I love Hvar for many reasons. One of them is its mild climate, of course. It is easy to get used to those beautiful sunny days in winter. And apart from being able to take our walks along the sea bathing in sun in February, we are also able to have a February harvest in our garden. Actually, it is probably possible to have a harvest year round on Hvar, but this is our first season gardening, so for the lack of experience I will stick to what I have witnessed in those 4 months in our garden in Jelsa.
We started in September (weird month to start gardening, right?). Well, it was a very hot summer this year and there was almost no useful rain until October, so we had to wait until then to be able to prepare our land.
There was a lot of grass, but with the help of a few friends (thanks Ivica and Toni!!), we turned this garden into a beautiful place and planted radishes, salad, broccoli, carrots, kohlrabi, kale, cauliflower, mangold, beet, scallions and (the most important thing for my daughter) strawberries.
Gardening in October on Hvar.
Growing up in a city, buying food in a supermarket, I was not sure, how would I manage to take care for a garden. But with the wonderful support of my mother in law and my husband´s aunt, I was able to grow food!!! Ok, I was not doing much, to be honest, Thanks to the heavy rains in October, in 4 months I only needed to water the garden 2-3 times, pluck some weeds occasionally and thats it.
First harvest in November – radishes were delicious.
It is so nice to pick our own broccoli. It is so nice to have my daughter gardening with me. It is great for her to learn about how the food gets to our plates. Our own organic food!! It is delicious and healthy and to be honest, up until now, it was pretty easy too.
How many radishes can you count?
This is our harvest from today. Several big radishes, some scallions, 3 broccolis, a salad (the only salad that made it), 2 kohlrabies and some parsley. Just perfect. And as my daughter says: “Instead of going to the supermarket, we can go the the garden, mummy”. How cool is that, in February!!
