Growing Greens Indoors in Winter

In the polar vortex regions, gardeners are often looking for the magic formula to have healthy greens during the winter. There's always extending the season under cold frames, polytunnels and by bringing vegetables into a cellar or processing them to eat later by canning, freezing and drying but what about growing? Growing is so much fun. Some people have had enough of a break by January that they want to get their hands dirty again. Well, let me enable you with these four techniques:

1. Sprouting roots


Photo from a previous post where I also explore fridge sprouting and a great book on Salad Greens.

In my experience, this is by far the easiest. It can be done with roots you grew yourself and stored in a cellar* OR you can do it with the roots from your C.S.A. delivery OR the Organic Farmer's Market OR really any root you get from the grocery store.

Simply, get a vegetable that produces both edible greens and roots such as a beet and plant it so that it starts sending that stored rooty energy into making delicious fresh greeny goodness for you. Try it with:

• Onions: after all they are always sprouting in your drawer right?
• Garlic: this can even be done with crowded cloves in a dish of water
• Leek, Green Onions: Even after you cut off the greens to eat, just leave a portion with the roots
• Beets: Beet greens are yummy (you can do this with Swiss Chard too if you have taken in your own roots or happen to find some with roots at you veg. supplier)
• Carrots: I don't find these thrilling greens but it can be done.
• Dandelions: For milder greens, grow without light
• Chicory, all sorts: Particular types are used to produce Belgium Endive by forcing the roots in the dark
• Celery, celeriac
• Parsley
• Sweet Potatoes: Yes, these have edible greens too. 
• Turnips
• And more, just make sure the greens are edible (as not all tubers produce edible greens)

Celery and walking onion growing on my window sill.

2. Sprouting seeds

Second up comes seed sprouting. There is no lack of internet-searchability on this subject but it's essentially germinating the seed and eating them at the baby plant stage. Make sure that you use seeds and seedlings that are safe to eat. Good candidates from your own garden are mustards, broccoli, dill and other plants that produce an abundance of seed. You can go quite sophisticated with specialized tailor made equipment or as simple as a glass jar. All sorts of grains, herb seeds and vegetable seeds are used though it is suggested that some of them are eaten cooked. For ideas, you could go to one of the commercial sites to gander at their extensive lists.

3. Microgreens and cut and come again salads


Growing pea shoots in winter.

The older siblings of sprouts, microgreens are allowed to grow a touch bigger. I'm a fan of pea shoots that are easy to grow on a windowsill in winter. They can be grown in a shallow dish of water or in soil. If allowed to get big enough to cut down in bunches, you get the holy grail of indoor salads, the cut and come again.** Succession sow a new tray every few weeks as they may peter out quickly in crowded, less than ideal growing conditions.

4. Aquaponics!

Okay, so the reason I was inspired to write this post was because fellow blogger at Whistling Girls and Crowing Hens has ventured into the fascinating world of clay balls, fish tubs, and worms to grow her winter salads. For those of you with an empty basement corner looking for a fun project, this might be your solution. Instead of stumbling through my own description, I'll let her take you on an aquaponic adventure.

* There are lots of cellar designs, including ones build into a corner of your basement, but roots will also store a long time in the fridge (and eventually sprout there).
** The holy grail is probably the indoor tomato but that would deserve its own post.

Collecting Hablitzia Seed

Hablitzia plant on the north side of a shed.

Have you heard? My Hablitzias have set seed and they look good! You haven't heard? That surprises me considering how loud I shouted when I discovered it but maybe you were listening to music or something or mistook me for an angry raven. Anyhow, on the off chance, you haven't heard:

"My Hablitzia tamnoides gave me seed!!"


Closeup of seedpods and seed.

You don't know what I'm talking about? Spinach from the Caucasus? Perennial, shade tolerant green? Our friend Habby. Stephen Barstow is always going on about it.

Stephen? Extreme salad man? Okay so now you're intrigued.

Let's go back to the Habby seeds.

Aren't they lovely?


Before I winnow, I'm going to let it dry down a bit more but looks promising.

Next year, all going well, Habby plants will be exiting my greenhouse (still under construction and by under construction I mean shovel yet to hit the dirt but I have days marked off on my calendar so soon) in the spring for sale. Woohoo!

***

Friends of Hablitzia

Eat My Front Yard

As requested, here is a post on front and centre edible gardening.

My old front yard had a large spiral garden planted with herbs, perennial edibles, ornamentals and fruiting trees and shrubs. If you followed the spiral to its centre, a small stone bench awaited beneath a grape vine (not pictured here - instead peas climb up the trellis).

Tired of the growing green cement in your front yard? Or perhaps you have thriving perennial beds but have run out of space to plant veggies? Maybe it's just that the only tomato growing sun is in the front?

Ever watch a kid interact with a lawn? If they are not spinning in circles or kicking a ball, they gravitate to the bushes and flowers at the edges or search out the weeds. The 'yawn' becomes a blank palette on which the eye searches for interest. Why not paint boldly.

