Verona Purple Savoy Cabbage

I like purple colour very much. So when I was making decision to try a new variety for winter last year the verona purple savoy cabbage caught my interest. The first time I saw a savoy cabbage was here in Adelaide. Found very fascinating that there are cabbage with wrinkle leaves (Savoy~ A cabbage of hardy variety with densely wrinkled leaves). I like the sweetness of savoy cabbage. This is the first savoy cabbage variety  we grown and it was an interesting experience with trial and error. The first error I made was the sowing time. The first batch that I transplanted bolted. Sometime you just have to try your own sowing time instead of following the instruction. Followed the instruction at first did not get favourable result with the first sowing batch in winter bolted. Because I can be very stubborn at times, I sowed some seeds in winter~early spring which was not recommended in the seed packet instruction which at the end gave us some harvest.

Verona Purple Savoy Cabbage Seedlings.

Purple veins on the cabbage leaves.

Inter-planted with radish for productivity.

This is how 100% organic and neglected growing cabbage look like.

Amazingly, a well-established verona purple savoy cabbage can withstand more than 40 degree Celsius and our extreme hot summer here in Adelaide. There were also few days when it did not get any water during mid-summer. We were lucky to harvest several of this cabbage during summer. A heat-tolerant variety cabbage.

One of the cabbages that we harvest last mid-summer.

Aduh sakit pinggang belakang minggu ni nak berkebun pun tak boleh. Gara-gara lama sangat duduk depan mikroskop dari minggu lepas nak pulun habis kerja.

First Fall Harvest 2012

Pak choi helps to fill in the gap at the moment while waiting for the warm loving vegetables to bounce back after the summer heat. Some chillies were available to pick frequently came fall. Surprisingly cabbage verona purple savoy has been doing amazingly well through out summer as we have been able to pick it fortnightly from late spring. Those cabbages were planted in winter. Hubby also cheated sometime not watering them frequently. Once established, this variety is a very heat tolerant plant. The ones we planted in fall, many of them bolted in winter.

Pull out some carrots (Topweight/New Kuroda?) as the mice has their eye on them. Nibbling on it sometime. Some ripe peppers were also harvested.

Second batch of kangkung/water spinach for 2012 made its way to the kitchen. First fall cucumber. I think we used up many fresh onions this month, mama using them a lot. Probably she like the fresh onion sweet flavour. Some beans and cherry tomatoes.

Cut some rainbow chard/swiss chard from a flowering plant. It is a part that grows from the bottom of the plants that look like a separate plant. I was curious whether it will taste bitter or it usual taste. It tasted ok not bitter.

Visit Daphne's Dandelions to share or see all around the world gardeners harvest.

Hon tsai tai ~Purple Choy sum

We have been harvesting some Asian veggies hon tsai tai this month. Hon tsai tai is also known as purple choy sum. Its like choi sum twin but the stems and leave veins are purple. Usually its difficult to differentiate the leaf of some brassicas at the stage of newly sprouted seeds as they look similar. However, as it is clearly can be seen that the stem of hon tsai tai newly sprouted seedlings are purple.

The first true leave sets of hon tsai tai.

Look ready to be transplanted.

Ready to be pick Hon Tsai Tai.

They are also enjoyed harvested when flowering.

Flower part is also edible.

Hon tsai tai flower resemble choy sum flower closely.

Have to be aware that this plant will cross-pollinate with other Asian veggies.

On cooler weather, the purple part of hon tsai tai will turn darker.

Time fly so fast!

I have not been updating my blog regularly this year.

Hope to catch up with you and see what you are posting in your blog soon.

Water dragon year is sure a busy year for me.

Top 3 main things for me this year:

 (1) Complete my PhD before middle of this year.

(2) Rayyan has to undergo another surgery schedule in May.

(3) Hormonal changes and welcoming a water dragon child.

I am counting on the luck and blessing no. (3) to help with smooth (1) and (2) journey.

Kitaran Hidup Daikon (Daikon Life-Cycle)

In the radish families, for us daikon is the easiest and suitable radish for us to grow. We also like daikon because its flavour does not turn hot quickly and do not need to be harvested quickly like other radishes when the flesh can become woody if not harvest quickly. Can be left for months on  the soil. But have to be cautious that when spring comes it may start to flower. Although sometime it is said that daikon can be grown all year round. In our case, spring-sown daikon tends to bolt quickly before producing much of a root. I am not sure what factor causes this. Can it be the day length or other environment stress factor, I am not certain. Water was still enough in spring so we can eliminate that factor. But we have tried 2 spring season consecutively and yielded same results. However, we have no such problem when we sowed daikon seeds from end summer through fall here. Daikon grows very well through that period.

