Enjoying fava beans in spring 2012...

Planted eight seeds last November..

Six germinated... one died prematurely... leaving five plants...

Early spring of 2012...  they were flowering beautifully...

The pods began to fatten in May... 

And we have been chewing on these lovely beans ever since...

Greens, beans, roots, etc...

Am very happy with the goings-on at the potager... 

We have a lot of spinach this season... 

and they are flourishing... we harvest and eat them whole, roots included...

Planted this sole celery in April...

Didn't get to eat much of it...
with the cold coming in, it is growing really well...

Tried to germinate fava beans from seeds...
From eight seeds, six germinated successfully...

Our lettuce self-seeded...
We have about a dozen of them, thriving...
They are a constant part of our breakfast fare...

Bought three broccoli seedlings from the store...
All are doing well...

Sowed two types of radish seeds last September...
The round and long type...
They taste really good either fresh or cooked...

We love our carrots a lot...
Sowed the seeds in two plots...
Harvested the first carrot this morning for breakfast...
Wooh, heavenly...

Strawberries... just about everybody's favorite...
Seedlings were all sourced from the mother plants...
Looking forward to the fruits next spring...

Am growing this green just for my suweeto haato...
The ta-sai is one of her favorite leafy greens... have been harvesting them for a while now... we mostly stir-fried them with black beans...

Bought two seedlings of parsley...
Had them planted as companions to the strawberry patch... we harvest them a little at time to use as garnish for our breakfast pizza-toasts...

And finally, while still far away from harvesting, red onions, another 'must-have' order from my missus...
Sowed the seeds last October and they are still rather tiny...
Need to let the seedlings grow up to the size of chopsticks before I can transplant them for good...

Note: While this post is not really totally about harvesting, I am taking the liberty to link this post to Harvest Monday hosted by Daphne... hope she doesn't mind...

Fava beans taste soooo good...

This is the third time I am growing fava beans...

I had only two plants on the first try... and perhaps four on the second...
The second time around, the crows came for the beans before I did... grrrr...
And belated as it is, I am discovering, what a lovely vegetable this is...

We bought two different types of beans this third time around...
The 'fast' growing type, and the 'normal' growing type...
The former gives smaller fruits, the later, bigger and more wholesome fruits... 

Didn't want the crows to get them before me this time...
So, we harvested 'big' time...
And ended up having a loadful of mainly the fast type...
Peeled the beans off the pods and woah, the scale tipped at about 1.5 kilograms, clean...

Now, what dishes to make out of them, we wondered...

And ah ha, why not cream fava bean soup?
With lots of coarse black pepper?
Served on a Peter Rabbit bowl?

And, urged my sweeto haaato to experiment with fava bean spaghetti...
Waaah... absolutely delicious...
We still have some more of the normal type in the potager...
Shall be enjoying them slowly...
Didn't get to try eating their leaves as initailly planned... perhaps next time...

PS-1: The rainy season started two days ago, so I am rather stuck indoors... still, the rain couldn't restrain me from occasionally going into the potager to talk to the plants...

PS-2: Submitted this post to Appalachian Feet's “How to Find Great Plants”.

Potager update for mid-march...

Gentle rains continue to fall in the garden...
The sun has yet to appear, and it feels cozy to be at home...
And yes, to be able to spend a tranquil morning at home with the one you love...
Oh, isn't this simply the ultimate bliss of them all?

Meanwhile, we thank god for the privilege to be able to return home safely last week amidst all the commotion surrounding the earthquake...
Like most of the people the world over, we remain deeply concerned with the current happenings surrounding the disaster...

The Japanese have an interesting name to this specimen...
They call it 'Himalaya Yuki no Shita', literally, 'Under the Himalayan Snow'...
Did a check on the net and found that it goes by the scientific name 'Bergenia stracheyi'...
Hmm, I'd probably have difficulty trying to remember this name, so perhaps the Japanese name is more apt for my inclinations...

The winter daphne looks pretty even in the rain...
We have two large bushes of them and they smell so good...
They are native to Japan and China... 

A comet goldfish comes to the water surface in our pond...
They self-breed and currently, we have about 30 of them... 

Meanwhile, the fava beans in the potager are flowering...
This one is the 'wa-se' or 'early harvest' type...

 
The strawberries did not die on us even after being showered by frosts and snow...
Flowers are starting to appear... 

The self-seeding lettuce is growing fine...
Poppy plants, also self-seeding, keep them company... 

 I bought some green lettuce seeds from the store...
This type of lettuce is crunchy and is very popular with the Korean restaurants serving grilled beef...

The corianders are doing super fine...
We are really hooked by their fragrance...

Which brings us to the fried rice my sweeto haato dished up...
Urmm, the tiny little fish, small bite-size chicken meat, garlic, onions, carrots, black pepper, and yes, coriander as garnish... 

While our white Japanese plum flowered some time ago, the red one finally did...
The fruits from the white flowers are big and fleshy while the ones from the red plant are not so...  

Fava beans in salad...

Bought a packet of fava beans last October for 50 yen. 

Two seedlings came out of it... 

Last year, the crows got the better of me. 

They seem to know exactly when to 'harvest'. 

This time around, no more crows... hence the protective net. 

Fava beans are great in soups...
they almost 'melt' in the mouth, so to say... 

We also tried boiling it lightly to go with a salad...
consisting of homegrown buckwheat sprouts and dill...
on top of carrots and avocado...
and of course, tossed in olive oil as usual.