Well then what's stopping you from growing your food for all to see?

Here is a formal decorative vegetable garden before planting at the Museum of Agriculture. It's not messy but it is terribly boring early in the season and requires some pretty diligent weeding to keep up those bare spots. Orderly shapes compliment the sometimes rangy growth habits of vegetables but without anything at all growing they are merely geometrical.

The biggest issue is that people worry that veggies are messy. Because we view food as coming from utility plants, we have a hard time imagining them replacing the frilly fancies that normally dot the front. Not to fear. In this case, you can have your blooms and eat them too. There is more than one strategy to add edibles to your front yard.

Some purists only plant what enhances the garden's ability to make food either because it's a cover crop, a trap crop, habitat for friendly bugs or because it's food. Others add the odd veggie here and there among their flowers and still others prefer more prescriptive approaches such as forest gardens¹ or decorative potager. There's no right way but here are some design tips to help with curb appeal.

Bones

The visible skeleton of my old spiral garden that faced south though was variably shaded by a beautiful old Linden and a red oak in its prime. The main paths were stone inlaid with old pavers, secondary paths were lined with blasting stone and wood/leaf mulch that was also applied around the perennials. Compost and manure completed the top dressed amendments.

Just like designing a purely decorative garden, structure will keep the garden looking organized even in the early spring before perennials have popped up their heads or bedding plants have been tucked in. There are two main types of bones: hard structures like paths and arbours and woodies like bushes and trees.

In the beginning... Some softer bones in the form of fruit trees. I got these in the ground before I built the rest of the garden around them. The bush in the middle was removed and replaced by the stone bench and a grape vine but the three trees remained: two apples and a self fertile plum. This picture gives a sense of the large swath of south(ish) facing lawn that once graced the front yard. By the end of our stay, it had shrunk to a bit less than a third of its original dimensions.

Especially if you are planning on growing a lot of typical annual vegetables in your front yard, you'll want to have an attractive, strongly structured shape to your garden to give eye-appeal even if the beds are empty and to offset the often rangy growth habit of veggies. Start by looking at the shapes and structures already present: dimensions of your house, the shape of your yard, any standout features like rocks, trees etc... Even less noticeable features like a slight dip can be taken advantage of and enhanced.

Next ask, how do you use your yard? Do you like to sit out front and watch the world go by or would like to make it a bit more private (without blocking lines of sight for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists of course). What is the most common route that you take across it? This will help define the main path and any additional features you'd like to add such as a bench.

I love how little care I seem to take in staging pictures (she says sarcastically). The knee pad is a nice touch in this client's garden where a stone and mulch path leads from the front door to the back. Along its edge is a healthy row of kale. This client requested an entirely raw, edible garden. Kale chips were a favourite.

Note the shape of your yard and start breaking it apart in the mind's eye. Inside a square, a circle can be drawn and then a garden placed either within or at the edges. Structure can also be provided by more naturalistic shapes such as curves. Trace them out with a line of flour, a hose or by doing the dotted line - my usual technique. I turn over clods of sod along the line and then examine it at all angles to decide if it has the right affect. Be bold. Just remember you will need access paths approximately ever four feet both for maintenance and so you can wander around your paradise admiring the small details.² If dealing with the whole yard seems daunting at first, focus on a feature such as a bird bath or existing garden and build outward from it.

I am a big believer in four seasons of fun gardening. Though during the white one, it's mostly playing in a polytunnel. Therefore, I plant lots of spring flowers and early risers along with edible perennials that give tender shoots shortly after the weather warms like Hablitzia or asparagus. If you prefer, you can go native. The same holds for fall when I love late flowers like asters combined with the glorious seed heads of amaranth and the violet blues of cabbage.

Also giving year round structure are the woody plants such as fruiting trees but don't discount evergreens. Though not as edible as apples or currants, their branches can be clipped to shelter other plants and they provide long season interest.

As the season wears on, the spiral is less obvious for those not walking it and the textures of plants emerges. This garden is as bursting with things to eat as to look at and smell. See list below.

Mature fruit trees often have beautiful natural shapes and liven up spring with their short lived flurry of blooms but various pruning techniques can limit shading such as splaying the branches against the wall or making stopover trees so that more plants can be grown around them.

Canadian Organic Gardeners maintains a little herb and veggie patch at the Museum of Agriculture. Here they have rhubarb and currant underplanting apples if I remember correctly.

Another alternative is the hedgerow. Generally a wild, mixed, woody boundary or living fence. Hedgerows are not just attractive but provide food and shelter to wildlife and yourself.

Not Just Herbs: Edible Perennials

Here are 'just' some herbs: sage and oregano planted in the dryer, sunnier part of the garden.