Newly germinated daikon seeds.

Although daikon grows very big and long root, it grows really fast compared to other root vegetables. From front row to back row; daikon, carrot and parsnip. If you have not grown daikon before, you will be surprise how much daikon root can grown in 6 weeks in good environment. So it can also be a good inter-cropping plant.

Daikon is a good soil breaker plant.
If I am not mistaken, daikon leave is edible.
Well caterpillars and slugs do like to munch on daikon leaves.
Moreover, daikon is related to Asian greens and broccoli, the brassicas.

Daikon plants that is starting to flower. 

At this stage, the daikon root is still edible.

Daikon flower and seed pods.

Daikon flower resembles kailan (Chinese broccoli) flower.

However, daikon seed pods shapes is different from kailan or other leafy brassicas seed pods which can be differentiated easily. Our flowering daikon plants grows for at least 5 feet tall.

Daikon seeds.

Lenay harvested the seeds and I have not sorted it properly.

How do you like to prepare your daikon?

Nero Black Kale (Chervil seeds give-away Winners)

We have many variety of vegetables that we grow for the first time last cool season and some were introduced by our local seed-savers group. One of the vegetables that we tried growing for the first time during last cool season was Nero Black Kale. Although it was a new plant in the garden, I totally neglected it and was growing on one of the shades part of the garden in winter. It did not get any special treatment and exposed to pest. This is one plant you can experiment to try growing in partial shade~shade if you want to fully utilised your gardening space.

Nero Black Kale seedlings.

In winter growing so slowly in shade.

It will be lucky if it received 1 hour direct sunlight during sunny days at this corner.  Nero Black kale growing along with cineraria.

Spring came with more light and those kale pick up growth very quickly.

Totally growing in shade.

Did not want to waste the extra seedlings we had.

They do grow albeit rather slowly like my thesis writing.

At least they do provide some harvest for our kitchen harvest.

We don't have fresh harvest much this week.

Probably will be relying on frozen veggie stock now.

Nero Black kale came to rescue with fresh harvest.

The first time we harvest those leaves.

Yellow currant cherry tomatoes still plenty to harvest.

Mark ask me several time about this yellow currant cherry tomato.

I found that the skin thickness of this yellow currant cherry tomatoes varies in cool and warm season. During the warm season, this variety of cherry tomatoes is more acidic and skin are much thicker. However, in cool season this tomato skin is very thin and less acidic or more sweeter. We enjoyed the flavour of this tomato more during cooler months/weeks. It starting to be over 30 degree Celsius during the day now. I have noticed that suddenly this tomato skin become much thicker the same as last summer experience. So as a student of science, my hypothesis is that temperature can be one of the main factor that influence the thickness of this tomato skin. Adaptation to different temperatures in different season makes this tomato very draught and cold hardy compared to other varieties of cherry tomatoes that we grow. If I remember correctly, tomatoes were originally yellow in colour. So it is one of the tomatoes you might want to keep over winter as the flavour is best in cooler weather. I think last winter, that plant has gone through at least 2 degree Celsius. It does reallyX3 well in partial shade. So don't have to sacrifice your sunny spot for this tomato plant.

How did we enjoyed our first Nero Black Kale?

I was introduced to enjoy it with polenta by Mark.

In case you are wondering, did not have problem with lumps.

My cousin made it and follow the recipe accordingly.

Now, Rayyan been eating polenta occasionally.

We will be sending chervil seeds to author of these wonderful blogs:

MyJourney (Rainfield61)

Half A Pound Of Treacle (Sean L)

Mark's Veg Plot (Mark)

Hope to receive your postbox mail address (diana.demiyah@gmail.com)

Have a great weekend!

Mid-Spring 2011 Harvest

After going through winter, many of our plants are starting to flower. So the ones that shows the sign to flower will have to be pick first. Italian sprouting broccoli still producing many side-shoot sprouts, although the size are getting smaller. Our bloomsdale spinach is not bolt resistance this year. Spring-sowed daikon shows no mercy to me as it wants to join spring flower by giving us flower as well when the roots are still small.

Pest do like kohlrabi, can see the obvious sign of being eaten with many scars on it. Funny-looking parsnips. No beginner luck with purple savoy cabbage this year. Most of them produce small head or bolts. Planted too much rainbow chard last fall. Many of them I left flower in the garden. We harvested some red russian kale last week.

How do you enjoy your Florence fennel?

