Mirabile dictu

After sowing the Rhodochiton seeds two weeks ago I trawled the net and found out that their germination is at best erratic and slow, a month or more being what you can expect. It was also said that the seeds need to be fresh; our seeds are 3-4 years old – we got them last year from a plant nursery as a present; the lady told us she had had them a couple of years already. So I gave up hope. They didn’t.

Rhodochiton for family and friends…

The chilli seeds have also been unexpectedly fast – 2 Hungarian Blacks (out of 3) and 2 Bulgarian short white (out of 4) are already up and growing. We thought upstairs might be too cool for germination but the sunny days have obviously done the trick.

Hungarian Black

It would be tempting to try more small miracles but not for a few days yet – the new moon is on the 20th and we’ll begin only after that.

In the meantime…

Consuming time

Up to now we have sown this year a. Rhodochiton seeds, and b. exactly 10 chilli seeds for the upstairs plantation (3 Gusto Purple, 3 Hungarian Black, 4 Bulgarian short white). As I suspect you are not overinterested to see photos of seed compost I’ll move on to the consuming part of our production.

We invited Pekka’s cousin from the dairy farm downhill to have dinner with us, the theme being “locally produced and consumed”. We half failed with aperitifs as he presented us with a bottle.

French champagne and local wild strawberries

The days are so dark that colourful food is called for

Peppers Sweet Chocolate and Alma Paprika, shallots

Dried, marinated ceps and mangetout Oregon Sugar Pod

Add Porcelain Doll squash and stir-fry

The flash detracts from the intense yellow-orange colour of the squash

 

Ginger potatoes, vegetable stir-fry. whortleberry jam, green salsa sauce, pork tenderloin

The result was delicious (though the origin of the pork tenderloin was just “somewhere in Finland”) – whortleberries (cowberries) we picked ourselves (the last day before the snow) and salsa is entirely homemade of tomatillos, chillies and onions.

Actually we had planned to have pike for dinner but we couldn’t catch a decent-sized one this week and the last week’s one has already been consumed (in boneless nuggets with plenty of dill).

A 3.5 kg dinner…

 

 

 

Ramsons and Black False Hellebore

Some 60 cm snow on the ground and more by the minute.  The most dangerous time of the year: you remember all the lovely plants you have ever seen anywhere and surf the net and the seed catalogues trying to find them. Ramsons… Only think of it: I can meander in a stand of them and graze till I’m literally sick – what an alluring prospect! So I order a packet though haven’t got the faintest idea where to grow them; maybe down by the spring? – With this method we have already in previous years obtained Burning Bush (great) and Yellow Oxeye (a bit of a pest, really) – what about Black False Hellebore to complete the Carpathian trio? After reading the sowing instructions (they sound more like desperate pleas: Please be very patient, and do not discard the seed pan, no matter how long it takes for germination to occur) I regretfully decide to leave it to my mind’s eye – at least till next winter.

More snow…

Plenty of vegetable seeds already – no need to get more. But what if the new, already bought but untried cultivar of cauliflower Romanesco isn’t so  good as the last year’s one?

Better have the old one, too… And for God’s sake – we have only last year’s seed for climbing Mushy Pea Beans (aka Lazy Housewife)!

And more snow…

I suppose we’d be knee deep in seeds (instead of only ankle deep) if it weren’t for the chillies. When the Let-it-be-spring mood is at its worst I can climb upstairs and have a look at Pekka’s overwintered chillies – they do think it’s already spring.

Gusto Purple

 

 

Patience with squashes

The weather has been so sunless and miserable that it has been necessary to take extreme steps. Yesterday evening I decided to indulge in wishful and hopeful planning: where and in which order to plant the squashes (don’t ask when – that’s depressing; it will take 3.5 months before we can sow them for pre-growing). So I cleared the floor and emptied the squash seed box…

About 90% of our cultivars

Oh yes, that will definitely need some planning – but for the time I was quite happy to sit, arrange the sachets in rows and look at them.

There are still a few squashes from last year that haven’t been processed.

Red October, Marina di Chioggia, Georgia Candy Roaster, Autumn Crown, Porcelain Doll, Gold Nugget, Rolet, Jarrahdale

We eat them almost daily in some form – here an oven-baked casserole with squash, onion, cold-smoked rainbow trout and beestings (we got some from the dairy farm downhill).

Today the sun was ALMOST shining so we grabbed our binoculars and went on an excursion. I haven’t seen a single dipper this winter; we visited a few rapids – and yes!

There they were – singing lustily, fighting, jumping into the waves and up again; all in all, having a whale of a time. And so had we.

Light or not

I hope you’ll take a good look at the photo – it is remarkable in two aspects: a. the sky is clear, and b. we have electricity. Both are these days highly transient phenomena.

This is the third week of relentless snowing (some 60 cm on the ground now and not everything there)…

Plenty of the stuff on the trees, making the roads tunnellike

…and, after two bouts of snow, on our trusty (at this rate also rusty) Volvo

Since yesterday we are without water, whether we have electricity or not; our pump got tired of the surges of returning power and decided to call it a day.

