Vegetables, salad and soft fruit crops we are growing: 2014-15

We thought it might be useful to make a list of the vegetables we are growing in 2014 through to Spring 2015. It will be useful for us to document it and also give our readers some idea of the range of food that can be grown in a temperate climate that has all year round growing conditions.

We use a crop rotation system that makes the best use of companion planting in the two large and two smaller raised beds situated past the orchard at the bottom of the garden.

Product	Cropping
Celeriac	Feb 2015
Carrots	October 14
Beetroot	Since April through to February 2015
Tomatoes, Spring onions	Current
Leeks	September onwards
Cauliflower, Broccoli, Flower Sprouts	November onwards
Turnip, Swede and Chard	November onwards
Aubergine, Peppers, Butternut Squash	September onwards
Beans (various)	Current
Basil, Parsley, Coriander	September onwards
Lemon Grass and various herbs	Current
Fennel	Ongoing until early Spring
Marrows, Cucumber and Kohl Rabi	Ongoing until September
Chili Peppers	Current
Raspberries and Blackberries	Current
Red and Black Currants	Cropped and frozen
Peas, Onions and Potatoes	Cropped and stored
Winter Lettuce	November onwards
Gooseberries	Crop Failure 2014
Horse Radish	November

No doubt we will be challenged with black fly, aphids, opportunistic intruders, mildew, watering, wild animals and birds but with careful management, pest control and natural defences such as companion planting, we should be able to provide more than enough fresh vegetables, salad crops and soft fruit to see us through the year for eating, processing into jams and pickles and, for preserving in the dehydrator or freezer. The excess we will distribute amongst friends or compost and return the goodness to the soil.

In addition to the vegetables we also grow a range of fruit including peaches, oranges, apples, pears, plums, greengage, rhubarb and physalis as well as a range of plants we will use in hand-creams, soaps and herbal teas: lemon verbena, lemon balm, mint, calendula, lavender, comfrey, sage and so on...

Lemon Verbena - harvested for drying

There is little doubt that growing your own food is hard work and never ending but the rewards are worth the effort. In our experience, it tastes so much better and we can be confident that no harmful chemicals have been used in its production. Friends often say that they wish they had the space to grow food, our reply is always the same: a window box, tub or series of plant pots can produce quite a bit of food. If you've thought about growing your own but never got around to it, it is not too late, have a go and let us know how you get on.

Geraldine the Hedgehog - slug control...

The garden in Autumn - chores to cherish

There is something rather beautiful about the onset of autumn. The growing season stalls as the days shorten, the sun and sky work together to cast the autumn glow.

The autumn crocus push through and bring a vivid blue and gold highlight amongst the leaves and grass. Where there were once was blossom, there are now seeds and berries. The leaves are changing shape and colour then will fall to the ground ready to be collected.

The leaves are disturbed by the strengthening southern winds that signal rain and storms. The winds can reach a balmy 26 degrees at any time of the day, evening or night-time.

The animals, birds and insects are preparing for wilder weather. Harvesting and nest building in readiness for a new season when hunters roam and resources fade.

Always something to harvest; apples, chillies, cauliflower, carrots, beetroot, kale...

A veil of wood-smoke drifts across the surrounding pastures as the sun sets and the temperature dips.

Autumn, the guardian of energy and new life.

And to finish, some beautiful words from Sarah Mathew at The Cailleach Writes...

Samhain blessing

As winter knocks upon your door and fires are lit within,
Open up your mind, your heart,
And let the seasons in;
Look past at bounty, harvests won,
Respect the earth, the moon, the sun
And when the winter seems too deep,
Remember close your friends to keep.
Take your peace and take your rest,
Live for now and know you're blessed.

Blessings

Summer fruit and vegetable harvests

Summer is always a busy time here at La Pasera with many crops producing in abundance. We always grow more than we can use fresh but the remainder doesn't go to waste. We will process many of our crops into pickles, soups, jams and burgers whilst others will be frozen, dried or bottled.

