About a week ago, on a lovely evening when we were working in the garden, an elderly gentleman stopped to chat. He complimented us on the neatness of our vegetable beds and then pointed north and said: ‘And whose garden…
Nettle omelette
Auteur: vera@gtc
Edible garden in April 2016
As someone who mostly just sees the items still on the to do list and forgets to pat herself on the shoulder for all that has been crossed off, these ‘looking-back’ posts are really good for me. I would almost…
Rhubarb vanilla custard tart
One of the ‘jobs-in-progress’ in the garden is moving our rhubarb plants to their new location. We have many (25? 30?) rhubarb plants but since our new garden is 5 times bigger, I want to keep them all and possibly…
Seasonal bouquet – tiny delights
When I was in high school I took dancing classes (all my friends did) and acquired never-to-be-used-again proficiency in waltz and polka. Every couple of months or so there was an official dance when the girls were given a bouquet…
Dandelion and spinach springtime torta
Normally, I am pretty serious about our Easter traditions – I bake a lamb cake, colour eggs with the kids and make at least one dish featuring wild greens. But this year we were so busy planting the 80 +…
Edible Garden in March 2016
So….my back kind of hurts but I am also very happy because we got a ton of things done in the garden during the Easter weekend. It was a 5 day-weekend for us because we both took time off from…
Design for our permaculture garden
Today I would like to share with you the design I’ve created for our new garden. Having a garden of this size is a dream come true and I have spent countless hours pouring over the map and trying to…
Maple apple tart
Today is my daughter’s birthday and this is the tart she has asked for. Which should be all the information you need before running to the kitchen to make it, because when it comes to tarts, Esther is the pickiest…
Sinuses clearing garlic soup
Tomorrow we get a visit from Spain – Sebastiaan is participating in an exchange program with a school in Valencia, so there will be a Spanish boy of as yet unknown age staying with us next week and then Sebastiaan…
Choosing apples for our new garden
Designing our new garden is all about fulfilling a long-time dream of being able to grow all the veg and fruit we need/want. When it comes to vegetables, self-sufficiency requires adequate space and a fair amount of planning, but is…
Soba noodles with peanut dressing
Let’s start with the big news: it snowed this week! In this freakishly warm winter, I was wondering whether we would eventually forget what snow looked like, but here it is, the powdery white dusting that makes everything look better.…
New year, new garden
As my father says, in life there are years when little out of the ordinary happens, happy peaceful years that will however not stand out in memory, and years when everything seems to happen at once. 2015 was an intense…
Edible garden in September & October 2015
The pace slows down quite a bit in autumn, but still – looking at these two photos of the garden, the top one taken at the beginning of September and the one below at the end of October, you can…
Best marbled bundt cake
My mom is a great cook but she’s not much of a baker. She admits she lacks the patience required for dealing with pastry and she only bakes cookies for Christmas. As for cakes, she bakes two: her family’s birthday…
Chard and herb filo pie
No vegetable I grow is as dependable as chard. This is best proven by the fact that there is at least one meal featuring chard in any of my ‘A week of eating from the garden’ post, whether they were…