Christmas projects

On a change of subject, I have recently completed two pillowcase projects for my neighbours as Christmas 2012 gifts. I began knitting the edgings in May 2012, which was continued on and off over the autumn. I attached these to the pillowcases in quiet moments throughout December (yes, I left it to the last minute...) whilst keeping warm by the fire.

Here's the end result:

 And a detail of the leaf edging:

Besides cotton, as above, I knitted wool socks and a cuddly rabbit in 2012 and a polo-neck jumper (nearly finished). Pictures to follow another day.

Me 1: moles nil

At last, I've done it. I've dug up the first two of sixteen Jerusalem artichoke plants that I've been nervously, impatiently, intriguedly watching over since mid-January 2011 when I planted some purchased tubers.

It didn't take long after planting for the first mole hills to appear in and around the bed, so I thought then that I'd probably never see any young plants, let alone new tubers. S-l-o-w-l-y, little green shoots started pushing up in all the places where I put a tuber, so I breathed a sigh of relief.

What impressive plants! Despite a hot summer, some torrential downpours, some very strong winds etc., they remained upright and got easily to eight feet tall. Multitudes of flower buds appeared later on and the yellow flowers that resulted were very cheerful; the bees rather enjoyed them too. Having got that far, I was again hopeful of getting a crop and I was itching for the first frost to arrive and the foliage to die back. And then the mole hills returned. Lots of them.

That was long ago and I've since been sidetracked, but I've got the fork out a couple of times now and have ended up with these beauties.

No sign of teeth marks either, or any empty voids (as with my carrots, grrrr). The skin looked so thin that I didn't peel these (plus I'm lazy! Judging by the knobbles I'd be there for ages). I've tried a Turkish recipe with rice – yummy. The skin wasn't unpleasant at all, just required a bit of chewing and, after all, fibre's good for us. My second 'recipe' was mashed Jerusalem artichoke and potato with a bit of yoghurt added and that was very enjoyable too. I'm really looking forward to eating the tubers from the other plants, minus a few good ones with a lot of eyes for next year's patch. I just hope the moles stay away…

Srebarna nature reserve

I am so overdue in posting this! Today's a miserably wet day, with snow due later on, and I've found myself thinking about a lovely - dry - day out that I had in November. Well, better late than never... 

I've been for a day trip! It was a lovely sunny day, although a bit nippy if you kept still for too long. Our destination was the Srebarna reserve, situated on the banks of the Danube – if we'd have walked a bit further around (and if it was a bit clearer) we could have waved at Romania. (In fact we did wave once we got to the city of Silistra after lunch). It was lovely to stretch our legs and nose about a bit. Dad was visiting and he discovered many snake egg nests. We spotted a few white egrets on our walk, but the best bit was listening to the thousands of geese. We didn't make it round to get a close look at the birds, though we'll return another day. I'd love to go and see the pelicans that Srebarna is famous for! The spiky acacia along the paths were quite something too, yikes. The orange, mealy sea buckthorn berries were also ripe at the time, so I'll try my luck at germinating the small handful that I collected.

Here's some extra info: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/219
 

Definitely worth a visit.
P.S. Those little specks on the lake above are a LOT of geese coming back in to land.

Jewels!

Introducing the Bulgarian pepper (чушка) - one of many anyway - and what a wonderful vegetable it is too. This sort is called капия, that is, pointy. Seeing piles and piles and rows and rows of these at the market is a delight, especially in the sunshine; they're so bright and shiny like jewels - and smell superb too - that they induce a feeling of happiness, but maybe that's just me! Having recently purchased 25 kg of these peppers, we had a day full of roasting, skinning and preserving yesterday. Ideal winter food, let me tell you :O) Stew, pasta, filled pastry, salad, soup... versatile and yummy.

Moving on to some more jewels, now is the time to be harvesting cornelian cherries (дренки), from the cornelian cherry tree (дрян), or Cornus mas. I first came across this tree (or shrub) in Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden by Lee Reich, Timber Press. The line drawings in this are very accurate, so much so that I immediately recognised the mystery tree that was behind the house (back then in a thicket of plum trees). It turned out that there are two bushes just by the front gate too, as well as about a dozen baby to juvenile trees all across the garden! Not only is it beautiful in Spring, with it's profusion of yellow flowers when there's not much other colour about, it's interestingly veined leaves throughout Summer add to its charm, along with these ruby red fruits of course, and finally, in winter, it's an unusual plant for already having its buds formed (and, for this reason, they're used in Christmas baking as a charm - the number of buds foretells your fortune for the coming year).

