It’s that time of year again. More courgettes than you know what to do with! I’m in the UK at the moment but here’s a handy book for our quinta-sitters – you’ll find it on the kitchen bookshelf! Everyone else, if you haven’t got a copy, can find it on amazon via the link below.
Gardens & Produce
Strawberries / Morangos
A strawberry is a superstar when it comes to anti-oxidant power, says Dr. Barry Sears in his book The Top 100 Zone Foods: The Zone Food Science Ranking System
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In addition, 1 cup of strawberries gives you a whopping 140 percent of your recommended daily allowance of vitamin C. Strawberries are also packed with flavonoids, two in particular, called quercetin and kaempferol. Research shows that these two flavonoids help keep “bad” (LDL) cholesterol from oxidizing and damaging artery walls.
Strawberries also contain ellargic acid — also found in raspberries, blackberries, cranberries, grapes, cherries, walnuts, pecans and Brazil nuts — which acts as a scavenger to “bind” cancer-causing chemicals, making them inactive. It inhibits the ability of other chemicals to cause mutations in bacteria. In addition, it prevents binding of carcinogens to DNA and reduces the incidence of cancer in cultured human cells exposed to carcinogens.
Information from http://health.learninginfo.org/strawberry.htm
Um morango é uma estrela mundial quando vem ao poder antioxidante, diz o Dr. Barry Sears em seu livro The Top 100 Zone Foods: The Zone Food Science Ranking System
Além, 1 copo das morangos dá-o que uns 140 por cento enorme de sua permissão diária recomendada de morangos da vitamina C. são embalados igualmente com as flavonóides, dois em particular, chamadas quercetina e kaempferol. A pesquisa mostra que estas duas flavonóides ajudam a manter o colesterol (LDL) “mau” das paredes oxidando e prejudiciais da artéria.
Os morangos igualmente contêm o ácido ellargic igualmente encontrado nas framboesas, nas amoras-pretas, nas airelas, nas uvas, nas cerejas, nas nozes, nos pecans e nos nozs do Brasil – que actua como um limpador “para ligar” produtos químicos cancerígenos, fazendo os inativos. Inibe a habilidade de outros produtos químicos de causar mutações nas bactérias. Além, impede a ligação dos carcinogéneos ao ADN e reduz a incidência do cancro nas pilhas humanas cultivadas expor aos carcinogéneos.
Informação de http://health.learninginfo.org/strawberry.htm
More information / Mais informação:
http://www.vegparadise.com/highestperch45.html
April Garden Photos
Every year we seem to get more organised earlier in the year. This year both gardens are in great shape, and we are spending some time most days, weeding, planting, watering (it has been dry) and generally gardening!
My garden looks more like a jungle every year:
And last year’s compost heap is a mound of lovely rich soil.
My bed of strawberries is almost all weed-free, mulched with pine needles and horse manured over. A few onions got missed last year, and are now growing again.
Sophie’s garden is even more organised. Beautiful.
And this is before the main spring plantings have been done – lots of seedlings are still coming up in trays under plastic, and will be transplanted over the coming weeks and months.
NO-WORK GARDEN
Author – Bob Flowerdew
Lots of common sense stuff from the great Bob. Nicely produced large size, paperback book – for beginners and experienced alike. And, best of all, it promotes and explains environmentally sound strategies.
Heirloom Tomatoes and Tea
The first tomato seedlings have germinated, and are doing nicely. This is the time when wet weather would bring out the snails and slugs and wipe out all the baby tomatoes. Although we could really do with some rain right now, the dryness is happily keeping all the seedling munching monsters at bay.
These two trays are mainly old favourites such as Orange Banana tomatoes, that we’ve saved our own seed for, and the last few bought seeds in a few random packs from previous years. When I planted them, the weather was still a bit colder than now, so I planted ones that didnt matter too much. Since these 154 seeds went in, I have also planted 3 more trays – another 120, bigger compartments – of a wide range including Caro Rich that has more vitamin A than normal tomatoes, Cherokee Purple, huge purple fruit, and white cherry tomatoes which form 2 foot long trusses of fruit. Should be an interesting harvest this summer, plus we should have enough plants to give to a few friends who are just starting out here, or to swap with others.
