Our winter vegetable garden is slowly coming to the end of its season.
We’ve been harvesting the last of the cabbages and broccoli, while some of the other vegetables planted through the cooler months — including the onions — will continue growing as we move towards summer.
This week we picked our final cabbage.
There’s something particularly satisfying about walking out into the garden, harvesting something you’ve grown yourself and knowing that a few hours later it will become part of dinner.
For those who have been following along, this particular modular vegetable garden will be moved in the coming weeks. When we first arrived at Earth Rhythms it seemed like a perfectly good place for growing vegetables, but as our plans for the property have evolved, we’ve decided this area will become home to the shop and some of the other spaces we’re creating.
So this is really the end of the first little chapter for this garden bed.
Rod is the chef in our household, and his years in the Army included time spent cooking in Asia, where he developed a real love of Asian flavours and cuisine — particularly anything involving chilli.
One of the dishes he makes is Kai Si Ming, a simple but very tasty curried mince and cabbage dish.
We usually enjoy it just as you might your favourite curry, with a dollop of sour cream and some papadoms on the side. And if there happens to be any left over, it’s even better the next day — warmed up and piled onto toast for breakfast or on a homemade pizza for lunch or another dinner.
So our final winter cabbage travelled a very short distance indeed — from the vegetable garden to the kitchen and then onto our plates.
And I think that’s one of the things I’m going to enjoy most as Earth Rhythms continues to develop.
We’ve already started and are planning to grow culinary herbs and produce here, some eventually destined for sale and some destined for our own kitchen and apothecary. There is something deeply satisfying about being able to use and cook with food grown only meters from where it is eaten.
For now, though, the winter vegetable garden is gradually making way for the next season.
The broccoli is being left to go to seed. The onions are continuing on and the last cabbage has been harvested.
And, thanks to Rod, it certainly didn’t go to waste.