herbs and other delights

Borage - Borage puts down a long taproot which pulls up nutrients from deep in your soil into its leaves. At the end of the season you can put it in your compost pile and, when composted, will add lots of nice nutrients to your garden. Plus, it's pretty and the edible flowers look really spiffy in ice cubes!

Basil - PESTO! Need I say more? 

Dill - an essential in Italian Wedding Soup, and of course, dill pickles!

Fennel - the beneficial insects love it and it's fun to snatch a licorice-y treat straight from the garden!

Lemon Balm - I read in my mother's herb book that Lemon Balm is quite renowned for its beneficial qualities, and it's delicious in tea. Apparently it's also delicious to bees, and since I'm trying to grow several fruit and berry varieties, we need the bees!

Stevia - thought I'd try growing some of this natural sweetener this year.

I already have a few other things going, or seed packs in my basement - oregano, lovage, sage, and mint are the ones that I'm hoping will overwinter. Anyone else have a favorite herb?

Ok, I seriously want some of these (although I don't need 144 of them) - cow pots! Hahahahah. Made out of composted cow poo. Seriously, who comes up with this stuff? I don't love using peat since it's a non-renewable resource, but some seedlings just don't transplant well. I guess someone came up with a compromise. :)

I'm hoping to pick up a few of these too, to see how the soil in my various gardens is coming along. I put in a new 4x8 foot bed last year, and everything in there did terribly. The "soil" I had bought from Canadian Tire turned out to be mostly peat moss, which was disappointing. I think there just weren't enough nutrients available in the soil. That's why I planted a cover crop late last year (although not in enough time for it to grow much, oh well). Anyway, I'd like to see what else I need to add to it, aside from compost.

SEEDS!!!!!!

The time has come to start poring over seed catalogues! I've been doing so for the past couple weeks, taking my West Coast Seeds catalogue into the bathroom, bedroom, basement, kitchen...my husband just laughs at me. But that's ok because I'm dreaming about my garden! So in case you're interested in what I think I'm going to order and if you're nearby and want to go in on some of these with me, here's a list! Bear in mind, I don't plan to get them all, and if I do, it'll only be because I have someone to split the cost with!

West Coast Seeds: (a BC company)

Beans - Purple Peacock - 3.39 - for attractiveness in the front. I will plant them around the trunks of my new trees to (hopefully) provide nitrogen for the trees and also for some nifty color.

Beans - Tri-color - 3.39 - for an extended harvest
Beans - Orca - 3.39 - for drying beans! I tried a different variety last year and loved them.
Beans - Sayamusume (edamame) - 5.99 - for fun!

Broccoli - Gypsy - 3.39 - for seeding in summer to get a concentrated harvest in autumn. I grew these last year, and until the cabbage moths found the plants, the broccoli was amazing. Like, "I suddenly like broccoli" amazing!

Carrots - Rainbow blend - 3.99 - love the variety of colors in my soup! And they last forever in the fridge (I just finished the last of them in January)

?Kale - Lacinato - 2.99 - snazzy looking, the leaves are heavy enough to dehydrate

Lettuce - Super Gourmet Salad Blend - 3.39 - I've had this one for a few years and just love it. The boys walk past and grab bits of the top and the plants don't mind at all! They are great in all weather and as they get bigger I thin them out (by eating more salad) so they can grow into full heads. I've never had to re-seed because if you just pick outer leaves, they just keep on giving!

Peas - Sugar Ann (snap peas) - 4.85 - picked for their disease resistance. I want to put them into my new raised bed to improve the soil
Peas - Mr. Big (shelling) - 3.29 - just for some nice tall trellis peas up against the fence! They also have good disease resistance.

Winter squash - Gold Nugget - 3.95 - I'm a big fan of compact squash plants in small gardens!
Pumpkins - Galeux d'Eysines - 3.99 - apparently it's the best for pumpkin pies. Who am I to quibble? Plus they're mildew resistant, a disease I had a problem with last year. Also, it will not cross-pollinate with my Gold Nugget because they are different sub-species. That means I can collect seeds and they will be true to type (remember that post in October?). I might be cutting it a little close with the days to maturation though. Better start it early!

