Harvest Season Has Begun

Harvest season has finally begun. The growing season got off to a slightly rough start. My entire batch of seedlings was attacked by both fungus gnats and aphids which, despite repeated trips through the shower all spring, stubbornly refused to give up. You’d think the giant spiders here in Skåne would have the resources to deal with a few aphids, but no such luck. Apparently aphids are simply too disgusting for a Skåne spider, which seems to prefer something with a little more bite to it.

That resulted in me putting all the plants outside a little earlier than I should have, hoping the aphids would freeze to death. That part of the plan worked. Or maybe they just blew away. The only problem with the plan was that the plants froze too. Only now is everything finally starting to recover. The chili plants are covered in buds, and the tomatoes—a complete mix of whatever seeds I had left—seem perfectly happy growing outdoors. The cucumbers have finally taken off as well. I’ll probably drown in cucumbers again this year. I know perfectly well that two greenhouse cucumbers and four outdoor cucumber plants are more than enough. Yet somehow there are now four greenhouse cucumbers and eight outdoor ones growing out there. I just couldn’t bring myself to throw the extra plants away.

I was thrilled when I discovered there was actually rhubarb growing on the property. A lot of my recipes use rhubarb, and I was a little worried about how I’d manage without my old rhubarb patch. Unfortunately it was growing in a dry, shady spot, so after the harvest Pär and his trusty shovel were called into action. A brand-new rhubarb bed was dug out in the field and the soil was improved properly.

For one single little rhubarb plant.

At least I managed to make chili marmalade and rhubarb chutney, although the pantry is looking a little understocked. We’ll see if I can talk someone into giving me a bit more rhubarb so the shelves will last through the winter.

There are still quite a few things growing around the property that I have absolutely no idea what they are. So far I’ve managed to identify a few sour cherry bushes, although that wasn’t exactly difficult once the cherries appeared. There are still several trees and shrubs that I strongly suspect are fruit trees, without having the faintest idea what they actually are.

Luckily, we had visitors from Småland last week—someone with a much better knowledge of Swedish flora than I have. In about fifteen minutes we’d identified a whole collection of trees and shrubs that both Google Lens and AI had completely failed to identify.

Growing in the middle of our hedge, which I still suspect was never really meant to be a hedge, is something that’s obviously some kind of miniature plum. Our botanical expert from Småland thought it might be a yellow bullace, which sent me down a Google rabbit hole where I quickly stumbled across the name mirabelle.

The more I read, the more confused I became. The true mirabelle (Prunus domestica subsp. syriaca) isn’t the same tree that’s growing in our hedge. What people here in southern Sweden call mirabelles are actually cherry plums (Prunus cerasifera), a name that seems to have carried over from the Danish use of the word mirabelle.

So apparently there are mirabelles (Prunus domestica subsp. syriaca), bullaces (Prunus domestica subsp. insititia), and cherry plums (Prunus cerasifera). This is about the point where you begin to understand why botanists insist on using Latin names. Everyone seems to call the same thing by different names and different things by the same name. Now all that’s left is the easy part—figuring out what to make with them.

While digging through my preserving jars I came across a gift a friend gave me last year: a fermentation jar. I got it just before we moved, so I never unpacked it, and I’d honestly forgotten all about it. Finding it again almost felt like getting the same gift twice, and I was probably just as happy the second time around.

There was only one problem. My own chilies still aren’t ripe after that rather unfortunate frost incident. So a trip to Lucu Food was in order, and a couple of kilos of jalapeños somehow ended up coming home with me.

Half went into the fermentation jar and the rest became Cowboy Candy. I’ve made sriracha before, but this will be the first time I’ve used a proper fermentation jar. I suspect I’m unreasonably excited about a glass jar with an airlock, but I’m not about to apologize for it.

While the sriracha is quietly fermenting and the Cowboy Candy is developing its flavor, Pär and his faithful shovel have already moved on to the next project. This time it’s clearing around the cherry plum tree to give it even better conditions for next year.

To be continued.