Growing fruit and using it too.
Have you ever heard of sea cabbage, a wild cousin of the domesticated brassicas? Did you know that edible bananas are a primitive plant thought to be related to some of the first trees of the primeval forest? I didn’t either until this weekend when I was finishing up an article on unusual vegetables and …
Until very recently, pawpaws have been one of those mythical fruits that I’ve known about for ages, but have never seen in person. Until just a few years ago I was under the mistaken impression that they are native to the Southeastern United States, but not available here. Chalk it up to geographical ignorance; I …
The other day I happened upon a store that was selling four different types of passion fruit (passiflora) simultaneously. While I have tried some of these types separately before, finding four at once posed an excellent opportunity to judge them against each other. Then I figured why not try to collect the seeds and grow …
And make our own edible version of Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party! There has been a long and harried internal debate raging in my brain for days over that title. I have avoided making this post, worried that I will offend people by using the anatomically correct word for part of the female anatomy on a …
I can’t say with absolute certainty that this is what I am growing since the plant was given to me by someone way back in the spring, and she was unsure of the origin. All we know is that the plant is much larger and taller than the smaller ground cherries (I believe these are …
These gooseberries aren’t from my garden, although judging by the chewed up state of its leaves I’d hazard a guess that they have suffered a similar plight. A week or two back, what was supposed to be a quick trip to the community garden turned into a caterpillar squishing marathon. The gooseberry bush and the …
Strawberry pots have a bad reputation in the gardening world. They have poor water distribution and tend to dry out quickly. Sometimes they’re ugly. Or the pockets are too small. Or the pockets don’t have a lip, making holding soil in at planting time nearly impossible. The good ones are expensive to buy, if you …
