Cabbages

The Latin name of the cabbage family is Brassicaceae (or brassica). This plant family include most of the cabbage types that we know: broccoli, cauliflower, red cabbage, Brussels´sprouts, white cabbage and savoy cabbage. These are all closely related under the species Brassica oleracea. They are annual grown vegetables with dense leaved heads or flower heads. There is also a group that is more loose leaved and are commonly known as spring greens. The last is a group of cultivars that are closer to the wild cabbage than the others and include among others Kale and Collard greens. However, spring greens also refer to young plants of Brussels´sprouts, green cabbage, rape and turnip.



The other group of cabbages is the Chinese cabbages, Brassica rapa. In this group we´ll find the Chinese cabbage, Pak choi, Bok choy, Choi sum, Am choy, mustard cale, but also the turnip, radish, rapeseed, rucola (formerly Rocket) and many more.




All above mentioned cabbage types and varieties are winter and spring vegetables in the Extremadura. The cabbages from Brassica oleracea are especially adapted to cold weather and some off them, like the Brussels´sprouts, have a better flavour after a touch of frost. For all the varieties of this family group the temperature is important to produce the heads. If the temperature is too high during development of the plant, the heads will be small, or no heads will be formed at all.

The vegetables of the Brassica rapa are more favored to spring. They grow in winter, but they produce better and have better flavour in spring time. Turnip greens are a vegetable that can be grown very early in the year, producing nice tender shoots that can be used as salad leaf or cooked, stir fried, steamed or in soup. In former times this vegetable was often the first fresh green vegetable the people in Northern Europe could get after winter.

The gardens of La Tierra Verde are also full of cabbages. I try to grow a wide selection of cabbage types, as long as the planting material is available. At the moment there is a lot off broccoli. You can also expect romanesco, cauliflower, red cabbage, white cabbage, savoy cabbage, chinese cabbage, turnip greens, rucola and maybe some Brussels´sprouts.

Open Day 23 November 2013

It was a long time wish from me to organize an Open Day on the farm. And finally I came around to it last Saturday. For this first of I hope many such days, I invited the regular customers to come to the gardens of La Tierra Verde and have a look at what I am doing.

When going to the field in the morning, for the final preparations, it was still freezing a few degrees. The garden looked like a winter landscape from the Netherlands instead of an olive grove in Spain! It was beautiful, but very cold.

At 10:30am the first guests started to arrive. To warm up a bit there was coffee and tea.








When more people had arrived I gave a tour around the plots and the chickens, ending with some information on organic farming and the inputs that I am using.

After the information there was a drink and a snack. By now the temperature had risen and it was quite nice to be outside. Before the people left they could harvest the vegetables they wanted straight from the field. There was quite a selection to choose from: Broccoli, savoy cabbage, red cabbage, lettuce, spring onion, beans, spinach and fresh herbs.

Changes in La Tierra Verde

The last months there were some changes in La Tierra Verde.

First of all, the chickens finally moved to their chicken house in Malvecino. Since there were some problems with half wild dogs, the accommodation had to be improved and enforced. Luckily the chickens could stay for a while with Vivien and Edward in Martin Laguna. Thanks a million for this. Although the chickens were quite happy in Martin Laguna, now they are able to run around free during daytime in a large chicken coop, totally secured against dogs and foxes. At night they stay inside the chicken house.

In the first week of October I rented a small excavator which cleaned up the rubbish heaps that were still in the field from last year when we cleared the field from bramble bushes. With a bigger excavator I had the charco enlarged and made deeper. The water had just finished but when the digging was finished the water bubbled back up. 

When a second charco was dug, on the other side of the field, no water came up. The soil was moist, but that was all. Luckily, after the rains of 19-23 October, the second charco filled up partly with rain water. It is possible to harvest the rainwater in this way and keep it in containers for the summertime.

The third important change is that the garden in Martin Laguna will have to be abandoned. The owners have sold the terrain and before December I have to clear it. Although I had just cleared the tomatoes and paprika plants, there are still a lot of cabbage plants growing and even a small plot of potato. I hope I will have the chance to harvest those crops, before December! On the bright side, soon I have no obligations anymore in Martin Laguna, leaving me more time to concentrate on the garden in Malvecino.

What is growing in autumn

The rains started of in time this year. Already in September we received quite some water from heaven. The temperature remained high and all of a sudden nature came back to life. It looked like a second spring, with flowers everywhere and a green haze over the hills and mountains. Regretfully, after those first promising rains, there followed a dry spell. In fact I had to go back to irrigation once more. But luckily October brought us more rain. Since then the autumn has really started, although some plants are still a bit confused, like my pear tree, which is flowering as if it was spring!