Harvested most of our over-wintered dragon carrot grown in container inter-planted with garlic and shallots. Bandicoot baby potatoes.

Funny-looking kohlrabi. We sliced them and fried it together with noodles.

Someone was busy again and left the cauliflower and brassica too mature with loose head.

Daikon and Topweight carrot thinnings.

Visit Daphne's Dandelion and share your harvest on Harvest Monday.

Hope to see whats going in your place after I finished my annual review report.

Wish I can finish it before I fall asleep though.

Broccoli and Cheese Penne with Garlic and Lemon Crumbs

We have the longest harvest season for broccoli and cauliflower this year. We have been continuously harvesting them since July this year up till now. We still have many plants growing in our garden and hopefully broccoli and cauliflower supply keep on flowing into the kitchen each week. This is our third year growing them. We finally managed this year avoiding a glutton of broccoli and cauliflower to harvest at the same moment. We practice succession sowing for this vegetable and sowing usually begin from mid-March till May. I like this recipe from The Australian Women's Weekly~Gratins and Bakes recipe book that I tried. The taste of crunchy breadcrumbs with creamy garlic and lemony flavour mix on the penne was so good.

Broccoli and Cheese Penne with Garlic and Lemon Crumbs

Ingredients:

500gram broccoli ( I only used 250gram mix of broccoli and cauliflowers)

200g penne pasta
3 eggs
1 cup (250ml) pouring cream
1/3 cup (80ml) milk
2/3 cup (80g) coarsely grated cheddar cheese
1/2 cup (35g) stale breadcrumbs
1 cup (80g) finely grated parmesan cheese
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon rind
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1)Preheat oven to 220Celsius. Oil deep 2 litre (8-cup) ovenproof dish.
2)Cook pasta in large saucepan of boiling water until tender. Add broccoli for last 5 minutes of pasta cooking time; drain. Rinse pasta and broccoli under cold water; drain,cool.
3)Combine pasta, broccoli, eggs, cream, milk and cheddar in large bowl; season. Spoon mixture into dish; sprinkle with combined breadcrumbs, parmesan, garlic, lemon rind and parsley.

4) Bake, uncovered, about 40 minutes or until brown lightly and set. Stand 10 minutes before serving.

Finally transplanted some tomato seedlings this week. 

A few challenger tomato variety and self-sowed tomatoes start to set some flower this week.

Begedil Beetroot (Beetroot Croquettes)

We entered the mid-spring season now here in Adelaide. Our fall-sowed beetroot has already starting to bolt. So this week I had to harvest most of our beetroot.  Parsnips were growing on the same patch with beetroot. So I decided to harvest everything on that veggie patch and in replacement direct-sowed some summer vegetable and flower there. 

So what to do with these beetroots?

I would like to thank Shaheen author of Allotment 2 Kitchen Blog who has kindly give me suggestion and link to her beetroot archive when she commented on my previous beetroot harvest post about how to enjoy beetroot since this is a very new vegetable in our kitchen. We like croquettes very much and I can trick my eldest to eat it because it does not have the form of vegetables anymore. All the vegetables nicely hidden inside. I really enjoyed Shaheen's beetroot croquette recipe and just change a bit of the ingredients to suit for my kids. I bet Shaheen's version is much more tasty.

Beetroot Croquettes (adapted from Allotment 2 Kitchen)

Ingredients:
500gram mashed potatoes
300gram beetroot (peeled and grated)
1 Tablespoon Sweet paprika
Small handful of fresh parsley( or coriander), minced
1/2 teaspoon salt,
1 egg, beaten,
Breadcrumb
Vegetable Oil

Combine well mashed potatoes, grated beetroot, sweet paprika, parsley and salt.
Adjust seasoning according to your liking.
Make a shape of croquette that you prefer from the mixture.
To firm up, place it on a tray and keep in fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Dip it into the beaten egg and coat it well with breadcrumbs.
Heat oil (quantity for shallow frying) at low heat.
Shallow-fry those croquettes and gently turn them for all side until golden.
Ready to serve.

Linking with Wendy's Garden To Table Challenge
&
Just Another Meatless Monday

This is the first time we try growing purple top turnip thanks to Mr. H (Subsistence Pattern) for the seeds. Our Ruby chards also needed to be harvest as quickly as possible this month before it bolts.

This year is a very good year of Italian sprouting broccoli for us, so many side-shoots that keep on coming since last August. However, peas were not as generous as last year. But our kids still happy with the amount or peas they can have everyday. Not enough to freeze though.

Opps...Some of the cauliflowers and broccoli were harvested too late made them loose instead compact heads.