?Swiss Chard - Bright Lights - 3.29 - I planted it in the front last year and got many compliments on the plant - it's amazing as an edible ornamental!

Tomatoes - Taxi (still have seeds) - Last year this plant produced over 50 sweet, medium-sized, yellow tomatoes... in a pot!
Tomatoes - Early Girl - 2.99 - I love these vining plants! They have huge leaves and lots of tomatoes. I got converted to them by my mother-in-law. :)


Bow Seeds (an Alberta company)

Broccoli - Gourmet Mixed Hybrids - 1.95 - for an extended harvest without having to remember to re-seed every 2 weeks!

Cabbage - Danish ballhead - 1.95 - I just want to try more brassicas this year. I want to have them all in the same raised bed so I can cover them all with a bug cloth to keep out those dratted cabbage moths.
Cabbage - Red Acre - 1.95

Carrots - Danvers half-long - 1.75 - mature early for those little guys who are sure to be wanting a garden snack!

Cucumber - Chill Out - 2.25 - I've never had much luck with cucumbers. Thought I'd try an Alberta variety!

Onions - Yellow Dutch - 3.75
Onions - Red Onions - 3.75

Peppers - New Ace Hybrid - 2.95 - extra early, a pepper for the prairies!

Tomato - Arctic Fire - 3.50 - Super early tomato that can set even in cool conditions.

Veseys - a PEI company

?Kale - Black Magic - 2.50 - thinking this one is a little cheaper that the West Coast one. If I have enough seeds I want to order from these guys, I'll chuck this one in.

Zucchini - Elegance - 4.75 - It has resistance to powdery mildew, which drove me crazy last year. Strangely enough, I've never had much luck with zucchini, so anything I can do to boost its production will be helpful!

?Swiss Chard - Kaleidoscope - 3.75 - way cheaper than the one at West Coast!

Tomatoes - Tiny Tim - 2.50 - lots of early ripening tiny tomatoes for those little hands that are itching for a garden snack!

Indoor Gardening Fun!

People always laugh when they come into my home in late winter. One year I had a 3 foot tomato plant growing on my kitchen table. It came up from my compost and I was curious to see how it would do inside! Last year it was a giant pot of sugar snap peas in the kitchen - trellis and all. This year, I have a variety of somewhat unusual plants. The herbs are nothing special, aside from the fact that it's the first time I've successfully grown enough herbs inside to be able to use them.

But the lemons, now those were a surprise. When I brought the plant inside in September, it completely shocked me by starting to bloom! I didn't think the amount of sunlight was very conducive, but apparently the plant had other ideas. I think that coming from the autumn chill into my cozy kitchen tricked it into blooming. And we're talking 20-30 flowers on this small plant. They had a very pungent odor that my mom recognized the moment she walked into my kitchen. She had this sudden flashback of her childhood in South America, climbing lemon trees with a saltshaker and eating salted lemons right off the tree, while avoiding the sharp barbs on the new growth. Yes, these puppies have BIG thorns!

My next surprise was the onset of, you guessed it, tiny lemons. I know I shouldn't have been surprised, but seriously, there was a foot of snow on the ground and 8 hours of sunlight per day. This picture was taken about a month ago. The largest lemon is now an inch in diameter! It still remains to be seen whether or not it will ripen without long sunlit days. Most of the flowers turned into tiny fruits, but the majority of them fell off unfortunately. Perhaps that's a result of the low photosynthesis happening in winter - the plant can't sustain that many fruits. Now there are 3 "large" and one tiny new one.

This last photo is of something I tried mostly to satisfy my curiosity. Would it really work to sprout celery from the butt end of a grocery-store stalk? Apparently, the answer is yes! Put it in a glass of water for a couple weeks then plant! I'm anxious to see if they continue to grow, since they didn't develop much of a root system in the water. I think I should have raised it up so it wasn't sitting right on the bottom of the cup. Oh well. It was a cheap experiment. :)

Now it's your turn! What have you been doing indoors in this extra-long winter?