Back to the present, I'll be harvesting our cornelian cherries throughout this week, for proper 'dealing with' next weekend. But a word to the wise! They may look red and ripe and lovely, but it's very easy to get a shockingly sour one, and astringent to boot!!! In fact, most of the people I know don't eat them raw, and if they do then it's only after they've been picked and laid out in a single layer in a cardboard box for several days, to allow the sugars to develop a bit more (so I'm told). They also turn much deeper in colour, very dark and rich. Last year I made some sweet cornelian cherry 'marmalade' (a runny jam really but great on waffles), savoury Georgian shindis satsebeli sauce and I also dried, a bit too thoroughly, what was left over - lovely in pilafs and stuffed marrow or pumpkin.

Having mentioned Uncommon Fruits, I should also report that it features several other plants of interest that are present in Bulgaria. I was reading through it one day, put it down, then a little later went for a wonder on the track just outside the house. I'd been admiring a flowering bush in the garden of the abandoned house opposite and went to take a closer look. I though "That looks familiar" and, lo and behold, there was a mature clove currant (Ribes odoratum). Top features include it's vanilla and clove scent, apparently edible berries (like black currants) and great trumpet-shaped flowers (far bottom). Several of these have since turned up in the garden, yay. Not so good is that the goats have managed to eat most of them, but I have a few left!! As far as I know, none have ever flowered yet, though they do have to reach a certain size/age to do so. Next Spring? Last but not least, a plant that I know grows in Bulgaria, and whose fruits definitely get collected, is the medlar (мушмула). Apart from buying a bag full of these fruits from the local market last autumn I've not come across them outdoors, but frankly I've not looked very hard. I do want a medlar or two in the garden eventually so an outing to the local woods, which are just a few minutes from the house, should be mounted in the not too distant future I hope!

Something on seeds

As I've been spending a fair amount of my 'free' time working on saving seeds from the garden of late, I thought I'd show you the fruits of my labour, thus far anyway.

I'm delighted to say that I've been able to collect my first 200-odd chickpea seeds (picture right, and centre below) - нахут, or леблебия (a nod to Turkish here I think) - having nursed my approx. 50 chestnut chickpea seeds, bought last year, through to maturity. I still have most of the plants to harvest - they have some green leaflets left to wither first - so I am hoping to top 500 decent seeds for saving and resowing, and possibly even eating. This project has been a real pleasure (if a little nerve wracking at times; I've had to rush out and cover them several times to stop them getting battered by heavy rainfalls) and they are beautiful plants.

Also quite newly saved from the garden are a good number of sugar snap peas (r - pea is грах but I'm not sure how the 'sugar snap' is described here), dried broad beans (l - бакла) and green beans (far bottom- боб) of assorted colours, the latter two being generously given to us by different neighbours.

That covers food seeds for now, but I have also been collecting mature seeds from my sweet pea Matucana - which I thoroughly recommend for their beautiful, almost glowing, deep pinky purple and mauve flowers - as well as pot marigold (невeн), a small amount of peony (божур) seed from the big peony we found in the garden, an overabundance of soapwort (сапунче) and, much earlier this year, plenty of fritillary seeds.

New arrivals - Onk!

Having gone quiet on you for a long, long time, I most definitely need to pull my socks up and tell you about some things going on here recently. To get things going again, I must introduce my new feathered friends: our three lovely geese.

Please meet Enoch (m - centre, about to have a nice head and neck wash), Biscuit (f - left, with a fabulous bouffant up top!) and Noodle (f - right, being ladylike and also keen for a wash).

We've had these dears for a bit over a fortnight now and they seem to have settled in. They've been grazing up and down the 'wilder' area, and generally having a sit in the shade, watching the world go by and preening. Amusingly, the like to loiter near to the goats and if the geese are out first in the morning they go and search for their cloven-hoofed friends.

Having been rather quiet at first they are all a bit more vocal now - much to my delight as I love goose noises! - especially when the young stork, or its parents, fly over back to the nest. So there's hope yet for them being good guard geese. The girls in particular were a bit wary on the first couple of days but now all three waddle over when they see a human with watering can or food. They're all characters and last night we discovered that they love watermelon :O)

A colourful first

For at least the last two Springs, the big, old apricot tree at the back of the house has sported only leaves. No surprise really as the preceding winters for those two years were particularly cold but this Spring we've been treated to a beautiful covering of blossoms, which smell particularly good too, mmmmm.

We may even be in luck and have a second 'proper' apricot in the garden, though we were told by the neighbours it was like an apricot but had smaller fruit - however, this was when we knew very little Bulgarian, so perhaps it's simply a tree with less impressive edibles? I eagerly await some fruit setting (the bees seem to be doing their bit).

Fingers crossed that the current, shall we say boisterous, rain and wind leaves some blossom on the tree for long enough to get to that point!