Carrots, radish, broccoli...

Today is vernal or spring equinox and Japan celebrates it as a national holiday... 

Which means I get to dirty my hands in the potager... 

and also that the weather is warming up for good.... yahoooo....

But hmmm, my carrots this season... rather pathetic...

They are smallish, under-nourished, and somewhat 'un-luscious' looking...no?

Anyway, harvested a bunch of them today...

And into the pot of beef curry for dinner this evening...

Luckily, the taste was quite good...

The other harvest is the radish or daikon as the Japanese folks call it...

Had it with miso soup before the beef curry main course... nice...

I always grow my broccolli and cauliflower in the autumn for harvesting the following spring...

Almost always, the broccoli wins hands down...

The cauliflower is normally measly and ooh... I should be putting in fertilizer for the poor plant....

Anyway, my suweeto haato just boiled the broccoli lightly... tasted extremely fresh and crunchy...

Still gnawing on our carrots...

Learned quite a few things about the 'humble' carrots... (See source here...)

To start off, carrots are a good source of vitamin A, C, and B6, as well as potassium, copper, folic acid, thiamine and magnesium...

 

Carrots are also one of the best sources of alpha and beta carotene...

Now, what's with this beta carotene again?

It supposedly helps to reduce chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease...

And the deal with alpha carotene?

The alpha carotene apparently aids in slowing down processes that may lead to tumor growth...

So far so good...

 

Now, purportedly just below the skin, carrots contain phenolic compounds that are antioxidants...

Do you peel off the skin when you cook carrots?

For us, we almost always never peel the skin when we do carrots or apples or persimmons, for that matter...

We eat them whole...

And the leaves?

Yeap, it seems that they are also quite a 'treasure' in that they are high in vitamin K...

And vitamin K is supposed to help keep bones healthy as well as helping the blood to clot...

We think the leaves do taste somewhat like what Malaysians call 'ulam raja'...

Sort of a 'mango-ish' taste, I would say...

The leaves can be quite tough to chew, so we just select the tender ones...

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...

Heaven, I'm in heaven...

Yes, as is so beautifully sung by Ella and Louis in 'Cheek to Cheek'...

How not to feel so when you can see flowers of blue right in your own space?

Yes, the borage has got to be one of the most fascinating flowers I know...

They self seed in our potager and we do nothing but enjoy its beauty... 

And of course, its taste too... 

Likewise, the poppy self seeds just as well...

It has adapted very well to our potager... 

The 'wild' oxalis is a tiny flower...

And a very pretty wild flower at that...

The lilac flowers never fail to bring joy to us each spring...

Such a lovely 'feminine' pink... 

My missus was attracted to this flower from the hills...

She brought back a plant and woah...

The Japanese name is 'Uma no ashi gata'...

Literally, 'the shape of a horse foot', apparently from the shape of the leaves...

In English, simply Meadow buttercup... 

Was taken aback to see this clinging on a tree...

Wing-span was about 10 centimeters as it is...

Apparently, one of its wings was chipped...

Which meant that I could take my time to record its beauty... 

Don't you just love the colors of the swiss chard?

Chards belong to the same family as spinach...

We have several colors... white, cream, yellow, pink...

Think the white and cream ones taste the best... 

Now, what do you do when you have to harvest all the remaining carrots because you need the space for the next crop?

The answer is here...