Back on the Mountain – Return to the Good Life.
Well I had a lovely time in Wales seeing family & friends but wow is it good to be home! It’s not just that its sunnier and a bit warmer – its just great to be on the mountain with all my own projects to potter around with.
Saturday was the first full day at home and I got straight to work sorting out veggies and rescuing those things the wind had been particularly unkind to:
- The remaining tomato plants were pulled up. Red fruits are being used currently and all the green ones have been layered between thick clean paper in boxes to ripen slowly.
- All fully ripe chillies and peppers were picked. Some are being kept to use fresh this week and the rest have been strung up to dry.
- Green chillies (from those plants to shrivelled by the wind to keep doing much more) have been picked and pickled.
- Dinner made with as much freshly picked veg I could manage:
- jerusalem artichoke and potato mash with our first home grown horseradish
- buttery sauteed shredded leek and cabbage
- tomato sauce baked with cauliflower, peppers, onion, garlic and a handful of lentils, topped with a little cheese and grilled – this year’s, recently pressed olive oil from our own trees added a peppery freshness to the sauce too.
- Spent most of the evening feeling pretty smug that we mostly ate garden produce only adding a few potatoes, lentils, cheese and butter.
- Enjoyed a glass or two of vino and went to bed feeling very content to be back on the mountain!
Those Chillies can be frozen whilst fresh due to their waxiness, once frozen they can be finely sliced before being added to your dish.
Colin’s last blog post..All’s not lost to Jack Frost!
Cheers Colin, I’ll have a go with a few, hadn’t thought of freezing them – not room in the freezer though due to it being one of those gas bottle run ones.
great to find a fellow mountain dweller in the mediterranean. we too live at 650m, above palma de mallorca with destructive winds that get us from north and northwest. we are dealing with the damage to house and crops from wind, rain and snow, while most gardening guides are referring to the balmy flatlands below.
it is my wish to have veg year round and ,yes, i do have cabbages and carrots at the moment but the rain brought out the snails and slugs which are eating my sprouting brocc. and spring cabbages. onions are stuck in pools of sticky clay which the donkeys then walked over….but the peas and broad beans have miraculously survived the snow this week although some are bent horizontal.
the donkeys are to help us get wood , our only form of heating, from the forest but so far they are more companions to my husband’s walks as he wanders head in the clouds, literally.
although the sun is out today my lunar gardening guide tells me to keep out of the garden today! so delighted to spend some time with your website. don’t understand blogging but maybe you will receive this and respond.
courage!
Corinna
Glad you found us Corinna.
Mountain dwellers need to stick together!
It’s wierd no-one ever mentions the wind in Spain yet its sooo windy. Weve even built a sort of low slatted mobile fence round the brassica plot which has really helped against the wind. It looks naff but works.
This winters definitely been a bit wetter than the veggies are used to but each year is different I guess.
Keep on growing!
Lec