Happy Harvest Monday!

First Spring Harvest Monday

Last week my little garden helper has been following me around the garden to help with the harvest. He seems to know that our sprouting broccoli side-shoots need to be frequently cut as we have been experiencing many days above 20degree Celsius these days and wants me to follow him at that corner on the right side of this photo.

Its difficult for me to keep up with sprouting broccoli before they flower at the moment. This unusual warm weather early spring is making them flower easily. We had some tomatoes to harvest. My little helper keeps on stealing those yellow cherry tomatoes before we can snap some photos.

Our awaited Violet Sicilian cauliflower turn out to be green like broccoli (which I think it is broccoli). We freeze this "cauliflower" since we had enough for the kitchen. One red capsicum which is a treasure as it takes more than 3 months to wait for it to turn red. We harvested kohlrabi and dice it to make mini murtabak with mini cabbage. Kohlrabi was also grated for Sambal Salad with green mango.

Beetroots.

Due to warm weather our first cauliflower for this year did not form proper head, it looks very ugly and smallish. I am hoping for some rain and cool weather so the rest of our cauliflowers will have the chance to develop nice curds. The soil is so dry. Due to this not so early spring weather, I did not realised that our bonica eggplants which I have neglected this winter but let it survive by its own surprisingly produce fruits. I was pulling out a dead tomato plant beside this eggplant and by chance found some eggplants. The colour is odd though, instead of the usual dark purple. The first time, that we actually harvested an eggplant in early spring.

Our purple-podded pea plants are dying. Peas planting on our garden this year look very miserable compared with previous years. Today, we also harvested some lettuce, Florence Fennel and Snowball cauliflower.

Join in Daphne's Harvest Monday.

Battata Harra (Hot Spicy Potatoes)

Ramadan has begun and I would like to try a simple dish that is commonly prepared in many kitchen at the Middle East to break our fast after sunset. We had some new potatoes harvested last week and it is perfect for Battata Harra (hot spicy potatoes) that I found in Ghillie Basan's The Middle Eastern Kitchen recipe book. A very quick and simple dish to prepare when you don't have much energy left in the late afternoon while getting used to fasting in this early month of Ramadan. We had to harvested some green tomatoes since we cleared the patch. Not much peas to harvest this week but snow peas are not too bad.

Battata Harra (Hot Spicy Potatoes)

Ingredients (serves 4):
4 Tablespoons olive oil
450g new potatoes, peeled and diced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2-3hot chillies, chopped ( this will be up to you how spicy you want this dish, for me that is not enough)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
salt
Juice of half lemon
A small bunch fresh coriander chopped

Heat the olive oil in a heavybased frying pan and add the potatoes.
Fry until browned and crispy, then stir in garlic, chillies and cumin seeds.

Fry for a minute or two longer, then season with salt, refresh with lemon juice, and sprinkle the coriander over the top. Enjoy.Selamat Berbuka Puasa.

 I think this will be much healthier than masak berlada (food fried coated with chilli paste) which is one of the favourite food in my family home. Hopefully my mama can persuade papa to try this dish. My papa enjoy hot and spicy food too much, at the point he can't live without it. He sulks each time when mama cook chicken with soy sauce which is not spicy for my boys...hehehe...

I am late for Daphne's Harvest Monday.

Surprisingly yellow cherry tomatoes, capsicum and chillies managed to keep on producing non-stop through winter this year, although we have already entered end winter. Some tatsoi were about to bolt, so I harvested them. We foresee that rainbow chards and purple giant mustards are regulars in our kitchen this month. Cut some sunflowers to cheer up the kitchen as well. Some beetroot were also harvested last week.

Our Italian sprouting broccoli plants are starting to produce many side shoots which I hope I can keep up harvesting them before it flowers this month. Occasionally lettuce are harvested for Ilhan sandwiches pack into his lunch box to kindergarten. We also have to keep on eye on the Pak Choi and harvest them before it flowers. We had fun pulling some parsnip tops and see how long it has grown last week.

We harvested most of our kailan (chinese broccoli) because it is producing flowers. Isn't it nice to harvest carrots that gives you many fingers which each one is much much much bigger than baby carrots. A bonus when one carrot plants give many fingers bigger the size of baby carrot. The feeling is like we harvested 7 different carrot plants when you are actually pulling out one plant. Afghanistan carrot is one of the best tasting carrot in soup/korma because it tasted so creamy (lemak) cook this way! The taste is so different than the normal orange carrot.Wish me luck with collecting Afghanistan carrot this year.