Here I am sittimg down to write this, with a basket of garden pickings on my lap. I look rather sheepish as I should be in the kitchen cooking this and not sitting here writing about how skippity-doo I feel.....again. But when one reaps such wonderful rewards from one's own efforts, one just must show someone !My hands are still quite chilled because, yet again, it is nearly dark before I realise that all the vegies are in the garden, not in the fridge. I rush out the door, up the steps and then that feeling, that Christie verified was a real thing, hit me as I gaze upon the unruly crowd of plants assembled in a haphazard way before my eyes (unlike Cath and Rob's regimented vegies all behaving themselves!). This is what I selected for tonight : wombok leaves, young bokchoy thinnings, garlic thinnings (they must have come up from a bulb left in the ground last year), edible chrysanthemum tips, Maggie's mustard greens and coriander, plus mizuna, corn-salad and some of Diana's Italian lettuce for lunch tomorrow. But while I was there I noticed that a few extra things have started coming up from my quick-and-easy method of shaking seed heads of any old thing that has gone to seed, all around the garden and letting it all come up when it is ready. Such tiny seedlings are visible of an assortment of lettuce, rocket, daikon (oh no not more!), spinach, the tiny-leafed variety of corn salad(impossible to pick), various onion-related things(as yet unsure what these are), fennel, and even some tomatoes. Some beans that I dropped have swelled and are ready to burst into life and I noticed that the sugar-snap peas have finally reached the top of the growing frames and flowers are developing (very late ).
That is it; nothing to excite the world, just a few vegetables, oh and eggs from the chooks.I am going to cook 'Bream Fillets with Bok Choy' (see recipes, fish). But lots of those bacteria Christie told us about must have jumped onto me because I am pretty happy....again and I particularly love the feeling of the freezing cold rain-drops that still cling to the leaves as I pick them. Winter.......perfect. (No I have not been smoking funny weeds, simple things please simple people!)
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1 comment:
Now, young Kate, that feeling of just rushing out and picking stuff for a meal from whatever is available in one's garden has a name (in our house); it's called 'grazing' or 'foraging'. Isn't it amazing how things we've long forgotten about (having planted them yonks-ago and given them up in despair) can suddenly 'be there' and provide a good feed? I've just discovered beetroot and carrots that I'd written off...even some sunflowers at the end of winter, for crying down the sink!
Well done!
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