Many of the flowers on this plate have come from early spring veggies and greens that are bolting in the early summer heat. All of them make for good eating, and the pollinators and beneficial insects like them, too. Allow the plants to mature and you’ll have free seed to sow in the late summer/early …
Like everything this year, the garden has been a little slow in producing spring salads fixings. Salad greens and sundry, i.e spinach, mustard greens, cress, lettuce, and radishes, to name just a few — are some of the first crops that I sow directly outdoors each spring. As soon as the soil is workable (meaning …
Salad greens are one of the first crops that I start outdoors. It snowed today, but as soon as the soil is workable, I will be out there, seeds in hand, to get started. As with Seed Starting 101, I have created a permanent page that lists all of the best posts around the subject …
I went to my local Italian grocer this week and chose seed packs for the contest. I tried to stick with varieties that winners can grow in a variety of conditions whether that’s location/climate, season, small spaces, big spaces, and containers. Some of these can be direct sown and some should be started indoors. Something …
We’re hitting that magical time of the season when a growing portion of our meals are gleaned from the garden. I enjoy moving around the space, snipping bits of this and that from here and there. I have edibles tucked in everywhere. There are lettuce seedlings in every bed, except the dry one. They would …
Imagine my surprise when I pulled back the row cover at the back of my garden and found this pot full of living ‘Four Seasons’ lettuce that I had planted last fall and forgot about. It survived the winter! I love these little mistakes that result in new discoveries. Yes, our winter was much milder …
It’s become a tradition and now that I live in an Italian neighbourhood it’s pretty much a requirement. When my local Italian greengrocer set out the seed rack I did a little happy dance, and it was then that I knew I was doomed to buy more seed than I will ever have room to …
Back in late April I mentioned our plans to become self-sufficient in salad fixings. I said, “Starting next month (or so), I don’t want to buy a single head of lettuce ever again, if I can help it.” A month or so later and we are on the way. Over the last few weeks we’ve …
On the bright side, none of the clothespins had been tampered with. The problem was that I had run out of foraged-from-the yard clothespins and figured I could just tuck the back in against the wall. I’m laughing at myself now as I write this. It’s as if I am new to this here gardening …
I have begun to purchase seeds for the 2011 growing season, and because I now live in an Italian neighbourhood, I have easy access to Italian edibles. The above photo represents my first, in-store (as opposed to online), impulse seed purchase of the year. Most of the seeds I bought were varieties of radicchio (Cichorium …
You are looking at one of this year’s serendipitous brainstorms. I feel perhaps a little bit too genius for coming up with it, when really, it’s just an enamel colander filled with ‘Sea of Red’ cutting lettuce and hanging in a wire basket. I quite like it. So much so that I haven’t had the …
I bought this plant Claytonia nevadensis, also known as Sierra Spring Beauty, a few weeks ago on a trip to Lost Horizons, a nursery located in the town of Acton. The plant is endemic to California, growing along rocky streams high up in the Sierra Nevada mountains. I bought the plant hoping it is edible …