There are many ways to eat healthy but the best maybe is with homegrown vegetables and fruits. Especially when they are not treated with any chemicals, grown in the permaculture style, healthy for humans and environment.
After a long time of nearly total absence I want to restart with my blog this year. We are still ‘locked away’ because of what is going on in the civilization but as I am living in the country for me many things are different. And I want to start to talk about my gardening, especially all around food.
Last year I already put a few recipes for preserves. Fruit and vegetables are great when freshly picked and prepared or eaten, but in the winter there is much less of all and the best is to preserve and can a lot of what we harvest during summer and autumn.
I was very lucky this year as I am again in a new home but the home-owner has a lot of land around and already put up a vegetable garden. Lucky also because he was not at all interested anymore in harvesting and let all to me. So I had from one moment to the other fruits and vegetables for a couple of families to my own.
The photos I took during the seasons summer, autumn and winter. With the to me never ending harvest of tomatoes I canned a lot. But I also tried out new ways to preserve like to sun-dry. I never did before. I started with tomatoes last year. This year I want to sundry much more like figs and berries if I find.
I want to harvest also more wild fruits like elderberry and sloes. I found a lot of wild growing asparagus, chard (whole year round nearly) and fennel. Of course I use wild flowers and ‘weeds’ like field-calendula, starweed and much more.
In my vegetable garden I found lettuce, peas, two types of beans, onions, garlic, potatoes, two types of tomatoes, zucchini, eggplants, hot chilies, winter melon and pumpkin. Around here in the wild I found a lot of cherries, figs, kaki, medlar, grapes, walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts (I missed the last ones as I came too late here). I got more fruits from my friend nearby and I was juicing like crazy (around 50 liters).
Here you can find some of my preserve recipes. There will be much more coming this year I am sure.
What I missed? Flowers. There were little wild flowers as the land owner was always cleaning the fields to leave them bare in the very hot summer sun. I will try to have flowers as well this year.
I really had a crazy year, not only for the world situation but also privately with my new home. But I enjoyed it very much, though sometimes I was on the edge of struggling in such a small place I live in. Now in winter I am enjoying my preserves and harvest every day. I have genuine, healthy and super tasty food, I rarely go to a supermarket, a farmer nearby has eggs and meat from free-ranged animals, I know farmers they sell ancient grains/flour I can use for (occasionally) bread and cookies.
Let’s rock this new year, let us make the best out of it! Happy 2022!
I love the ladybug