The summer crops have been cleared away by now. In their place now grows garlic, beans, peas, broccoli, lettuce and other winter crops. In the months of November and December you can expect the following vegetables on offer:

Lettuce, different types like Hoja de Roble, Oreja de Mula and Batavia
French beans
Runner beans
Spinach
Swiss chard

Radish
Leek
Spring onion
Broccoli
Red cabbage
Savoy cabbage
White cabbage

The fresh herbs are at their end, except the parsley. The flat Italian type and the curly type parsley will be growing for a while longer, until the temperature is getting too low at the end of December. The Mediterranean herbs, Rosemary, Thyme, Lemon thyme, Sage, Oregano and Marjoram, will loose their flavour until spring. Also the chives will die back shortly, however, at the moment it is still growing. The Mediterranean herbs I have dried during late spring and early summer when they are at their best. I have them on stock in small amounts.

August

August, middle of summer. The weather is dry, sunny and hot. Just as you will expect August in the Extremadura to be. In the vegetable garden the plants are looking on the point of wilting. Top leaves are showing burnmarks, so are the fruits of the paprika and peppers. The sun is beating down relentlessly and it is still many hours to sun set.

Beef Tomato

What happened in the gardens of La Tierra Verde the last few weeks?

First of all, the summer vegetables are finally producing well. The fruits of tomato and paprika are still a bit small, but this is due to the low fertility of the soil. Luckily I found excellent ecological fertilizer, one made from humus and the other from algae. This will improve the growth of the plants and give bigger and healtier fruits.

After a flush of courgettes, the plants are now producing small quantities. This is mainly due to the lack of bees this year. The cold and wet winter seems to have diminished the bee populations. At the moment I´m looking into  beekeeping. By keeping bees myself I could raise the production of fruit vegetables by as much as 50%. And of course there is the honey. However, I have no experience at all with beekeeping, so it will be a very challenging project.

Lettuce under shade cloth

Although this is just my third summer in Alcuéscar, all three were very different. The first was very hot, the second very dry, and this one seems very bright. What I remember of the last two summers is that there were often clouds in the sky. It seemed that whenever I went to the swimming pool for some sun bathing, the clouds appeared out of nowhere. This year I hardly see any clouds. Some days are a bit hazy, or sometimes some clouds appear on the horizon, but the overall picture is very bright and sunny. The plants in the gardens do not like this. The fruit vegetables like paprika, tomato and courgette show a lot of burn marks. The leaves of french beans dry out too quickly and crumble up. Many plants just die or stop growing. Therefore a part of the garden in Malvecino is now under a shade roof. Under the shade the plants are growing wonderful. The establishment is much better and even the lettuce is growing happily. Because I wanted to experiment first, only a small part is provided with shadow. Next summer, however, most of the garden will be under shade in the months of July and August.

What is coming up in the garden?

Planting for autumn and winter has already begun. Broccoli, cauliflower, savoya and Brussel´s sprouts are already growing in the garden. They will take their time, however. For the coming 6 weeks I expect the following vegetables:

Italian pepper

Tomatoes, Roma and beef tomatoes
Paprika
Italian pepper
Padrón pepper
Egg plant
Courgette
Cucumber
French beans
Runner beans
Leek
Iceberg lettuce
Lettuce Hoja de Roble

Occacionally I will have Canary melon or Piel de Sapo.

Juan Canary Melon

Recipes for courgettes

Since there is always a lot of the same vegetable on the market, I want to share recipes with you to trigger your appetite. If you know more recipes, please share them with us all.

All recipes are for 2 persons.

Pasta sauce from courgettes

2 rashers of bacon
2 ts olive oil
1 medium sized courgette, cubed
2-3 cloves of garlic, gut in small pieces
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp cream cheese
some milk
salt and pepper
basil leaves

1. Bake the bacon in a dry frying pan (with lid) until crispy. Remove from the pan.
2. Add the oil, courgette and garlic to the same frying pan. Stir fry for some minutes. Add the bay leaf and put a lid on the pan. Cook on a slow fire for 5 to 10 minutes until the courgette is tender.
3. Remove the bay leave. Mash the courgettes with a mixer or blender. Add the cream cheese and a little milk until it forms a thick sauce.
4. Season with salt, pepper and basil to taste.
5. Serve over your favorite type of pasta.

