Sofias Country Gardens

I just love growing peas! It may be because my first gardening success was growing peas, and I still remember the pride and joy I felt the first time when my Mum went out in the kitchen garden and picked peas straight from the plant and declared them the best peas she had ever eaten. I also love peas as they are one of the best vegetables to freeze and store for winter, with their sweet summer taste reminding me that nothing lasts forever and a new season will be on its way s

This time of the year I always have too many zucchinis in the garden. It seems that no matter how late everything else is, the zucchini will always triumph over adverse conditions and come out fighting. So what then do I do with such a continuous and bountiful supply? Well, one staple in my freezer is zucchini fritters. These are easy to make patties, that are great for freezing and using in winter once the season for fresh goods is over. I make a big batch in one go, usually

This year I have a feeling that everything in the kitchen garden has been late. This may or may not be an objective truth, as I do recall complaining about the same thing in previous years. Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that last year the vegetables came on early due to the supernaturally warm weather, and this year things have returned to normal. Throughout June this year, temperatures have ranged between 10°C to 20°C with a lot of rain and wind. Luckily for me

Most years I try to grow something new in my vegetable garden, and this year it was the pea Blauwschokker. When I say new, I mean new to me but not necessarily a new variety horticulturally speaking. In fact Blauwschokker (Pisum sativum var.arvense) is a very old heritage variety believed to come from Holland, and still sold by most seed companies due to its continuing popularity. It can be sown outdoors from when the soil has warmed up (in the beginning of May in my cold cli

This autumn my godfathers spent a month in the country with me, and as we love to spend time cooking one of our projects was to pickle beetroots for winter. It is actually very simple and here I will take you through it step by step. This is what you need: 1 liter water 4 dl vinegar 1 - 1,5 dl sugar 2 bay leafs 15 allspice grains 8 - 10 cloves 2 cm horseradish cut into slices 1/4 teaspoon pickling salt I chose small beetroots of different colours from my garden because when t

Broccoli is one of my favourite vegetables and one that we eat many times a week with the family. I must have a hundred recipes with broccoli stored away, but mostly I love it simply boiled fresh with a knob of butter or in the oven with garlic and fennel. I haven't grown it in the garden before this year, as I always thought it to be a tremendously difficult plant. Turns out it isn't although we had a shaky start. My seedling plants were spindly and weak, and when I planted

One of my favourite things is eating beetroots fresh from the garden. They are wonderful vegetables in that they do keep for weeks at end in storage, but when they are newly picked they have a special crisp and earthy taste that I just love. As with carrots, it is one of the vegetables I alway grow. When it comes to varieties of beets, I find that I can never choose just one so I always get the mixed beetroot selection from Runåbergs Fröer as they have such a great variety of

We have had an unusually sunny and warm September this year, and the kitchen garden has continued to deliver enormous amounts of vegetables. A first for me this year was growing my own leeks. I love leeks and use them a lot in my cooking! They were surprisingly easy to grow, but I had misjudged the space close to the tomatoes so the row closest to them only produced thin little ones. The tomatoes have given me endless joy this year! A plentiful cropper with sweet yellow fruit

Each year I have some staple vegetables that I grow, and a mix of different coloured carrots is one of them. For many years I bought a seed packet called Harlequin that contained different coloured carrots, but then I found Runåbergs fröer that make their own organic mix. The varieties they have in their mix are Maruschka (white), Jaune de Doubs (yellow), Early Nantes (red) and Autumn King (orange). The carrots can be sown any time after the frost has left the ground, but nee

The best part of growing my own food is the simplicity and variety it offers with different vegetables for dinner each night. If we are in a hurry I might pick some Little Gem squash and simply chop them up for a raw salad with basil. If we have a lot of time I may make a white beetroot salad that needs to be marinated for a few hours. The fact that the kitchen garden is adjacent to the house is probably the key to success, as it becomes so simple to just nip down and see wha

The first rain this summer came on midsummer eve, and I for one was dancing with joy. Before the rain my garden was looking dusty and sad, as my valiant efforts to water it were no match to a good old rain. Then, during the next two weeks it rained properly at least every other day giving the plants a good old root soak. In just three weeks the transformation in the vegetable patch is unbelievable! Suddenly everything has gone "woosh" and yesterday we got to enjoy the first s