I think we have close to 50 types of tomato seeds now, mainly heritage varieties, and we bought a few Coraçao do Bio plants, traditional portuguese type with big pinky fruit, at sunday market in tabua.
We’ve been seriously thinking about buying a proper glass greenhouse, although I’m still looking for plastic bendy pipe (if anyone has some spare lying around) to knock up a polytunnel. Whatever, we will hopefully be able to grow tomatoes and peppers through this coming winter, and get our seeds started off really early next year.
My two tea plants (Camelia Sinensis) have started growing again, after a winter of not. Great, I wonder how long it will be before we can start harvesting growing tips to make our own cuppas.
BACK GARDEN SEED SAVING
The best UK book on seed saving by top gardening writer Sue Stickland. She gives easy to follow crop-by-crop guidelines to help you save seed for yourself and varieties to look out for.
White Sweetcorn Transplanted
Yesterday, after 3 days of acclimatisation (being out from under the plastic), the baby sweetcorn plants got transplanted into the ned in the garden where they will grow. The seed tray is now full of unusual tree seeds, ones that needed cold stratifying for 4 weeks – such as sequoia and redwood. Big trees! I do hope they germinate and grow well here.
Hm, sweetcorn has to be one of the luxuries of growing your own food. I can already picture myself gnawing the kernels off a cob, on a summer evening, butter running down my chin! Fantastic.
I better get another batch germinated – you can never have too much sweetcorn.
Can Borage Overwinter?
A comment to my recent post, saying that the borage seems to have grown back from the roots, made me wonder whether it could really have overwintered.
So, this morning, I have dug up one of the plants. There are (were) two plants in my garden (and plenty in Sophie’s) that are in exactly the same place as last year, and quite a few smaller plants around them.
The root is big and woody – and we are in agreement here, that it probably has survived the winter and then grown back. It seems that it just doesnt get cold enough to kill the roots, although all the tops get cut back very early in the autumn. We could still be wrong, but the size of the plants and roots suggests otherwise – particularly as there are so many obviously self-seeded baby plants around the mothers, that are in the same place as last year.
Perhaps others have had experience of this? I know that some ‘annuals’ aren’t really annuals at all, but non-hardy perennials that are grown as annuals in colder climates.
PLANT PROPAGATION
Author – C. Brickell
Authorative book on plant propagation.
Potting Bench Idea & Peppermint
Somehow I managed to buy a piece of corrugated plastic sheeting, to try to fix a caravan window. Obviously its no use for that, but I have utilised it to cover one of our potting benches. It’s perfect, will maybe last forever, unlike the scrappy bits of plastic over the other two seed tray areas.
We’ve got a lot of seeds germinating already, and I am thinking that I’ll look out for another couple pieces of this corrugated plastic, because it is so good for this job. Unlike the fiddliness of the other plastic, it will just easily fold back dring the day:
and then as evening draws in, I simply fold it back over the seeds, keeping the cold off of the new seedlings. Brilliant.
I’ve been using scraps of big plastic bags and such for this forever, draped over bent mimosa twigs. It works, but this is easier.
This autumn I also want to make a poly tunnel, but I would prefer not to use mimosa, to avoid tearing the solar resistent plastic. I am hoping that I will come across some old lengths of water pipe, that I can bend over to support the plastic – I don’t want to buy new, when I know that everyone has a metre or two lying around. Re-using others’ rubbish is all part of the techno-peasant philosophy.
Also on the terrace where the potting benches live, is a healthy patch of peppermint , that was just one root cutting last year. It is growing very well, in the shade of an olive tree and under the drain pipe from the shower. I’ve been putting a jug of mint tea in the fridge – so refreshing, and a great tonic.
