Variety is the spice of life

This summer we were at Freya van Dien and her husband Steven on their beautiful small property in central Portugal where we enjoyed the delicious vegetables from their garden. The country is extremely suitable for growing vegetables due to the Mediterranean climate of mild wet winters and warm summers, and since 2013, they have grown more than 45 varieties of fruit and vegetables!

Their inspriation came from the Farmer's Markets in San Francisco California, where they previously lived. At these markets there is a huge variety of different crops. Vegetables "I remember that I bought a Triamble pumpkin for the first time! Which I wanted to grow too! " Says Freya.
Their garden (Horta in Portuguese) is therefore full of special varieties like purple fennel, Portuguese sweet peppers, cabbage palm, Turkish orange eggplant and six different varieties of tomatoes plus delicious spinach. Due to the wonderful productionm, many products are pickled and put in mason (storage) jars, so during winter they still can enjoy from the produce of the garden.

Want to learn more about this beautiful garden? Have a look at their website.