Skippy's Vegetable Garden: Switzerland

Thursday, April 28, 2011

photos of switzerland

I'm just back from a vacation in Switzerland and have photos of vegetable gardens and the Saturday morning Farmer's Market. Photos of the Farmer's Market in Basel Switzerland are here. Basel is located in the northwest corner of Switzerland, along the French and German borders. There was an amazing variety of local produce. Truly amazing. We filled our bags with food to make a delicious Easter dinner.

Though Basel is at a more Northern latitude than us here in Boston, the weather is much warmer. The lilacs were in full bloom there, and these have not even leafed out here in Belmont yet. Our Belmont Farmer's market won't open until June 9! But in Basel, the market had lots of new potatoes, new garlic, fava beans, white and green asparagus, broccoli, lots of greens and herbs, etc, etc.

I haven't ever seen baby garlic at a market. We bought some and it was great. The wrappers hadn't begun to dry at all and the cloves were quite small still. We could just slice and eat the whole head without peeling the cloves.

The potatoes on the stands were mostly a little white variety with buttery flesh. Very good!

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Swiss community gardens

While I was in Switzerland last week on vacation, I took a bunch of photos of vegetable gardens. We traveled by train, so I had to pull up the camera quick and hope to get a shot before we went into a tunnel or behind a tree. It was a challenge!

The gardens are full to the top at this time of year with all sorts of crops. They look beautiful!

The community gardens look a lot like ours here in the US, but I was surprised at all the little huts in the plots. I wonder why this is? Are there that many tools to store that its worth using garden space for a shed? Or are they used for growing something? There are also many high hoop houses and shelters over plants.