Not that I want to discount the beautiful flowering herbs like catmint, lavender, sage, oregano, and thyme but I'd like to include less well known edible herbs like lovage, sweet cicely, garlic chives, mondarda, and sorrel. For those who have not yet investigated, the list of perennial edibles is surprisingly long including well known favourites such as daylily and hosta (yes, the early spring shoots that Stephen - edible plant collector extraordinaire - calls hostons), natives like prickly pear and strawberries and other favourites such as asparagus and perennial onions. Many of these are very attractive plants that are not out of place in a decorative garden.

Needing careful placement, this towering giant among useful perennial edibles - Jeruselum Artichoke - was put at the side and back of the garden in its own bed as it is seasonally dug out. By being kept to the back, its absence in spring and fall are not so noticeable nor is its presence too foreboding at the height of its growth. Instead it is a lovely backdrop. P.S. If you tend your garden, rumours of its invasive nature are at least slightly exaggerated in my opinion in our climate. If you do not spend your days lovingly coddling your plants then you might forget a patch long enough to require few years of diligent removal. Radix Rhizowen recently made a discovery when trying to eradicate a patch with landscaping fabric. The forced shoots are quite tasty.

The list of edible perennial plants is surprisingly long and they are often beautiful. In fact many plants started their history as useful only to be converted to decorative along the way such as balloon flower and bloody dock.

One of my favourites: Sweet cicely - all parts edible tasting like sweet anise - lines the partly shaded path toward the back, grown with clematis and alpine strawberry, mallow and iris.

Ringing your annual beds with compact, short statured herbs is not only useful but also acts as another reliable feature around the rangy pumpkins or potatoes. Having lots of diverse flowering plants will also feed beneficial insects and confuse the signals pests use to find their host plants. Breaking up plantings slows the spread of disease too.

Sperling toga onion underplanting Nanking Cherry.

To explore the world of possibilities when it comes to edible perennials, check out the sites Plants for a Future³ and Richters. Also look up books such as Perennial Vegetables, various titles called Edible Landscaping, Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden, Food not Lawns and Uses for Wild Plants and The New Food Garden by Tozer. Search terms like wild edible foods, foraging, permaculture and hardy culinary herbs can inspire you too.

Perennial/walking kale currently is continuing its winter hardiness trial in my garden, backed by the flowers of the spready Dame's Rocket (edible and not bad).

Decorative with Edible?

There is no law that states that you cannot grow peppers near Dahlia or Coreopsis.

In early summer, this garden is alive with iris along with orach, lemon balm (ack - that's one that you shouldn't let seed), malva, salad burnet, strawberries, elderberry, lovage, young currants, Bellis perennis and more.

Turn the rules of design on your edibles to make something pretty and functional, ex. compare and contrast, don't put your sweet potatoes near something that doesn't like root disturbance. A well mulched perennial bed with plants carefully chosen to thrive in that garden's conditions can be pretty low care.⁴

Cabbage in the background facing the street and lavender in the foreground playing off cabbage's bluish leaves.

That's not to discount annuals. Many people add bedding annuals such as marigolds to look at and to ward off pests. When incorporating temporary plantings, make sure that everyone has enough space to do their thing though as sometimes annuals can suffer next to well established thugs.

Salsify was grown here as a self seeding root crop. Here their early morning glory is echoed in the giant purple alliums.

Classic annuals

Dark leafed elderberry (not convinced by this cultivar as a fruit crop by the way), is threaded by bicolour runner bean.

Mixing it up with annuals and biennials will mean that you disturb the beds more either by exposing ground for seed or transplants and to harvest or remove debris. Some good places for annuals are the border edge especially for greens and root crops before they go to seed, spaces between young perennials and dedicated annual pockets.

A dedicated annual planting pocket that was soon overgrown with tomatoes. These spaces can be rotated. If rotation and perennial planting sounds confounding, here's my exploration of the subject.

Don't forget that you can embed pots around the garden too. Having the pot in contact with the soil and surrounded by greenery may keep them moist longer.

These two habanero peppers were placed on the ground and abandoned while I traipsed off to visit relatives for a month. I was happy to see them alive when I returned. The rain must have cooperated.

There are plenty of colourful edibles such as rainbow swiss chard, purple leafed beet, golden anise hyssop, amaranth and eggplants, and others that are texturally compelling such as feathery leafed carrots and parsley, glaucous cabbage and kale or strap like chufa and salsify.

Some texturally interesting plants seen head on including soft leafed orach, the whirl of salad burnet, and the increasingly fine dissection of the malva leaves. I love, love Rhubarb as leaf plant. It is particularly nice paired with rainbow swiss chard and nasturtiums.

In keeping with decorative, veggies should be neat and by that I don't necessarily mean in orderly rows or blocks though that's an option. Make sure their best features show by removing diseased leaves and growing sprawlers up. I can see how peas intertwining through a shrub can be beautiful but otherwise, you'll want to trellis vines with something that doesn't say utility.

The Museum of Agriculture's potager (shown above) late in the season with some type of dwarf, upright pepper and the edible designer's darling: rainbow swiss chard. Note how the tomatoes on the trellis are looking very scruffy.

