Fruit and Vegetables in our Bulgarian Garden

It’s been a slightly unfortunate year for the fruit and vegetables. I suppose this is down to the disappointing summer we’ve had this year and the sudden increase of rain.

However, I’ve tried not to let this bother me and have decided to get motivated by getting a little green fingered, gardening.

Oh, the joys of the wonderful vegetable patch. It’s something I utterly love about life in the countryside, picking fresh red peppers off the plants and crunching away at them like apples. It’s a funny sort of habit, but they’re so tasty it’s hard to resist temptation.

Amongst peppers, our garden grows chilis, onions, cabbages, sweet corns, cucumbers and tomatoes. Picking them straight from their plants is as good as it gets and they’re very yummy too. However the month September is when many of the vegetable plants die off, so our before thriving vegetable patch is turning a little unpleasant looking and messy.

All at one time, you end up with an abundance of produce, but this doesn’t cause waste for the locals because they turn to preserving by pickling fruits and vegetables in large jars which are then kept for winter. This season’s lack of sunshine hasn’t affected us much, but for the locals, who rely on the grapes for wine and Rakia, have had to substitute to another more accessible fruit, which can be used only for Rakia. Their home made alcoholic beverages are something the locals would never go without.