Tomato industry staggers under an avalanche of cheaper imports

[FrankPintor]

Well done!

So what is pebre like?

I wish I had access to a coop like that. There is a "feria" that sets up at the square here in Northern Villa Urquiza every other Saturday, but their prices are nothing to get excited about, not at all. They charge 90-95% as much as the local verdulero, and they want you to buy in large quantities, like 5kg at once or more. I have been up there twice now, and looked over all the offerings. Suffice it to say that I was deeply disappointed.

This https://zelect.cl/blog/receta-pebre...QJfuPMIgCmx54Ea6RZ1SjzQd504zHYnJdPFJtYcOEpAI2 seems to be a fairly good approximation to a pebre chileno. Every household does it a bit differently. And you will need cilantro, of course. The cilantro can overpower everything. But it's on every Chilean lunch and dinner table.

Argentinians don't seem to be in to cilantro. You have to ask for it at the Bolivian veggie shops.

And I imagine you're referring to the Feria de la Ciudad every Monday on Plaza Zapiola? We were also disappointed by the prices when we lived there. We ended up buying veggies at La Monumental, and chicken produce at Ovo, on Alvarez Thomas. The people at the coop here have an unusual philosophy, a bagfull of whatever they have for a fixed price. The downside is that they don't always have much or any of what you might want.

 

[FrankPintor]

There are two things that money cannot buy. One is true love, the other is homegrown tomatoes.

I hope to try next spring.

 

[on the brink]

I hope to try next spring.

Hope you have better luck than I did.

I tried and failed to grow tomatoes for two consecutive seasons. Spent a small fortune in special soil, raised beds, and wire frames, and ended up with a few miserable sickly-looking, totally flavorless tomatoes.

Today I got some beauties at the local verduleria. Never again will I waste time on tomatoes.

On the other hand, I had wonderful luck with celery, spinach, cabbage, lettuce, ciboulette, parsley, lemon grass, and Brussels sprouts.

Our lone celery plant was a wonderful surprise. We discovered that a single home grown stalk flavors soups more than a whole store-bought plant. It's the gift that keeps on giving, putting up new stalks faster than we cut them. A great investment of time, soil, and sweat.

 

[FrankPintor]

Hope you have better luck than I did.

I tried and failed to grow tomatoes for two consecutive seasons. Spent a small fortune in special soil, raised beds, and wire frames, and ended up with a few miserable sickly-looking, totally flavorless tomatoes.

Today I got some beauties at the local verduleria. Never again will I waste time on tomatoes.

On the other hand, I had wonderful luck with celery, spinach, cabbage, lettuce, ciboulette, parsley, lemon grass, and Brussels sprouts.

Our lone celery plant was a wonderful surprise. We discovered that a single home grown stalk flavors soups more than a whole store-bought plant. It's the gift that keeps on giving, putting up new stalks faster than we cut them. A great investment of time, soil, and sweat.

Can you post some photos? I imagine you have the veggies in plant pots. I need to create a kitchen garden here at our new house, with all you mention, plus herbs (oregano, rosemary, thyme, and so on), plus raspberries and strawberries.

 

[on the brink]

Can you post some photos? I imagine you have the veggies in plant pots. I need to create a kitchen garden here at our new house, with all you mention, plus herbs (oregano, rosemary, thyme, and so on), plus raspberries and strawberries.

I tried strawberries but they take up a lot of space and yield very few berries. Raspberries are more rewarding, as they grow up and can be trained on a wire frame. Some varieties yield two crops per year.

The plants were in the ground, into specially made beds with wood sides, raised about 30 cms. and filled with a compost-enriched soil mix.

The tomatoes grew quickly and were about two meters high, but as I said the fruit was pitiful. Will try to dig up some photos.

Another rewarding crop is acelga; we kept cutting the bottom leaves and the plant enthusiastically grew new ones at the top. Lived off eight acelga plants for about two months.