Just like in regular garden design, keep large plants to the middle or back of a bed. Some vegetables will look sickly before harvest is finished such as tomatoes and squash that tend toward foliar disease. I wouldn't put these front and centre if you are going for maximum eye appeal. Others that will be harvested early can be replaced with a second crop or bedding plants.

Self seeding annuals

Yes, it's a fav: orach. That's the bright red one, along with osaka mustard and red ursa kale. Perennial onions spiking up in the background. These were all self sown.

Lots of edibles such as chicory, oyster root, magenta spreen, amaranth, and kale will give you a second, third or more harvest from an initial planting if only they are left to go to seed (which may not be until the second year). There are two problems. One is that a tidy, ruby head of radicchio placed at the front of the border can become a four foot spindly giant the following year. If you are planning on letting them go to seed, keep their final height in mind. You may want to plant diagonal swathes, removing those in the front and letting those at the back do their wild reproductive thing. The flowers will add to the diversity of your garden.

Yes, this is my old backyard and I actually think these bowing heads of parsley preparing to invade my yawn are cute but you can see the problem. P.S. They are leaning on what used to be my veggie patch. It was reconverted to lawn for sale. Apparently people like lawns?

You may want to bend seed heads toward where you'd like them to travel or cut and lay them down in a new spot. The other issue is that if you heavily mulch then you may get few reseeders. For this reason, I used to do my main mulching before reseeding (depends on the plant and the mulch, how well they'll do seeding into mulch) or after the volunteers are up and thinned in the spring. One easy way to rejuvenate an area is to stir the top few inches soil in spots near where plants have gone to seed.⁵ When I replaced my vegetable garden with lawn before selling, I just spread out the dirt and sprinkled some grass seed. What emerged was a swatch of salad greens germinating alongside the grass and clover.

And with that we come full circle.

What grew in the front?

Below is just what I remember growing in my old front yard that was edible. It doesn't include all the great stuff in the backyard or all the possibilities. At my new place, I'm going totally wild (in a so much space, so much choice kind a way!)

Currants

Gooseberries

Jostaberry

Hostas

Chives

Garlic Chives (eat the flowers or you'll have lots)

Daylilies

Strawberries - pink, white flowered and alpine

Apples

Pears

Cherries

Blueberries

Horseradish (near the back)

Jeruselum Arichoke (near the back)

Yarrow (marginal!)

Oregano

Sage

Thyme

Lavender

Mint (yikes!)

Mitsuba - purple leafed

Salsify

Scrozonera

Red Valerian - not bad in the spring

Violets

Violas

Rhubarb

Borage

Spiderwort

Rugosa

Crosnes

Hosta (spring shoots)

Solomon Seal (spring shoots)

Grapes

Seakale

Prickly Pear

Strawberry Spinach

Bloody Dock

Calendula

Trilliums (shoots) - no I couldn't eat them, too pretty

Bellis Perennis

Bellflower(s)

Balloon Flower

Sedum (check varieties)

Cinammon Yam (didn't like me)

Perennial Leek

Ox-eye daisy (marginal according to me)

Raspberry - not for front yards me thinks - moved.

Rugosa rose

Various edible flowers and tea plants: catmint, monarda, hibiscus, dianthus and so forth

Mustard

Celeriac

Peas

Peppers

Eggplants

Sunberry

Kale

Nasturtiums

Cabbage

Lettuce

Garlic

Landcress

Sunflower

Corn

Cucumbers

1. Seen as belonging to a much wider gardening (and increasingly lifestyle) practice called permaculture, this link takes you to a man who popularized the term forest garden.

2. My spiral garden was planted in part to obscure the path in order to invite people to walk its distance. It was challenging planting for height in the middle of each bed but also graduations as you moved toward the centre, from front to back AND from the house to the far side. Also, I wanted lots of little features that could only be seen up close. I enjoyed making it!

3. Double-check their info for your own peace of mind and remember whenever you try something new, go slow! I find that their hardiness ratings are sometimes off. They are located in the UK so growing info is skewed to that climate.

4. I would feel remiss if I didn't mention that certain plants can affect each others' growth negatively or positively. These interactions aren't always so visible especially if the plants are in a rich garden environment where they can compensate for slight insults. However, the classic example would be the strongly allopathic affect of black walnut that inhibits the growth of certain plant families such as tomatoes and their kin.

5. Seeds have different longevities of course and weeds also inhabit your seed bank which is why some people are hesitant about recommending self seeding annuals in perennial planting schemes as to allow them to self seed, you often need to let down your mulch guard a little. That and some self seeders do so at nuisance numbers. I'm an equal opportunity edible gardener though as you can see so I included many.

Dandelion to the Rescue Harvest Monday

This fall, among the beets, parsnips and carrots, I dug out of the ground, I also collected dandelion roots. They were stored in fall leaves in a pot in our cellar. About a month ago, I started taking them out to force.

