Türkenmarkt

Yesterday, I went to the Türkenmarkt at Maybachufer, which got its name from the many Turkish stall holders (and buyers). At first sight, it is not a very special market. They sell the usual stuff like fruit, vegetables, (Turkish) food and clothing, but it is also one of the few places in town where you can buy cheap cloth at 3 or 4 euros per meter. Cloth is of course sold in numerous places, like Karstadt and Idee/KaDeWe (where they also have Kokka cloth) but there it costs at least 12 euros per meter. Which is not what I want because I am going to do some experimental sewing the coming weeks. 

There were also a number of 'modern' stalls, like this transporter bike stall where they sell items from repurposed materials. I especially liked the hats made of jute sacks, though I doubt I can persuade my husband to wear one... And there was a woman who amongst other things sold small handmade boxes at a very cheap price: I will show it later, for I have plans with that one.

At one end of the market there is a music corner where you can listen to street musicians while enjoying a snack and/or beverage that you just bought on the market. When I was there, a small jazz combo was playing and I spent some time lazing on one of the sofas that were placed on the left (not in the picture).

Oh yes, and I bought some cloth for a few unfinished projects:

I will keep you posted on the result of those...

Tomato forest

My tomatoes have been doing their utmost best over the past few weeks, they are growing like crazy! One side of our balcony looks like a real tomato forest. I have had to bind them up and I now am very glad I bought these ridiculously long bamboo stalks. And if you look at the thread I used, you might recognize the 'knitting theme', for yes, it is indeed raspberry red/pink organic cotton.

I also have proof now that I have two different varieties: I did mark the seedlings of course, but my son found the neat rows of plastic cups quite boring and decided to arrange them in a more appealing way - by putting all of them in a wide circle with the marker straws laying in the middle. As if the seedlings were going to play 'who is who?' with them(?!). 

The plant above is most likely the cherry tomato, judging from the neat parallel rows in which the fruits are growing. It has produced an amazing amount of flowers so far, and is still producing new ones every day. The plant below (actually, two of them) looks to be a 'regular' tomato, although I forgot what the name is (note to self: make better markers next year). The mystery of the missing flowers is solved by the way, for in the end this plant did produce yellow flowers, it just took much longer than the cherry tomatoes. 

The only thing I am bit worried about is that the fruits will not be ripe before we will be leaving at the end of August... Let's hope that they will ripen soon!

Tomatoes revisited

Remember my tomatoes? Well, they have already outgrown their pots and needles, so I had to build them a bigger home. Since we are here only temporarily, I did not want to buy too many pots, as we all have to take them home with us. Bigger food buckets would have been a very cheap and convenient replacement, but none of us are big eaters...

In the end I bought some buckets at the 1-euroshop and bamboo canes at a hardware store. I planted the roots relatively deep; they grow upwards and need extra soil every week. 

The tricky thing this time was that the plants were already in bloom (yes!), and I was not sure if the flowers would suffer from the replanting session. But after just a few hours, they seemed happier than ever and they are still growing as crazy! The only thing that keeps puzzling me is that the plant on the left has real yellow tomato flowers (see below, on the right), while the other two plants have little green bells that seem quite empty (see below). I mean, I cannot see any flowery stuff in there. It seems that these are 'sterile plants' that apparently do not need pollinating(?). Maybe I should investigate a bit more on that subject...

Lemon balm

About three months ago, I bought a tiny package of Zitronenmelisse (lemon balm) seed in the supermarket, for the one and only reason that the info on the back said: 'mosquito repellent'. Good! I thought, for if there is one thing I hate in summer... I sowed the seed in an empty milk carton, they are ideal for planting all sorts of stuff. The package also informed me that the seeds would germinate unevenly over a longer period of time. And indeed, it took over three weeks before the first tiny green sprouts became visible. The tiny sprouts remained tiny for another three weeks, but then suddenly started to grow really fast. I had to replant them and again used empty milk cartons, for I had a strong suspicion that they would need replanting within a couple of weeks.

And still, more tiny little sprouts keep popping up in the seed box, but I am in doubt now if I should still plant them on in bigger pots - in two months time, we will be moving back to Leiden and my husband is now cautiously starting to ask whether all this greenery is supposed to move back home with us...

Tomatoes

Every year when spring arrives, I have these wonderful visions of homegrown fruits and vegetables that will feed me and my family all summer long. Since I own garden nor balcony I can only keep on dreaming and try to grow some herbs in the window sills. Here in Berlin however, I have a pretty large and extremely sunny balcony. So this year, I was determined to grow at least one sort of vegetables: tomatoes. It started out quite well with tiny plants growing into bigger ones. But then I somehow forgot about them (maybe because spring was terribly late) and when I remembered them they looked very sad and had grown in awkward directions.

It was tempting to just throw them in the bin, but I decided to put them on the balcony to give them (and myself) a second chance. And look, after a couple of days of pampering they started to cheer up, so I repotted them, and now they go like crazy! I cannot wait to see those small yellow flowers popping up in due time - hopefully soon : )

Purslane pesto

A few weeks ago, I was doing my usual Saturday shopping round at the local eco-market at Karl-August-Platz here in Charlottenburg. I love the many local producers that come here every week to sell their homegrown products - all of them are from Berlin or from somewhere nearby in Brandenburg. Germans are quite passionate about their food and they love fresh vegetables in many varieties. And so I was very happy to find the lovely tender bright green leaves of purslane in one of the stalls. I remembered a recipe for purslane pesto that I had found in a Christmas special of of PUUR, a magazine of an eco-supermarket chain in The Netherlands:

Ingredients
* ± 90 grams (winter) purslane
* 6 tbl spoons olive oil
* 50 grams walnuts
* 50 grams grana padano cheese, grated
* 1 tbl spoon lemon juice
* 1/2 tea spoon salt
* 1/2 tea spoon freshly ground pepper

Mix all ingredients in a mortar or in a mixer. Add more oil if the mixture is too dry. Be a bit careful in adding the cheese: this pesto has a wonderful subtle taste, and too much cheese can make the taste too 'heavy'. Enjoy!