Showing posts with label harvest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label harvest. Show all posts

Monday, 17 June 2013

Bush beans

The bean which does not climb is the bush bean. This bean is usually eaten dry.

Regarding to the pole beans which climbs along stakes, the bush beans usually stays with their pods stiffer and fibrous earlier.

Our harvest is done when the pods are already filled, while they are not very dry, we thrash them up and freeze them for consumption either in normal meals or in soups. If the beans are dry, it will be harder to cook and therefore we must boil them.

Thursday, 13 June 2013

Pole running green beans

One kind of bean that is used a lot in Portuguese cuisine are the green beans "feijão verde". The development of the plant which gives this kind of bean is made climbing along stakes. That's why they are called climbing beans.
After the beans germinate and after chop beans which are too close to each other, it's time to put up stakes for the beans so they can climb up as they wish.
This type of culture needs to be watered more often than other types of beans.
The most important pest of these kind of culture the bean's lice, which we need to be very careful and staying alert.
The green bean "feijão verde" is usually eaten while they are green, usually used in soup or included in a boiled fish meal. But if the aim is to have beans for the entire year, it is best to let them dry first one or two days and put them in the freezer just after. In this case the bean is harvested as dry as possible, threshed, packed and ready to go to the freezer.

Friday, 7 June 2013

Broad beans: end of the harvest

The beans came close to a month to be taken and 90% went to the freezer to be consumed throughout the year. The beans are a vegetable that does not require great care in their development. In the end there are only the branches that will be buried to enrich the soil.

Thursday, 6 June 2013

Potatoes branches to be buried

This year the potatoes were not watered. The weather was very rainy, and too much water does not favor a large production of potatoes, in addition of being smaller than in previous years. After potatoes uprooted from the land, they were left a day in the sun to dry. The next day they were collected, cleaned and stored in a clean and no light environment, while the branches remained on the surface of the ground to be buried in the future.


Wednesday, 5 June 2013

Broad beans best fixing nitrogen plant

Broad beans is the best fixing plant of nitrogen because it fixes the nitrogen from air into their roots. Plants need nitrogen and much of them are not that really good nitrogen fixing plants, so the farmer needs to give nitrogen to their roots. You will enrich the soil it you bury the board beans plant after the harvest to recover the levels of nitrogen. Culture after culture the soil will need more nitrogen so it is better if we rotate between a culture of board beans and a culture of plants which needs much nitrogen. You will enrich the soil and it will thank you for that.

Monday, 3 June 2013

Digging up potatoes

After two days digging up potatoes, it's time to pick them. First were harvested the larger potatoes, then the smaller and finally the trimmed ones and the potatoes which were tapped by the hoe. The big and small potatoes were cleaned and placed in a clean place with low light to avoid becoming green. The trimmed ​​potatoes or tapped by the hoe were cleaned and separated from the rest to be eaten in the short term.

Thursday, 16 May 2013

Tomatoes beds

There are two ways to get the tomato plants needed for planting: acquire in any store dealing with farming products and usually are already highly developed, bringing the roots wrapped in a piece of substrate which doesn't interrupt the development process for being transplanted, or alternatively, you can acquire initially seeds, which are also available in these establishments, in small packages, which can be seen the reference range and the description of their characteristics.

Small tomato seeds, also can be obtained, if desired, from some previously selected tomatoes, leaving them ripen until they are soft, juicy and red. Faced with the possibility of inclement weather will be advisable to harvest them, to avoid rot because of the rain and leave them a few more days in a dry and airy environment so that the maturation process is completed fully, but only if it is quite mature already. Next, cut them to remove the tomatoes pulp which lodges the seeds, spread it on a plain place, allowing it to dry in the sun, one or two weeks or in a dry and ventilated place, then keep it in a dry closed container.

Seeding the beds of tomatoes, the sooner it are done, the sooner the plants will be available for planting, usually they're done at the beginning of February to be available for transplant at the beginning or at the middle of March, and we can make a small bed rich of substrate moistened with a little water on a sheltered location with good sun exposure or using a small box-shaped tray made of styrofoam, because the thermal properties of this material, by covering with a little plastic allows to develop a greenhouse while maintaining a temperature inside, which it's an advantage to adequate germination and plant growth.

Thursday, 25 April 2013

Sowing coriander

Each region has its most appropriate time, but it is recommended to be done in the early spring. Sowing should be programmed so that the harvest does not coincide with periods of heavy rain, which damages the crop. You should avoid sowing on the winter period, mainly due to the risk of frost. For crops in commercial scale due to rapid ripening of fruit, it is suggested that seeding must be carried out gradually, in steps. Avoid harvesting the entire cultivated area being performed only once, because it cause losses during harvesting. If you don’t do so, the dry mature seeds fall into the soil, reducing the yield.

Monday, 22 April 2013

Preventing fungus attack

The potatoes are really pretty now. About two years ago we weren't cautious and the potatoes foliage was attacked by the mildew and all the harvest was burnt.
This year we are being very cautious. We already have give them twice the bordeaux mixture (portuguese "calda bordalesa") which is a natural fungicide, made from copper sulphate and slaked lime, to prevent the attack of fungus, specially the mildew.

Friday, 19 April 2013

First meal of broad beans



Yesterday I had my first meal of broad beans (fava beans) of the first broad beans harvest. Nothing like a meal of fresh broad beans from which we can feel them full of taste. Of course we usually freeze them to have full year of eating, but like any kind of food if it's fresh it tastes much better. It's a vegetable we really like because it gives us a good feeling of being well fed. The sowing was not different from the potatoes, they were sown just before the potatoes, in the last half of November, and in the same way. Even the fava bean seem to be more stronger against diseases than the potatoes and more stronger against the frost. The only problem now is they are too tall and the wind is taking them down. The lucky thing is that they already have pass the "flower" stage and they all already have at least little fava beans. It doesn't seem we would take much advantage from putting stakes into the ground at this time, now that were waiting for more two weeks to take the full harvest. 

Want to read about seeding potatoes?
So read and enjoy the following article
Preparing potatoes for seed

Wednesday, 17 April 2013

Organic fertilizer

The soil organic matter results mainly from vegetable waste, although the animal remains contribute significantly in its composition. Thus cattle, microorganisms from the terrain, insects and man himself, directly or indirectly, participate in the decomposition of plant residues and their distribution through the layers of soil. For this and other reasons, we find plots with different levels of organic matter. These levels reach the maximum in peaty soils and down to the minimum value in desert soils. Manure is what is most precious on a farm.
Our garden is very well fed with organic fertilizer, most of it is manure. It is bought always in the same place because we trust on that person. It is important that the manure is of good quality to avoid diseases and have a good harvest. It comes always with many earthworms which is very good for your soil, a soil with earthworms means it has life and it breaths. Only one thing the seller told us, is that there are some plant roots inside the manure which are bad for the soil. That is because that kind of plant roots are not digested by the animals. To solve that problem, while we distribute the manure on the garden we are checking for the roots and we take them off and leave it in the garbage because it's not useful even for waste compound.