Some were potted in moistened soil and left to grow in the near dark of the furnace room. A small window makes for soft green rather than yellow leaves. After harvesting these milder dandelion greens, they were moved upstairs to the kitchen window where within days they became deep green and prepared to flower! Can't wait to see those sunshine yellow blooms.

These dandelion and chicory roots were soaked in water for a few hours than place in a freezer bag in the vegetable drawer of our fridge to sprout as mentioned in Salad Leaves for All Seasons by Dowding.

I particularly like eating bitters in deep winter as a vitamin and mineral rich tonic.

***

You've heard it before and I'll say it again: many weeds are good for you and the queen of them all is arguably the Taraxacum officinale. It is hardy, doesn't take much room and requires even less care, pretty if you can get past the reflex to eject it from the earth and useful. Roots can be roasted, leaves used in all manner of recipe calling for 'greens' and petals can give their delicate flavour to baked goods or even wine. If you find dandelion greens too bitter then concentrate on eating new growth in the spring or blanch like you might endive by placing a plate over the crown. You can also harvest them in the fall to use in the winter!

There are various species of dandelions including red leaved, pink or white flowered too. In places where dandelion is grown as a green more commonly, there are some that have been selected for juicy hearts or thicker leaves such as Ameliore a Coeur Plein and Vert de Montmagny but the common weed is wonderful enough. Instead of pulling out every dandelion you see, give a few some extra love and experiment in the kitchen with this edible perennial.

***

More Dandelion ideas at Floridata - Never heard of Cramaillotte before.

I just had to include this recipe as the pictures are great: Dandelion Flower Fritters

Edible Gardening Workshop

Because I love going on and on about edible gardening, I gave a workshop for the Ottawa Homeschoolers. As they gave me the mandate of 'talk about gardening from seed starting to seed saving,' it ended up being borderline for T.M.G.I. or Too Much Gardening Information! So here is a synopsis of my endless stream of words, with links.

Where can I grow edibles?

Do you have clean dirt? No, then you can grow in pots. Otherwise, these are things you do NOT need to grow edibles:

1. Full Sun - Lots of edibles, including traditional vegetables do just fine in 4-6 hours of sun, even in 2-4 hours of sun or dabbled shade. I write lots of about shade crops here.
2. Well drained soil - the soil texture you have will effect how plants grow but choosing wisely will allow you to grow edibles practically anywhere.
* Dry soil - xeriscaping edibles from this blog.
* Wet soil edibles from Plants for a Future
* Mother Earth News on Shade Vegetables


When do you start seeds?

All year round! Other than this link to Seed Starting, An Irreverant Primer where there is lots of info and a link to a spreadsheet created by I Wet My Plants, here are some other things we talked about.

1. Wintersowing - the technique of using crafty mini-greenhouses to start plants outside
2. Half winter sowing or indoor/outdoor growing - fun way to start tomatoes
3. Fall Gardens - why give up on the garden after summer? Grow snow to snow! If you are feeling especially adventurous, season extension in a cold frame may even allow you to harvest most of the year.
4. In situ fall sowing - Lots of hard to germinate plants such as some edibles (sweet cicely, turnip rooted chevril), wildflowers and fruit trees need a period of moist stratification. This can be done inside but is super easy to do by enlisting nature's help. Just sow in fall in a marked bed. Tada! If sowing something tasty to rodents such as fruit pits, you'll want to use small gage chicken wire to exclude them. I use a pot filled with sand that I bury to germinate fruit seeds.
5. ... and not everything is a tomato - How the other vegetables are grown.

Books
The four season harvest (or anything else) by Coleman. Keep in mind that he is an intensive market grower but he has lots to say to the backyard organic veggie gardener too.


What should I grow?

We didn't go into as much detail on this as I would have liked so I will expand. When choosing what vegetables to grow, especially when you have a small plot, there are (at least) three options.

1. Grow vegetables that are easily contaminated by deathicides, are expensive bought and taste significantly better when homegrown. Funnily enough, these are often the same ones as thin skinned fruits meet all three criterea. A good example: raspberries. Tomatoes too are fantastic homegrown.

2. Calorie crops is an option for someone that really wants to grow their own. It focuses on using legumes and easy to thresh grains along with starchy vegetables such as potatoes. Some literature about 'calorie crops' talks about intensive gardening/farming which may or may not be feasible depending on your access to resources. Some techniques also tends to rely on double digging and intensive water use which may be short sighted in the long term.

3. Favor perennials or self sowing annuals whenever possible. Why not try a food forest? This is a technique that combines useful trees, bushes and plants into a layered system. It can be resistant to diseases and pests because of its diverse nature, can be very attractive and has a good productivity when plants are chosen wisely compared to work required after the initial set up.

