Not many people out of Russia know what the word dacha means in Russian. Meanwhile, it is an essential part of lives of a great number of people. Dacha is a specific place which is very common in Russia and other exs-soviet countries. Many people who live in flats far from the countryside, in cities or towns, want to have fresh fruit and vegetables grown by themselves. In my opinion, it is also a pleasure for them to grow everything from a seed and to know that they and their families eat healthy, ecologically pure food.
You can be surprised to see how simple looking most of dachas are. People used to buy a tiny plot of land or become a member of this specific dacha lovers comunity and build a construction which can be called a hut more than a house. People did not have much money, that is why they usually built their dachas themselves, by their own hands, and used the cheapest materials. Later, after the soviet era collapsed, the situation changed, but not for everyone.
Dachas can be located close to to people's places of living, quite far or even very far. I know people in Russia who have their dachas as far as in two hours by car or even worse - some hours by train from their homes.
On the first Saturday of September my friend invited me to come to their dacha for some vegetables and berries she wanted to share with me. It is not not far from our town and many people used to cycle or even walk there, but now we are getting lazy, so people usually drive, we were not an exclusion. In addition, that was a rainy and windy day, so another friend of mine picked me up and drove to the place.
Here we are!
The hosts were waiting for us near their dacha which is small but has enough space for them stay there for weeks in the summer.
They even have a sauna in a separate building on their plot. My friend's husband has build everything himself!!!
And a pretty place to relax after hard work.
In the first picture of this post you can see me with a pumpkin which had to be a melon 😀. The seeds were bought (in a shop!) as for a melon. The second one grew even bigger. Surprise!!!
They grow different vegetables: beetroots, cabbages, carrots, cucumbers.
What else? Aubergines and squashes, for sure.
My favorite place in the garden is where berries grow. The summer sort of strawberry:
And the sort of strawberry which harvests many times a year.
I collected red berries right from the bushes - to take home. Later I used some of them to try the new recipe to make crispy lightly solted cucumbers (see one of my previous posts, if you are interested).
Gooseberries were so ripe that could fall when you touch them not very carefully.
And flowers! Roses, asters, dahlias, gladiolis and pansies, and many, many more others which names I do not know.
The dull weather made my pictures not as bright as they could be, but the flowers are still very beautiful, aren't they? I hope you like them.
And now we are ready to go home. I have a lot of fruit and vegetable to cook for a couple of weeks (or more) and to put in the freezer for winter. Thank you, my dear friends, for that and for the pleasant time together!
Wow! I have a guest from my friend's dacha at home, and a very curious one!
Love fresh fruit and vegetables from a garden or directly from a farmer. They really taste so much better. What amazing fruit, vegetables and flowers. The size of that melon is also unbelievable.
That "melon" turned into pumpkin, a big surprise for the gardeners :-)