We have had a slow start to summer which has meant most things are about a month behind from previous years. The beetroots are at that stage where they are small but sweet and tender, perfect for salad, delicious in beetroot and coconut soup and absolutely brilliant just simply juiced fresh.

We are trying Kohlrabi this year, a first for us and we will probably eat it in salads. It seems to have split a little, probably due to erratic watering or fluctuations of temperatures. I'm a bit disappointed with the taste but Luis likes it. I might try pickling some to spice it up a bit.

The sugar-snap peas are a little disappointing and no where near as sweet as previous years. Instead of eating them raw in salads we will probably use them for soup. The carrots are beginning to crop and so far seem sweet and quite a size.

The gooseberry crop has done really well this year and has not suffered due to gooseberry sawfly. We made sure that rhubarb leaves were placed under the bush whenever we cropped it and this acts as a physical barrier as ell as a natural insecticide, it works. We will make as much gooseberry and mustard seed pickle as possible as this is one of our favourite accompaniments to bean-burgers, cheese or savoury and Indian dishes. The big challenge has been to keep the blackbirds away but this year we put netting up early which seems to have worked.

Elsewhere the raspberries and redcurrants are producing well and we will shortly be harvesting these for the freezer or to make fruit leathers in the dehydrator.

Fruit and vegetables we are growing this summer/autumn

It's been a cold start to the growing season with an exceptionally high rainfall and much cooler temperatures than normal for Asturias. Most seedlings and young plants are behind by a few weeks and we are hoping that now the warmer days are upon us, things will have a growth spurt.

2012

We run a crop rotation system and try to ensure that all the beds are given fresh nutrition from home-made compost. Most of our seedlings are started off in pots, seed trays or half pipes; this ensures we can give them the best start possible and protect them from slugs, disease and adverse weather conditions.

2012

So here we are, this is what is currently growing at La Pasera:

Cultivated Fruit: red currant, black currant, gooseberry, rhubarb, blueberry, raspberry, pear, apple, plum, peach, orange.

Wild fruit: piesco (wild peach), hazelnut, walnut.

Vegetables: potato, pea, mangetout, sugar-snap peas, fennel, chili and salad pepper, flower sprouts, cucumber, squash, marrow/courgette, lettuce (3 types), succession of beetroot, tomato, beans (2 types), red and white onions (400), kohlrabi, succession of carrots, butternut squash, spring onions...

Flower sprouts and tomatoes (under plastic)

Herbs: sage, dill, oregano, thyme, chive, mint, borage, comfrey, parsley, coriander, basil

and for later on in the season: cabbage, cauliflower, leeks, aubergine, broccoli, winter lettuce, swede, celeriac...

The good news is that most of the seedlings are now planted, protected and positioned to perform their best given good weather and appropriate attention. We will feed some crops with nettle juice and spray mildew prone plants with horsetail water. Insects will be kept at bay through symptomatic spaying with rhubarb leaf water or squishing by hand....ewe. Details of natural insecticide and fungicide here.

The slugs and the snails are on a late, hungry start this year also so we have added extra protection around young vulnerable plants by creating barriers of wood ash, broken eggshells or sheep fleece pellets.

The various pea crops are growing well but the Jays are enjoying early morning snacks and ruining the fattest pea pods. The scarecrow didn't seem to deter them but it took the cats two whole days before they approached it or dared to walk past it. They still give it suspicious looks when on their way to the bottom meadow.

Winter beckons at La Pasera

Winter is fast approaching and the beautiful autumnal colour is falling from the trees. The slightest of breezes stir the drying leaves and sees them drift slowly to the ground below. The mornings are cold with a slight ground frost in exposed areas but luckily we rarely reach below freezing so most of our plants survive without protection.

Even at this time of year there are jobs to be done around the garden and the bright sunny days make it such a pleasure to get wrapped up and take a leisurely stroll around assessing what needs to be done and how urgent it is.

One job that is always very rewarding is collecting the masses of leaves that fall. We store these in two large bins and let them rot down naturally into glorious leaf mold for use next year. Fortunately for us, we had too many this year for the bins and had to resort to my Mother's tried and tested method of putting them in a black bin liner punctured with holes. This works well and is a great way of getting a bit of extra rich compost if you only have a few leaves to collect. Once ours are rotted down a little we will add the bin bags contents to the bins.

