Permaculture active
March 4, 2008
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Leafy greens foraged from under the brush
This year the Occitanian kitchen garden is very different than it was last year at the same time. The winter’s thorough frost followed by a long wet spell has killed all 5 of my chokes and most of what I had been treating as perennial loose-leaf brassica. But if you count the hours actually spent working in the garden in relation to the amount of food produced, kilo for kilo there is no question that I have the most productive garden here. It may look dead and empty, but in the middle of the Hungry Gap, this hot mess of permaculture produced 2 days worth of salad!
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The Occitanian kitchen garden, upper bit, quite brown post-frost, but it’s all according to plan
Mind you, I’m not above eating a weed, or feeding a big bunch of weeds to my friends and telling them they’re exotic leafy greens. Last night we ate surprisingly unbitter chicory (thank you, frost), something dandelion-ish, the first mint of the season and some red chard sprouts that I cut off a bulbous root I’d thrown out. JT and KvR were utterly impressed with my haul, but the conclusion is that I prefer foraging to harvesting.
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Horseradish appearing out of the recently thawed ground
debra at 13:38 | | post to del.icio.us
