Prepare for spring

So when my longing for spring becomes too strong, I have a few little tricks to turn to. Painting tulips on the edges of the snow may be a little desperate, but it lifts my spirits somewhat when my social media feed is showing rhubarb buds while we still have deep snow here.

Fortunately, quite a lot can grow on the windowsill too. I usually do it like this: I clean empty milk cartons with unscented kitchen soap. Always use unscented products for anything involving food and foodstuffs.

Then I fill them with potting soil and sow simple things such as peas. I use ordinary yellow peas (pea-soup peas) from ICA I Love Eco. They produce lovely shoots, and since it is only the shoots we want, we can sow them very densely.

Today we can go to a store and buy whatever vegetables and fruit we want. At any time, we can get hold of almost anything grown anywhere on the planet (perhaps not entirely reasonable when you think about it), but that was not the case in the past, especially not here. The inland and mountain regions were difficult to reach, and it was hard to transport goods—especially fresh produce—up here. It was not unusual for people to have to carry their goods long distances themselves, as there were no roads suitable for vehicles. Hiking trails and boots were what was available. Even so, people managed to survive here, thanks to their knowledge and experience. The lack of vegetables during large parts of the year was a particularly “tough nut to crack,” but Gompan has saved many people from becoming ill. 

Gompa was made from kvanne and jaärja (angelica and tolta in Swedish). These plants were picked while young, blanched, and ground into a green paste. You could actually compare it to pesto. In the past, gompa was stored in wooden barrels with buttermilk, and the barrel was kept cool to ferment. I’ve heard that people ate it with milk or soured milk, but there were surely other ways to eat this green health food as well. Nowadays, gompa is frozen and thawed when wanted, but I wouldn’t say it’s a common dish or even a supplement; it survives as a tradition.

Preparation of Gompa.

Other things that grow well in reused milk cartons include spinach, cress, and mustard seeds.
The shoots are delicious snipped into a salad, on a sandwich, or simply as greens on the plate. Peas and cress grow quickly, and within just a few days you’ll have fresh green shoots to eat.

Peas—these are ordinary yellow peas from ICA I Love Eco, and they work excellently as “microgreens”.

Garden cress is also quick and easy to grow on the windowsill.

Spinach is a little thinner, but it also comes up quickly and produces wonderfully crisp green leaves.

Mustard seeds are the hardest to germinate, but they also sprout fairly quickly.

 
The idea isn’t for these to grow into large plants, so you can sow them closely and cut them down.
They’re called microgreens these days and are a bit “hip”. I don’t have another name for them, but they’re a great way to add something green and fresh when spring feels far away. 

Should any of you happen to think that Gompa is even hipper, I recommend a vacation in Vilhelmina, perhaps even timed to coincide with Settler Week, when anyone who wants can learn truly hip things such as making gompa, using a scythe, making hay, playing marbles, or blowing a birch-bark horn.