The pond, minus fish, needs clearing of leaves most days otherwise it causes excess debris and encourages algae next year. The Gunnera plant is one of the few plants we protect during winter as we are worried that its fleshy crown will rot if frost does set in for any length of time. We normally cover the crown and new growth with old dried Gunnera leaves, this works well. We have also reduced the crown this year as it was getting far too big for the pond area.

Elsewhere in the garden, the carrots, leeks, celeriac, swede, beetroot, lettuce, second crop fennel and brocolli are producing well and it is always a pleasure to wander round with a sharp knife and basket harvesting fresh vegetables and herbs for the day's meals.

The birds are very active in the garden stripping the bushes, grasses and trees of berries, insects and seeds. The highlights this week have been Firecrests, Green Woodpeckers, Heron (arghhh!!!) and the very tame and friendly Robins.

Further afield, these bright cold days are perfect walking weather and it is really invigorating to meander around the country lanes and cliff paths then settle down in front of a lovely log fire.

Preparing the vegetable beds for winter

There is a break in the weather and although still cool out of the sun and in the evening, the rain has stopped and the wind is helping dry out the soil and garden. It is an ideal time to clear the vegetable beds as they come to the end of their producing cycle.

After a very productive year in the vegetable garden, it is time to give the empty beds a little tender loving care. The bed we concentrated on today had grown: beans; courgettes; marrows; radish; parsnips; carrot; beetroot; herbs; squash...It had produced well and now needed attention.

The old plants were removed and composted. We have two main general compost bins which in turn will be allowed to break down and then dug back into the beds. The fuller bin will be ready for using in a few weeks time before we plant potatoes and onions. We never have enough compost so we compost everything we possibly can.

Luis added more sandy top soil to the bed and dug it over lightly. The addition of the new soil has really helped break-down the heavy clay and it is much more manageable. Oats were then scattered and then raked in. The oats will grow over the next three months then they will be dug back into the soil as a green manure. The cats also love to eat the fresh green shoots of oats so they will be pleased.

If we manage to source any manure, that will also be added to the bed.

Elsewhere in the garden we are continuing to clear the leaves, tidy up for winter and we have begun to survey and prioritise the building work we are yet to do but hope to start soon. We have had a leak in the newly built garden tap so that has had to be partially demolished, repaired and is awaiting re-build.
Wentworth and Gawber are out more during the day, hunting land voles in nearby meadows and generally enjoying the warming rays of the sun.

In celebration of carrots, carrots and carrots

You can tell we are overjoyed, by the title of this post. If you'd been disappointed by a poor or non-existent carrot crop for the past 5 years and were suddenly gifted these fine specimens, then you'd understand. For the first time since moving here and growing our own vegetables we have an abundance of fine, fat and sweet carrots.

Carrots feature a lot in our diet both as a raw vegetable for salads or used grated in nut loaf or grated in a rice, carrot and sultana salad. Using shop bought carrots has always been OK but fresh from the ground, grown without chemicals is better. This has happened since raising the vegetable beds and adding 13 tonnes of sandy topsoil.

Now we have a glut of carrots it will be great to be able to make one of our favourite soups: Carrot, coriander and orange. It really is very easy to make and is suitable for these cooler wintry days when a bowl of soup and a chunk of home-made bread goes down a treat.

Here is the recipe:

Carrot, coriander and orange soup

1 large bunch of carrots, peeled or scrubbed, top and tailed, chopped.
1 handful of rice
Zest or finely peeled skin of one orange (preferably un-waxed)
Salt and pepper to taste
Finely chopped fresh coriander for in the soup and to sprinkle on the soup
stock cube
enough water to cover ingredients

Bring to the boil, simmer for 20 minutes, leave to cool, blitz with a hand blender. If too thick it can be diluted with a bit of fresh orange juice. Serve warm with fresh coriander, a twist of black pepper and a slice of fresh bread bread. A meal in itself.

Edited to add: We also love carrot cake...