Posted on

Ashleigh has a New Blog

If there are any fans out there of Ashleigh´s garden blog (perhaps former garden blog, I don´t know if she intends to write on it anymore) My Dutch Garden, or her former Expat blog Stiched in Holland, she started a new blog called Ash in Amsterdam.

I´m sure she would be happy to catch up with any old friends she had from her old blogs, and well as make some new ones, if you care to stop by and read about the life of a Zimbabwean expat living in Amsterdam. She says she intends to do some posts about her garden too.

Posted on

New Garden, First Frost, Fires and New Blogs

No pictures yet, but our new garden is coming along nicely. Most of the weeds are out, and I hope the garlic and some other things will go in this weekend.

One of the difficult things in a new garden is amending the soil. I have lots of compost from the old garden to use for this, but it means lots of carrying back and forth.

We had our first frost on Monday night. It was light, but enough to kill most things. Fine with me, as I don’t have a lot of plants in the ground right now, but it means winter is coming! It’s not horribly early, but I think this frost was a little earlier than usual this year. It’s also hard to know what’s normal anymore.

Several others have said similar things, but I want to say that my thoughts go out to all the people in southern California affected by the fires. It’s not just all the people who have lost their lives or homes, or what the news here reports as the roughly 1,000,000 people who have been evacuated, but everyone who has to breath the dirty air and all the friends and relatives of all these people. Something like this impacts nearly the whole world. It’s probably too much to expect politicians will be able to make the association between this and global climate change, but we can always hope.

Is it just me, or does it seem like there have been a lot of changes in the garden blog world in the last few months? I think I blinked and missed it. Suddenly the number of people reading this blog has gone way up, and there are new blogs popping up all over the place. This is a little normal this time of year, because those of us the the northern hemisphere are just finishing their gardens, and those in the south are just beginning, so lots more people are paying attention to blogging, but it all seems a lot more intense this year.

First of all welcome to blogging all of you that have started in the last few months. I am way behind on researching new blogs to add to my news reader and blogroll, not to mention way behind on reading my usual blogs, so hopefully in the coming weeks I will spend some time and find some of you. I will also try to write some posts of an introductory nature, so some of you can get to know me better. In the meantime, I hope some of you will make some comments here or send me an email. Please let me know you exist!

Here are a few new blogs I’ve been in touch with recently:

A Thinking Stomach: Making wise choices for eating and gardening. Pasadena California.

A Spot with Pots: Learning to be more self sufficient. Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Organic Guide: Living organically. Online magazine, including a blog, with a worldwide focus. Printed magazine began in 1987, but is now being moved online. Based in Sydney, Australia.

If I’ve missed anyone on this very short list, it’s not on purpose. Please let me know, and I’ll update this post or mention you in a future one.

Posted on

More Trades

I posted a few days ago about some things I traded my garlic for. Here are a couple more:

Eggs and Cheese

My garlic got me a nice discount for some eggs and cheese. These came from Het Marlanner Kaashuis (Fries and Dutch languages). The cheese is handmade by the farmer there, and in my opinion is among the best tasting cheese I have ever had. It’s traditional Dutch/Fries style, sometimes called ‘Gouda’ by people outside of Holland. It’s made with milk from his own certified organic/bio-dynamic raised cows. It tastes so wonderful compared to commercial cheese, it’s made without any added color or other chemicals and the milk comes from well cared for cows. They sell many different kinds of cheeses, ranging from young to very mature, and many made with different herbs and spices. Some of the herbs come from their own garden, or are collected from nearby wild areas.

One of the most important aspects of this cheese is the biodiversity behind it. The area this farm is located in is rich in natural biodiversity. The cows have no fewer than 75 different grasses and other plants to eat (the farmer calls these ‘herbs’), and I have seen several different breeds of cows in his fields and barn.

Their eggs too have a wonderful fresh taste. People in North America will immediately notice something strange about the eggs. Here in Holland (and I think most of Europe) a ‘dozen’ eggs aren’t really a dozen. Here they sell eggs in packages of 10. If you’re wondering if the eggs are free range or not, if you visit just poke your head around the corner from the shop and have a look at them running around.

I hope I’m not giving away a trade secret here if I tell you when they have spoiled cheese that can no longer be sold, they feed it to the chickens. Perhaps this is part of the reason the eggs taste so special!

They also sell meat from their cows, as well as a wide variety of other organic and bio-dynamic products. They give tours, if you arrange it with them in advance.

They are not able to use my garlic in their cheese now, because it’s not certified organic or bio-dynamic like the rest of their products. They have however said they will use my garlic as planting stock in their own garden, eventually to also be certified and used in their cheeses.

Although it’s in a very remote part of Friesland, a province in the north of The Netherlands, it’s worth a visit if you are ever in the area. It’s on the road between Metslawier and Ee, and if you are coming from Ee it’s on the left hand side. They are open Monday-Saturday 10-13.00 and again from 15-20.00.

Pumpkin Seed Oil

The label on this bottle says Kürbis Kern Oel [Ölmühle Hötzl/Mureck(a)].

This is pumpkin seed oil. It comes from a Swiss neighbor of mine, and I understand it’s popular in both Switzerland and Austria. It’s commonly served on salads, but can also be used in other dishes. It’s supposed to both taste good and have health giving properties. I had some the other day and it’s really delicious.

It has a brown color, but according to Wikipedia if you put it on yogurt it turns green. I haven’t tried this yet!