Books

* Gaia's Garden by Hemenway - intro book to permaculture techniques
* Edible Forest Gardens by Jacke and Toensmeier - never read but looks good
* Perennial Vegables by Toensmeier - fun!
* The New Food Garden by Tozer - excellent!!
* Unusual Fruits for Every Garden by Reich - enlightening.
* HomeGrown Whole Grains by Pitzer - good resource
- how to process Amaranth (for C.)
* The Resilant Gardener by Deppe (about self sustainability and calorie crops. She's a great author and I'm sure it is full of useful information. I have not had the opportunity to read this highly rated book but she's made excellent contributions to gardening literature before so I'm going to recommend it anyway.)
* Culinary Herbs by Small

Sources for Fruit & Nut Trees
- I don't have these down yet in a convenient list so this is my next post, swear.

Websites:

Plants for a Future - perennial edible and useful plant resource, double check info as it is European skewed and remember that there is almost always conflicting info so it's best to get more than one independent source.
Urban Farmer - permaculture design resource


Soil Secrets

Good dirt is a symbiotic creation of numerous organisms including invertebrates, fungi and plants. Without plants, in fact, you would not have the sort of 'soil' that supports the growth of complex systems such as forests. This is why when you expose dirt, you get the germination of weeds. It is not because there is a problem with your soil. It is a function of the metacreature/ecosystem 'soil' to repair the scar that has developed across its surface with more growth. Without a cover of plants or mulch, the humus is exposed to the elements speeding up its breakdown, as well as being subjecting to erosion by soil and water. This is why overtilling degrades the soil. Over digging will also breakup good soil structure that allows for water and root penetration.

Sometimes, such as when starting or improving poor soils, you dig. Some people also insist that they have to expose heavy soils to early spring sunshine or they won't warm sufficiently fast enough for certain crops to grow well. Also, certain difficult weeds need to be removed or smothered if there is any hope of an easy to care for garden. Otherwise, normal digging such as when a plant is removed or tubers are harvested is all the digging that should be required. I also recommend edging gardens to keep out invading sod/grass twice a year.

When starting a garden, it is easiest to use no-dig methods such as Lasagna Gardening or Sheet Mulching or the Stout Method. Raised garden beds to will solve a multitude of problems.

So if you want an easy to care for garden, remember to leave no soil bare for long because nature will fix that problem for you rather quickly by filling in the gaps using its soil seed bank. By the way, you can change the balance of the soil seed bank by allowing desireable plants go to seed. That way, when you disturb the soil, you'll get a high percentage of plants you would like to see growing, along with the weeds. I've seen this develop in my old garden. What a pleasant surprise. Otherwise, mulch and plant. Work with the metacreature: soil.


Weeds

There are lots of reasons to love weeds, especially those that are relatively easily controlled. Beyond keeping the soil covered and protected, they can act to improve it.

1. Green Manure: If you pull weeds before flowering and they aren't the kind that easily reroot or set seed anyhow - such as purslane but then again it is edible - just throw them back on the soil surface. You'll be working with nature by covering the soil but also adding those nutrients back.

2. They provide a habitat for lots of beneficial insects and creatures (along with the occasional pest). Reseacher Hida Manns writes about the benefits of leaving strips of naturally occuring plants between her vegetable rows. She manages these by cutting them back so they don't compete for light with her vegetables. She also uses a version of sheet mulching to build gardens. If you thought the other methods of sheet mulching were easy, you should see what she does. As she said, several of her babies were born at the beginning of the growing season so low care gardens were a priority.

3. Many weeds are edible. Purslane, lamb's quarters, wild amaranth, dandelion etc... are among the most common garden weeds are all edible!


Pests and Diseases

When it comes to having a healthy garden, think good soil (remember the metacreature I'm going to call ploilsant - sounds exotic right?) and diversity. Plant lots of different plants together to break up sight, scent and other signals of pests, rotate where annual plants are grown but keep in mind that diseases sometimes stay in the soil much longer than the often quoted 4 year cycle. Here's more the difficulty of using rotation in a small gardening situation.

Before freaking about a new pest, use the three year rule. First year, identify the pest and do your best to exclude it from your plants or remove it using hand picking. Second year, use the methods of exclusion, inclusion, rotation and removal,* along with observing the pest. If it is still a problem in the third year, strategize about how to live with it. You may need to keep certain weeds or habitats out of your garden which are allowing the pest to overwinter. You may need to use row covers, trap crops or you may choose to stop growing the plant all together in favour of something easier. In a heatlhy, diverse garden, I've noticed, that most pests are not plagues every year but fade in and out depending on conditions.

* Exclusion, inclusion, rotation and removal? Exclude the bug using barriers like cutworm collars and floating row cover, include lots of habitat for beneficials and mix up plants, rotate plant groups including growing types (roots versus heavy feeders for example), and remove pests when you see them.

Links:

Keeping Bugs out or is that in?


Hot Season and Cool Season Crops

Read more about how to heat up your soil to grow sweet potatoes or peppers successfully here. On the other hand, if you can never get a descent broccoli, go here. And lastly, think fall gardening for lots of cool season crops that bolt in the dog days of summer.