Crema de Calabacines

Recipe from Alcuescar

2 ts olive oil

1 oniun, chopped
11 medium sized courgette, cubed
1 tbsp cream cheese
water
salt and pepper

1. Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the onion until soft. Add the courgette and fry on a slow fire until the courgette is soft and done.
2. Mash the courgettes with a mixer or blender. Add the cream cheese and water if necessary until it form a soup thickness.
3. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Cool before serving.

Courgette salad

2 medium courgettes in small cubes
garlic, sliced, to taste
olive oil
tomatoes, in slices
salt and pepper

1. Fry the courgettes in the olive oil with the garlic on medium fire. The courgette should not colour brown, only turn glazy.
2. Leaf the courgettes to cool.
3. Arrange the slices of tomato on a plate, divide some of the cool courgettes on top.
4. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Courgette Fritti

2 or 3 medium courgettes
pinch of smoked paprika
3 tbsp of flower
salt and pepper
oil for deep frying

1. Cut the courgettes into even length of 8 cm and cut each into sticks. 
2. Season the flour with salt, pepper and paprika.
3. Toss the courgette sticks in the flour until all sticks are well coated. Shake of any excess flour.
4. Heat the oil in a pan or use a fryer. Deep fry the courgette in batches until crisp and golden. Drain on paper towels and serve in paper cones.

Courgette with feta
3 medium courgettes
olive oil
some sprigs of lemon thyme, chopped
100g feta cheese, crumbled

1. Heat the oven 180 C.
2. Shave the courgettes in thin strips using a potato peeler.
3. Toss in 2 tbsp olive oil and spread on a baking tray. Sprinkle with lemon thyme.
4. Roast for 5 min, so that the courgette has still some bite.
5. Skatter with the feta and drizzle with a little bit of olive oil, if desired.

Summertime, and the living is easy ....

Well, not that easy in this corner of the world. Summer is a very specific time in the cycle of growing seasonal crops. Personally I think of 'autumn, winter and spring' as one season and 'summer' as the other. Many crops grow through autumn till spring and even early summer. Summer crops produce only during the hottest and driest months of the year, July, August and September.

At this moment the following vegetables are growing in the gardens of La Tierra Verde:

• Sugar maize
• Swiss Chard
• Tomato
• Cucumber
• Courgette
• Pumpkin
• Melon
• Egg plant
• Paprika
• Padron peppers
• Watermelon
• French beans
• Leek
• Beetroot

The leek and beetroot are almost ready to harvest. Although it should be possible to plant these two crops year round, in practice it is very difficult to establish when the weather is hot and the sun is blazing. The same goes for lettuce. Lettuce can be planted and cultivated all year round, but in my experience especially July is difficult. However, I have sown lettuce in a seed nursery, so lettuce could be added to the list.

Summer crops as those above, are planted from April till June. When the weather is kind and the temperature moderate, the first tomatoes, courgettes, beans and paprika can be harvested as early as late May. However, most years have cold spells, alternated with warmer or hot weather. This delays the flowering and thus the production. This year is again extreme, with cold spells well into June. Especially the night or minimum temperature has an influence. When the minimum temperature drops under 10°C, the flowering of many crops stop or the young fruits will drop off. The plants are also more sensitive to diseases and pests, because they are weaker in growth. Traditionally, people in this region planted tomato, pepper an watermelon after the first of June, to avoid the problems mentioned above. However, in some years the temperature is more uniform in the spring and planting in April will result in a early and long tomato season.

Courgettes are doing well this year. In general courgettes are sturdy plants with few problems. In the garden of La Tierra Verde the courgettes have been harvested sinds the second week of June. At this moment the prognosis is that the first tomatoes will be ready to harvest the second week of July. Egg plant and paprika will follow a week later, around the middle of July.

Summer is also the time for irrigation. I have installed drip irrigation. At the moment the drip is giving every other day. When the summer advances, this will increase to every day. In the garden of Martin Laguna, the well will provide water through the summer. The water of Martin Laguna is of a good quality, fed by a stream that is running throughout the year and by the aquifer. In the main garden, in Malvecino, the only water comes from a newly dug charco, which held approximately  35000 liters of water at the end of the rainy season. Due to evaporation, the amount of water available for irrigation is much smaller.  I estimate that the water will be enough for 8 to 9 weeks. I hope, however, that the bottom of the charco reaches the unconfined aquifer, filling up to a certain level due to the water table in the surrounding soil.