vines, three on each side.

Just ahead of them are ten strawberry plants that were planted last year.

In the right corner is a large Moroccan mint plant.

We marked the rows in early May and got ready for the season.

Growing Okra in Switzerland

We are learning to grow a kitchen garden.

Our aim is to grow okra in Switzerland.

That's why this blog is called "Okraensuisse" (we are in the French part of CH, you see).

We tried growing okra in pots indoors last year (2011). It didn't work. There were weird white flies all around the pots and the plants did not grow well.

As you can see from the picture (middle to top left), we are getting there. It's mid-August now.

But we need to tell this story from the beginning.