Season Extension

Books

Anything by Coleman or other books on 12 month/four season gardening
Sweet Potatoes for the Home Garden by Allan


Seed Saving and Plant Breeding

We didn't manage to go into too much detail on this very interesting subject but to recap, I think everyone should save seeds. It's fun and it's pretty easy! The common obstacles to overcome are knowing what plant you're growing. Does it self fertilize or need others of its kind to make seeds? Does it need bugs to move pollen around or will wind work? Will it cross with another vegetable and do I care? How many plants do I need to produce healthy offspring? Here I go on about seed saving, the rules and breaking them.

Another useful thing about letting plants go to seed, beyond the fact that many volunteer and create semi-feral populations like kale and orach, is that many provide food or habitat for useful insects.

Books:

Seed to Seed by Ashcroft - authorative
How to Breed your own Vegetable Varities by Deppe - great and fun

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Looking for someone to talk on any of these subjects or on my favourite subject, ornamental edible gardening, feel free to contact me at Ottawa Gardener at live dot com, no spaces.

Harvesting Horseradish Monday

I have noticed that the prefix horse is often put in front of what people consider coarse vegetables like horseradish, horse chestnut, and horsemint. Or perhaps it refers to a wild plant, found in fields like cow parsley or cow parsnip. Of course, adding field before plants is also common from field bindweed to field horsetail to go full circle.


On first inspection, not very promising - a bed of dead horseradish leaves.

The experts on wiki tell me that:

"Where the English name horseradish comes from is not certain. It may derive by misinterpretation of the German name Meerrettich ("sea radish") as Mährrettich ("mare radish"). Some think it is because of the coarseness of the root. In Europe the common version is that it refers to the old method of processing the root called "hoofing." Horses were used to stamp the root tender before grating it."

It is an exceptionally hardy member of the Brassicacaea family, considered if not invasive, then at least persistant. The roots, early shoots, and seeds can be used according to Plants for a Future. However, they are normally propagated vegetatively so you'll probably have to look elsewhere to seed your mustard mix.


Digging in the soil reveals roots and shoots.

Best known of its traditional uses is when the macerated root is mixed with vinegar to produce the piquant sauce bearing its name. I like horseradish sauce but don't use a whole lot of it so I thought I would follow up on advice given to me in several sources to boil the roots. This destroys the volatile 'mustard' oils producing a rather bland root vegetable. I'll let you know next time what it tasted like.


I love the soft focus of this picture - must have been steam forming on the lens after being outside in the ch-ch-chilly fall.

Despite its invasive nature, I tend to plant it In The Perennial Garden because I like the look of its large, coarse leaves. There is also a variegated variety sometimes available (you'll note most comments on the link are about locating it). These can provide a dramatic contrast with finer textured plants.


Picture of horseradish in flower with daylily in front if I remember correctly from my old garden.

Harvest Monday - Caption that Carrot

-- Your caption here -- This carrot must have gotten a bit too much nitrogen which I don't supplmentally provide so unless it was extra rich compost or a variety that is just prone to branching, I have to wonder what protein rich source stewed here... ew.

We are in the transition time where tenders like tomatoes and beans are still filling baskets but fall crops like kale and carrots are plumping up. In a couple of weeks, fresh harvest will transform from gazpachos and french cut beans to frosty green salads and hardy root stews. But I can't help but sampling a few roots now.

The crosnes are plumping up.


Talk about weird looking veg, here are some Stachys affinis

The greens and roots of self seeded salsify, black skinned scorzonera (both called oyster root) and even dandelion are edible - though I don't plan on eating the dandelion roots, just their greens. Roots will improve in flavour as starch is converted to sugar to act as an antifreeze after the first couple frosts but I'm willing to give them a taste test now.


Salad and main course.

Harvest Monday - Got Grapes

I think these are Concord.

Last year, I nearly pulled up the grape vine because it had never produced when I noticed my daughter pulling small purple balls from near the bottom of the vine. This was surprising as they were supposed to be some sort of light rose coloured grape but colour mismatch aside, the grape death sentence was stayed.


To thank me, the grape vine is dripping with fruit this year. They are sweet but seedy. Not bad for eating, but probably better for processing into grape jelly or juice. I think that this variety is the graft stock and everything above suffered some calamity such as winter kill or rabbit nibbling.

Washed by the rain, harvested grapes in a colander.

What to do with grapes?

