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Monday 24 August 2009

Lali Lali, Wheat & Barley, How Does Your (Parents') Garden Grow?

Well, there are more than 50 things grown on their patch of a few hectares of eastern Georgia:

grapes (biggest crop), tomatoes, cucumbers, figs, walnuts, hazelnuts, onions, nectarines, coriander, bell peppers, hot peppers, corn, potatoes, cabbage, tarragon, basil, flat parsley, dill, watermelons, honeydew melons, various peaches, apples, various cherries, sweet purple plums, sour tqemali yellow plums, pears, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, carrots, beets, garlic, wheat, grass for hay, aubergines, quinces, zucchini, pumpkins, lettuce, mustard greens, leeks, mint, boxwood, bay leaves, persimmons, apricot, mulberries, sunflowers, beans, fennel, shallots, tobacco, and several things I know only in Georgian: shindi, qurma, kotskuri, kruzhuna, alucha, unabi, chanchuri and konduri. Whew, a lot of work!

More: They make or have made their own: cheese, yoghurt, bread, wine, arak, jams, compotes, liquers, churchkhela (walnut strings dipped in thickened grape paste), sour plum sauce (tqemali), tomato sauce, pickles, hot sauce, sour cream, butter, flour, sunflower oil and vinegar!

They also raise or have raised: cows, chickens, pigs, rabbits, guinea fowl, ducks, geese, bees...

Al in all, just a typical busy Georgian country home.

2 comments:

sparrow said...

Sounds like paradise, in a hard work kind of a way. Are you turning into a farmer?

Anthony (Tony) Hanmer said...

Yes... provided it doesn't overwork us in Svaneti (when we move there & set up house) or distract us from our main purpose for being there! So, not self-sustaining, but as green as time, money and physical energy allow. This city boy's learning a lot from his green-thumbed wife, indeed...