As this week we’re focusing on summer fruits, another seasonal fruit is ripening, one that has become a Chubeza tradition: The Shana Ba’Gina Calendar / A Year in the Garden created by artist and gatherer Ilana Stein. If you haven’t yet met this amazing creation, Shana Ba’Gina is a detailed, illustrated calendar that is also a monthly guide to domestic Israeli gardening and nature. This product celebrates the direct connection between time and seasons with local agriculture and home gardens as well. Each month brings about changes – in the field and forest, in the garden, and in nutrition.
Every page of the calendar is replete with information on growing vegetables and a home garden, seasonal recipes, helpful tips, Shabbat and chag times, “green” holidays, and much, much more.
This beautiful calendar invites you to bring nature into your home, and also to take yourself out outside. We highly recommend this wonderful product! This new, ninth edition of the Shana Ba’Gina Calendar is dedicated to trees and birds.
The Shana Ba’Gina Calendar/A Year in the Garden calendar and its full line of products are produced in an environmentally-friendly printing process: printed on ecological paper, with soy-based ink, zero-waste packaging, and above all, with a great deal of thought and love for nature and for the earth.
Products include a hanging/tabletop calendar, a weekly journal, and magnets with seeding schedules. Take a peek at the beautiful charm of Ilana’s calendar right here.
Prices:
Hanging/tabletop/English calendar: 79 NIS
Weekly journal – 89 NIS
Perennial calendar – 65 NIS
Pair of seeding schedule magnets: 30 NIS
Tree-planting magnet: 18 NIS
(reduced prices for quantity purchases)
A beautiful, distinctive gift for your loved ones (and yourselves!) Add these stunning calendars to your order via our order system.
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The bakery will take a week off for summer vacation between August 20-25,
If you wnat to order extra loafs for next week, please add through our order system, or contact us.
Happy summer vacations to all!
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Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Family
Somewhere within the onset of the Great Heat, the middle of summer break, and the ideal moment for a family getaway, I had the chance to reflect a bit on the paradox of Family Vacations. My conclusion: they’re like summer itself – sometimes lots of fun, and sometimes sticky and crowded (and nearly unbearable). So in this vein, I thought I would tell you of some ancient families ties that accompany us throughout this scorching summer.
The first summer vegetable family is the Solanaceaes (AKA nightshades), which take a short starring role in the early-summer Chubeza boxes. And, there’s a very short Party Time in early summer when the potato manages to meet up with his cousin the bell pepper for some fun together. Potatoes grow mainly in wintertime, so those spuds being harvested now are already at the end of their season, while the pepper is the late bloomer of the Solanaceae family. Two other family members have been with us for a while: the eggplant whom we first met in Spring, and the tomato, which stays with us year- round. Sometimes, in the first pepper harvests of the season (and sometimes the last as well), we pick them light and green. This harvest acts to thin out the plant, removing some of the load and allowing the pepper to invest more energy into fully ripening the rest of the plants, till they turn rosy red.
The Solanaceaes, whose fruits – pepper, eggplant, tomato – are summer varieties (a potato who is not a fruit is indeed a cooler guy), received their name from the sun (Solanum), which they greatly love and need. (Sun in Latin= sol, hence solar electricity, produced from the sun)
Another sun and heat-loving family, which is actually one big, happy summer clan, is the Cucurbitac (gourd) family, which ripens in a very orderly manner from small to large: first the cucumbers, the fakus and the zucchini, in a host of varieties, which have been with us since spring. (We enjoyed the fakus for but a brief time at the end of spring and early summer). Since then, we’ve met and delighted in the sweet melons and watermelons, and the parade marked by pride and by genius: pumpkins in a kaleidoscope of shapes, colors and sizes: the acorn squash, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, Amaro, the Japanese Kabocha squash, the Neapolitan pumpkin, and last but not least, the amazing giant-sized Tripolitanian pumpkin, that can comfortably transport Cinderella, the prince, and even an occasional stepsister to the ball.
Some of the Cucurbitac family members are harvested early, while they’re still young (cucumbers, zucchini, fakus). Others we allow to enjoy full ripening (melon and watermelon), while we let the pumpkins harden and build up a nice, strong rind that allows them to sustain weeks and even months outside the comfort of earth.
The third family is not necessarily a summer family. Actually, it’s with us all year long, but during summer, it dispatches some particularly colorful members for short guest appearances. Meet the Legumes.
In Chubeza’s field, the legumes only come in fresh and green, still packed in their comfy pods, their seeds still young and tender. In spring and early summer, we enjoy the beans, which this year includes three varieties: green, yellow and flat green beans. When summer’s heat gets scorching, the beans check out and makes room for their summery sister, the beautiful lubia. We grow the long Thai lubia bean (really long: 20-30 cm). Alongside the lubia, for a short time in the summer we also meet the edamame – green soybean – which brings a smile to the entire family.
The various beans, as well as the edamame, grow on low bushes, but the long Thai lubia bean climbs high in our open field on trellising nets, usually two beds of tall lubia beans that climb on nets serve as “bodyguards” for the peppers, which we plant between them. Between the two “live barriers” they create, we stretch a shade net to protect the pepper bushes. The Thai lubia will continue to accompany us till the end of the summer and deep into autumn as it keeps on yielding more and more sweet, juicy pods.
And finally – a word about the Crown Prince, the only son of a family not usually represented the vegetable plot, although in the surrounding fields we accompany it in regular cycles: the Grain family, and its beloved representative, the sweet corn, unrivalled for family fun at the beach or for a light dinner at home. We have already started harvesting Round Two of the beloved corn, which seems to be a good crop, relatively free of pests. If you still happen to meet a hungry caterpillar that has opted to settle at the end of your corn, bid him farewell and send him on his way. Just cut off the end of the corn that he gnawed, and enjoy the rest of the yummy corn on the cob.
As usual, great recipes for summer (and all) vegetables await you in our Recipe Section. Enjoy!
Wishing everyone a lovely, safe vacation, full of happiness and great family moments. Don’t forget to drink up!
Have a good week!
Alon, Bat-Ami, Dror, Orin and the entire Chubeza team
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WHAT’S IN THIS WEEK’S SUMMER BOXES?
Monday: Scallions/New Zealand spinach, lettuce, cherry tomatoes/ onions, eggplants of various varieties: regular/baladi/finger eggplants, Thai yard-long beans/okra, slice of pumpkin/butternut squash, potatoes, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, Amaro Kabocha squash/acorn squash.
Large box, in addition: Coriander/basil/parsley, bell peppers/hot peppers/sweet potatoes, edamame.
FRUIT BOXES: Nectarines, Gala apples, grapes.
Large box: Larger quantities of all of the above, plus pears and figs.
Wednesday: Lettuce, corn, cherry tomatoes, Amaro Kabocha squash/Spaghetti squash/Acorn squash, parsley/ coriander/New Zealand spinach/basil, eggplants of various varieties: regular/baladi/finger eggplants, cucumbers, tomatoes, slice of pumpkin/butternut squash, potato/onions, bell peppers.
Large box, in addition: Edamame/lubia Thai yard-long beans, okra/sweet potato, scallions.
FRUIT BOXES: Nectarines, Omar mango, gala apples.
Large box: Larger quantities of all of the above, plus pears.