1. Eat them
2. Juice - you know squish and strain.
3. Freeze as popsicles
4. Jelly
- Jelly without pectin
6. Grape Butter
6. Stuffed Grape Leaves
- Lots more on the wiki page: Dolma
7. Dehydrate seedless varieties for raisons
8. Make Fruit Leather
9. Wild Grape Wine
10. Wild Grape Yeast Starter


Cold Hardy Grapes Supplier and Info:


http://www.littlefatwino.com/bertslist.html
Green Barn
http://hubpages.com/hub/Growing-Grapes-in-Northern-Climates
Cornhill Nursery in New Brunswick
Manitoba Agriculture Site with suppliers and surival tests


Native Grapes


You may have a small mountain of these vines growing around your place or you may be looking for a really easy plant to grow... below is a list of some of the wild grapes that you might find nearby. Their mouth appeal varies between species and plant to plant. Many improve in flavour after frost or with plenty of sweetener.


Vitis riparia - River grape
Vitis labrusca - Fox grape
Vitis aestivalis - Summer grape (good link!)
Vitis vulpina - Frost grape (yes, it really is different from V. riparia)


If you go foraging make sure you don't sample moonseed by mistake.

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What do you do with your grapes?

Flowering Food - Spring's late blush

Spring may have another couple weeks to go but with the sweltering weather we have been having, the blooms are opening fast.

Rose buds are swelling and the Rosa rugosas have burst in much of the neighbourhood. I missed the first two blooms but below is a promise. Not only is this very hardy, disease resistant shrub attractive in early summer but they bear large, scarlet hips that remain on the shrub constrasting with their golden fall foliage. Ubiquitious in low maintenance, commercial plantings, they are a thorny, suckering groundcover, that is useful in areas you would like people to walk around.


Wouldn't you know it that I went to take a picture between blooms?


Just planted nearby is its dimunitive cousin, the strawberry. This time in a deep shade of pink. A running variety, it also acts as a groundcover. The floral display may not be long lived but heck, it's only a preview for the big berry show!



I think the variety is 'Red Flame' or something like that and admit I bought it for the flower colour so I have no idea if it is everbearing (probably) or June bearing. I find that most nurseries sell the all-season ones as it gives people the impression that they will be getting more. I like to have a good percentage of June bearers though so I can really indulge.

Continuing with the ruby theme, red valerian - Centranthus ruber - blooms a shocky magenta/red. Along with English daisy, this is one of my new favourite early salad greens. It has a reputation for self seeding and I hope it is warranted as it is lovely in drifts.

Pretty and tasty. Good combo.


Salsify - Tragopogon porrifolius - like morning glory, saves its show for the early risers. This plant is edible from its buds to its roots though they are said to turn woody after flowering.




I did get a blossom in full bloom but this picture just captivated me more with its petals just about uncurled.

Culinary thyme is an easy addition to any well drained garden. They have been long used as a decorative with low growing varieties making up patch works in place of lawn. There are types with wooly leaves, golden splashes and silver edges. Along with a backdrop of thymol, the flavour varies with floral or citrus hints. Richters Herbs have a good selection of Thyme

Delicate flowers abuzz with bugs.

One of my favourite edible landscaping plants is seakale - Crambe maritima. It produces edible 'asparagus' shoots in the spring, the leaves are edible though slightly tougher than kale, the immature heads can be eaten like broccoli. However, after seeing the beauty of this plant, you may have a hard time harvesting. I grow two varieties. The traditional Lily White used in the kitchen and the species which has purplish leaves. Use as a specimen plant or to bring contrast to plants with lighter textured leaves. It prefers well drained soil in full sun.





Here's authentic urban for you. My crappy car in the background.


Let's depart from the showy for a moment, to look at Good King Henry - Chenopodium bonus-henricus. Also eaten for its spring shoots, the flowers are not breathtaking but they sure are interesting. The tyical arrowshaped leaves of this goosefoot family member would make a nice foil for a short flowering plant or one with bare knees. It is commonly suggested that it be placed at the back of the border to hide its rangy nature but I find it not unattractive.




Loopy lines of green. These may have tipped over from flowering to seeding.

Back to shades of pink, I would describe this as a borderline edible as it is only the flowers that are used but Dianthus earns its place in the garden by having plenty of those and making a nice grey mat groundcover. The bitter white base and the calyx should be removed before eating.







Speaking of borderline edibles, here is Dame's Rocket - Hesperis matronalis - in the background behind a magnificent perennial kale, showing why people tend not to eradicate this weed from their yards and also why it is occasionally confused with phlox. The former having four petals and the later five.

Dame's Rocket is the purple flowers floating in the background.

Chives are a lovely companion with roses, often blooming at the same time. Alliums release chemicals that are supposed to deter many rose pests. They make a nice edge plant.

There was a buzzy little bee that would not cooperate for his closeup but here are the attracting flowers.

I thought my Turnip Rooted Chevril - Chaerophyllum bulbosum - had bit the dust so was happy to see it return this spring and hopeful that it would flower and produce seeds. What I did not expect was that it would turn out to be such a looker. It's not so much the flowers which are typical of the carrot family but the 4 foot, sturdy, purplish stems and strikingly cut foliage. Only the root is edible. The pretty foliage is not.

Umbels opening on turnip rooted chervril

Anything tasty looking pretty in your garden?