With -18 outside it could be catastrophal but thanks to the soapstone oven it is warm inside. The plants are, however, beginning to feel the lack of sunlight. Pekka’s chillies upstairs are dropping their leaves but trying bravely to be productive.

Lemon Drop

The Russian season came and went. Because of the dismally low rate of rouble the number of Russian tourists to come and go and especially participate in activities was much lower than usually so the dogs had quite a restful time of it…

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Peace

Christmas Peace has just been declared for the whole country – good that I managed to do my swearing before that (mislaid the scissors when needing them urgently for some last-minute parcel-wrapping)  as any misconduct will now be punished as having happened under aggravating circumstances.

We have a real Christmas weather: -18C and a decent amount of snow. Of course we can watch the sunrise and the sunset through the same window and practically while having our Christmas coffee but, anyway, the sun is visible!

Most of the time it is pretty dark…

Soon Pekka will go and be Santa to two little girls who are enjoying their new adventure site: a dragon-guarded fairytale tree at the end of a rope bridge; all homemade (except the dragon)!

All our best wishes for a lovely festive season to you all!

 

Porcelain Doll

Way back in time (in August…?) I was wondering whether our experimental Porcelain Doll squash would ever turn pink as promised. Well, now it has! And it really feels like an oldfashioned doll’s cheek – smooth and hard and cool.

A beauty of some 7 kg

How does it taste? This is still hearsay but my daughter was highly delighted with the (slightly smaller) individual we gave her so I suppose it will stay on our seed list – especially as the only plant we had produced half a dozen fruit when most cultivars had none or only one.

According to the statistics our region had exactly 15 minutes of sunshine during the whole November – can’t remember having seen even that. Actually we haven’t seen much during the last six weeks as the fog is persistent on most days.

A bit discouraging..

…and monochromatic

The forecast promises tomorrow will be wet, sleety and windy – a genuine Independence Day weather…

Fortunately for our mood our resident squirrel is with us again after an absence of several months – and determined to utilise the feeding system to the full: it takes her about one second to open the tight lid on the top of the feeder and drop it nonchalantly to the ground. If you wonder whether we really recognise her it’s easy: she comes to heel when called.

Today Pekka saw something a bit bigger a couple of kilometres from home

A lynx had been strolling along a forest road.  Hopefully it manages to avoid the hunters till the Christmas Peace and beyond…

 

 

 

 

 

Memory of a rose

The greenhouses are empty and frosty – but there is something left from and of the summer…

In Finnish the old name of marigold was Velvet rose

The year before our aubergines were pestered by aphids so this year we decided to plant marigolds in the greenhouses.

A truly dwarf variety, the blurb told us – just 20 cm or so. We planted quite a few of them. Well, they for sure did their work – or then it was a colossal coincidence – not a single aphid in the greenhouse!

With Hungarian Black chillies

And maybe we should be just happy that we got more than we bargained (or paid) for: plants of half a metre or so, crowding the veggies like an overzealous security guard…

Greeting you on the doorstep…

The aubergines have been eaten, the chillies are in the freezer or transformed into gourmet oil. Now is the time to make squash casseroles – a perfect winter food: warming, spicy, easy to make in large quantities, can be frozen.

A family favourite

The days are grey – we haven’t seen the sun for weeks – so every splash of colour is appreciated.

 

Let it snow

The temperature is supposed to drop – even crash – tonight from +9 to -2, with high winds and snow to add to the delight; so we thought some action would be desirable. Pekka lifted the last bunches of thyme, collected tools, containers, etc. from the yard and stored them, and spread tarpaulins over the greenhouses. I planted white Siberian squill bulbs here and there – the yard is full of the ordinary blue ones, and a few white sprays would go nicely with them. I also collected the last vegetables from the garden.

Not many but lovely to have fresh in November

The upstairs has been aromatic but very dark since we harvested the garlic and put it there to dry.

Now Pekka judged they are dry enough, so he cut off the stalks and we have again a view of the (dark) garden.

A tiny part of the selected ones that are going to be planted in the spring

The dinner yesterday and today has been spaghetti squash with beef and sweet peppers – a handy dish to prepare when we heat the oven.

Our Christmas tree is so badly ahead of time that we obviously have to eat the decorations before the Christmas carols are playing in the supermarkets (and that is early!).

Chasing the tails

When I was young I spent one spring in log-floating as a part of my training; one of the most rewarding activities was getting the last logs into the river, i.e. chasing the tails. That’s what we are doing with the harvest right now.

Chillies – DONE!

The only sunshine in the dark, damp and miserable weather: chilli oil

Carrots – DONE!

Brussels sprouts: floating downriver

Very local food: the longest distance was travelled by the veal tongue – from the farm 1 km away

Parsnips: removed from the ground, rolling towards the river, i.e. freezer and dinnertable

Oven-baked parsnips, carrots, sweet peppers, garlic and fishcakes (bream and ide)

To chase still: Jerusalem artichokes and thyme: partly already transported, partly still in/on the ground. But we are hoping to have a Tail party on Monday or Tuesday…