Before we kick-off with the new growing season (sneak peek: first seeds and seedlings are in the ground!), I wanted to wrap up our experiences from the past year, so here's a little flashback with what we've been up to last spring and summer!
What can you expect following winter gardening? Spring harvest obviously! Still, a busy harvest time in April and May was a new sensation for this Northern European.
What can you expect following winter gardening? Spring harvest obviously! Still, a busy harvest time in April and May was a new sensation for this Northern European.
A typical view during harvest time, in April (!)
Since Malta
experiences mild winters, followed by warm springs and (at times scorching) hot summers,
it makes sense that instead of the growing sequence of the higher latitudes, where we have to wait for episodes of frost to pass, here in the
Mediterranean it is the availability of water that ultimately dictates the best
growing season. Therefore, the months between September and May lend themselves
best for vegetable growing, unless you have a good irrigation system in place.
Hauling water from the well
Spring harvest
We ended up with more beetroot, spinach, broad beans, peas, potatoes, onions and garlic than we could possibly eat up! Therefore, we had to think of how to save, process and store all the produce. We have quite a big freezer, which offered a solution for at least part of the produce. We blanched, cooled and dried spinach leaves, as well as the leaves of beetroot (which are perfectly edible, and a nice change from spinach) before packing them tightly in boxes and bags, trying to squeeze out as much air as possible to avoid freezer burn. The beans and peas were very voluminous, so we peeled mounds of them to take them out of their pods and transfer them to bags in the freezer. Initially we blanched them, cooled them and dried them before transferring them to the freezer, but this is a very cumbersome process and since we expect to eat them within a year, is not really necessary (or so I've been told).
Peas (piżelli) in their pods
Spinach (spinaċi)
For the beetroot I had another idea in store. Recently I came across some mason jars (Weck jars), as well as an article on fermentation. I decided to try it out using the beetroot. The first batch I made just with sliced beetroot (uncooked, but peeled) packed in a jar with filtered water, bay leaves from our own bay tree on the roof, fennel seeds, garlic and salt. Having read that the smaller the pieces, the easier the fermentation, I prepared another batch by grating beetroot and some cabbage, and seasoning them in a similar way. Both methods worked out fine, although the sliced beetroot was more crunchy and raw than the properly fermented grated batch. After about a month of fermentation in a kitchen cupboard I transferred the jars to the fridge, to halt the fermentation process and keep the contents well preserved for several more months.
Sliced beetroot (pitravi), awaiting fermentation
With seasoning: bay leaf (rand), fennel seeds, garlic and salt
Pickled onions, in vinegar with rosemary
Chris' sister gave us a juicer for Christmas last year, and it turns out beetroot also lends itself very well for juices! Oranges are also in season in spring, and beetroot-orange juice became my favourite juice over these past months. The recipe is something along these lines: juice 4 or 5 beets (scrubbed clean), a knob of fresh ginger, together with about 6 oranges, and a lemon if you wish. The combination of the sweet, earthy beet with the fresh, tangy citrus and ginger is perfect. The only downside is the blood red stains that magically appear everywhere during the preparation and consumption of this juice :)
It was with a bit of a heavy heart that we pulled out the last veggies from the fields where we spent so many of our weekends this winter, but we had some exciting plans for summer and already started planning for the next growing season.
Summer adventures
Even though we were not growing any vegetables in summer, we still harvested and processed two other crops later in the year.
First in line were the capers (kappar). The caper bush can be found all around the Maltese Islands (and all around the Mediterranean for that matter) and seems to prefer the most impossible growing places: they are particularly abundant on the high stone fortifications that line the Grand Harbour, where we live. There are however also some shrubs to be found in our fields, and it is there that we harvested our capers. Harvesting is simple: just pinch off the capers from the stem. Back home we washed them and put them in jars with water and a spoon of salt. Then we placed this mix on the roof for about 2 weeks, to allow the capers to ferment. After discarding the bad capers we rinsed the capers and transferred them to clean glass jars, and added vinegar to preserve them.
Caper picking
The beautiful caper flower
The capers up close
Preparations for fermentation
After packing the capers in a jar, just add the brine (water and salt) and put the jar in a sunny spot
And a few weeks later they look like this! We preserve them in vinegar in small jars, to keep and to give away
Our second summer adventure was carob (ħarrub) picking! We invited some friends and turned it into a carob fest: a weekend of carob picking, camping at the fields, carob syrup making and washing it all off with a refreshing swim! To make the carob syrup, we broke about a kilo of carob pods into smaller pieces, and soaked them in a pan with water overnight. The next morning we prepared a fire and let the mixture boil and bubble away for about an hour. Thereafter we removed the pods and pieces, leaving only a carob infusion behind. Then we added a kilo of sugar, some cloves and cinnamon, and let this mixture boil for another hour or so. The resulting syrup is a great addition to cookies and cakes, and is beneficial to alleviate colds or throat aches, so can be used instead of honey in teas and other syrupy drinks.
Happy campers & carob pickers :)
Irene and Nil showing off farmer style 2014
We even had a visitor chameleon (kamaleonte)
Cooking the carob syrup on an improvised fire
The carob syrup, ready and bottled
The reward: a swim in one of the lovely bays of Delimara: il-Kalanka
4 comments:
Really enjoyed this certainly something different looking at produce in Malta, in a totally fresh way so to speak.
Like, like, dikke like!!
Very interesting reading and there is a lot to learn, thanks
De texelse delegatie hoopt op kappertjes!
Post a Comment