Sunday, February 19, 2012

The garden in February


Tomatoes and Violets
Blackberries

The beds are full

Fragrant Basil

Red Kale Jungle

"Gold Rush" Zucchini's bathed in golden light

Skyscraper Corn

Ear that?

 Just some of the treasures from my vegetable garden.


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Thursday, February 16, 2012

Potatoes

Decided to finally dig up the last of the potatoes tonight. Wasn't expecting this many!!!


The varieties are Cliff's Kidney, Jersey Benne, Purple Passion, Desiree and some special Maori varieties: Tutaikuri and Karuparera. My favourite are the Karuparera.


Me and my 2-pronged fork did a really good job!


Most interesting potato dug up was this one:


Use your imagination!
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Saturday, February 11, 2012

The evolution of the salad

Salads historically in NZ consisted of some iceberg lettuce, cucumber and tomato. Then some marketing genius came up with the idea of selling bags of salad greens (mesclun) and housewives right round the country started experimenting with greens that were weeds in a former life.

My salads usually consist of lots of peppery rocket, cress and baby beetroot leaves. To liven this up even further I decided to grow some edible violas.

These beautiful delicate flowers come in a variety of colours and are so intricate to look at. They look stunning in a salad.

And yes I was brave enough to eat them. Not a particular strong taste so completely palatable. A good dressing always helps!

Violas are not the only edible flower. I use borage flowers from my garden in salads and freeze them in ice to add to summer drinks.  Nasturtiums are also bright and beautiful to add to salads. Check out this chart of all the different types of flowers you can eat and what they taste like.


I think it's time again to get a little bit more creative with the salad greens (or purples, yellows, blues and reds). Leave your iceberg lettuce for lunch at Grandmas and play around with some edible flowers instead.


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