Last week we were asked to go frequently to @choli 's parent's house to take care of the garden and look after her grandma as they were going out on vacation. In one of those occasions we decided to make a soup only with the things we could harvest from the garden so we wanted to share with you a bit of the eye candy this experience was for us, as well as showcase some of the veggies that can be grown in a cold part of the world such as south Chile.
Half of the harvest was as you see: beet, carrot, zucchini, green beans, parsley, chives, and cherry tomatoes🥒🥕🍅. The other half:
Artichokes, lettuce, peas, potatoes, broad beans, and chili peppers🥔🌶️.
We start by putting the artichokes to boil, as they take time to soften, they looked so pretty 😍..
There we began to chop the vegetables that we would put first to sauté. Cooking with all these colorful, vibrant, and freshly picked vegetables is a wonderful experience 🥰🧡💚, very different than when they are bought from the market.
While these veggies begin to heat up we chopped the potatoes and parsley. The dark purple potatoes are a variety that is grown a lot in the south and have the funny name of "cat's dung" because of their long thin shape😹.
We love condiments, so we took advantage of using those that were in the house: cumin, pepper, curry, tarragon, dill, ginger and nutmeg, something hindu style haha.
On top of the sauté, we added the beans and peas already free from the pods along with the beetroot leaves and put the water and salt. Then the potatoes with parsley and finally the Italian squash
A little before everything was cooked we chopped some zucchini and threw it in to add a different texture to the mix.
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Sequence of our soup 🍲
We also prepared a salad out of lettuce, beet leaves, and tomatoes. There was also a cucumber previously picked from the greenhouse lying around so we added that too.
Finally, we haved everything ready. With a glass of red wine, our starter was the artichokes.
Delicious 🤤
Then we served the soup. Whoops, you can see we might of overdone it with the oil. No matter since most of these ingredients are very low on fat and calories, we might as well sp-oil ourselves a bit.
In cold climates like this one there are vegetables that grow outdoors, and others that only thrive in greenhouses. In @choli 's family's homestead there are three different greenhouses, one of them that is like a 'bunker' that was built below ground level, it has zucchini, as well as green peppers and squashes, which are currently fruiting as seen in our harvest. Then there is another greenhouse that has about 3 different layers of polyethylene that have been renewed due to use, from there we can harvest the tomatoes that you see, cherry tomatoes. And the other greenhouse is one of the prefabricated ones that are requested and you just have to assemble them. Lettuce and squash grow very well there.
We want to share some info on what's behind the prosperity of these greenhouses and garden:
Two years ago, at the end of winter and still a couple of months away from planting, sheep poop was put on most of the spaces to plant. in the other places what is being done is burying the organic matter from kitchen scraps. We believe that it is more convenient than generating compost due to time issues and to avoid the accumulation of flies.
For plants that grow in males and females, such as zucchini and cucumbers, manual pollination was necessary, since the fruits were not growing. The male flower that has a pistil is cut and the pollen is placed on the female flower, it can be with the same flower or a cotton, which has several wider pistils.
The times that there have been infestation of aphids, we dissuaded them with vinegar and for the other insects that attack, we make a nettle purin, which is simply putting the nettle to ferment and that generates a very strong smell that helps to scare away the bugs
That's it for today, we hope this post can inspire some of you to start growing your own veggies as the benefits are countless. Your health will improve, as well as finding the joy of working with the soil and seeing your efforts literally fruit into abundance.