Harvest Monday - 'Blue' Berries & Flower Power

I could post AGAIN about greens but you may either be sick of eating them (impossible) or have moved onto fruits like zuchinni or the cherished tomato.

So, instead I thought I'd treat you to a selection of edible flowers among the greens.

Thyme, mustard, sage, Enligh daisy (bellis perennis), violas, dianthus and roses with garlic chives, mustard, anise hyssop leaves, green sweet cicely leaves, magenta spreen, ginger mint, honeyberry and one alpine strawberry. I only got that one because the children weren't outside yet today.

Sprinkled liberally in the middle are berries, mostly haskaps, a 'blue' berry for spring.

Also known as honeyberry or edible blue-berried honeysuckle.

I had read such mixed reviews of Lonicera caerulea edulis so it took me several years to plant it. This is year two in the garden and the harvest was pretty excellent. The berries have a complex flavour but were a bit more sour than I would have liked. They may not have been quite ripe yet. Sprinkled with something sweet, they'd make an excellent dessert. Maybe a haskap/rhubarb/sweet cicely pie?

Honeyberries on the bush.

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Positive press on Honeyberry / Haskap from DNA gardens
The Haskap Canada Association: Haskap.ca

Note on edible flowers:

It is difficult to find a comprehensive list of edible flowers for many reasons including there the fact that there are so many flowers! Make sure you triple check references to edible flowers and are absolutely sure about their identification. It is a good idea to remove any pollen producing part as it may induce allergy unless you are sure about your reaction to it and the preparation of the pollen - cattail pollen is used a flour adulterant for example. When trying new foods, it's always best to go slow. Nibble a bit then spit out to see if you have any swelling or strange reaction. Next time, eat a bit and see how you react. Finally, eat a small meal. Of course, your level of comfort with a new food will depend on how familiar with it you are so you may skip some steps. Also, never eat a new food unless you are sure it is edible and you are positive about its identification (I know I already said that). These are not tips to trying a mystery plant. Certain plants are quite safe in small quantities but can cause upset in larger doses and this may vary from person to person and plant to plant. Okay now that you are too scared to eat anything other than carrots, relax.

Culinary Herbs of Canada by Small is a great resource.

List of Edible Flowers by Glen Brook Farm

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Don't Miss This Reminders

June 1 - Hida Manns to give a talk on Organic Agriculture as a Buffer to Climate Change. June 1st at 7pm in the Grey Room at the Bronson Centre, 211 Bronson Avenue. Come out and say hi (I'll be introducing her)

June 5 - Native Plant Sale at the Wildlife Fletcher Garden

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?

Harvest Monday - Rhubarb and Rainbows

There are lots of goodies in the garden including masses of rainbow greens, onions and today's harvest of rhubarb for some muffins.

Magenta Spreen: Chenopodium gigantium


Like its cousin, lamb's quarters - Chenopodium album, it excells at seeding but look at the seedlings!

Orach - Red and Gold: Atriplex hortensis


Another self sowing beauty which makes for a delicious cooked or fresh green rainbow.

Rhubarb


My youngest, for scale, with a strange smile on her face. Mabye she's not sure about rhubarb muffins or maybe it was all those green gooseberries she insisted on eating?

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Great rainbow greens:

Orach - comes in colours from gold, purple, red, magenta, green and in between
Chard - Bright Lights is a favourite or try beets like Bull's Blood
Mustard - Many asian greens come in shades of purple and pink
Chicory - look for red and variegated varieties.
Magenta Spreen - A towering plant once its mature and delicious
Amaranth - Gold, red, orange, variegated. Look for types for greens
Kale - purple, pale and green with purplish viens
Lettuce - more than I can describe
Fennel in bronze and green

Flowering Food - mostly in white

Here are this day's garden stars:


Strawberries are in bloom, some even in tiny baby fruits. Regular running strawberry makes a great groundcover and many of you may already have wild strawberry invading your lawn. For an attractive edger, try runnerless alpine strawberry. This picture of gaint strawberry shows well its relationship to the rose family. Keep your eyes peeled for the pink blossomed variety that will occasionally show up at nurseries.



Giant strawberry has giant blooms. Very different from the demure flowers of alpine strawberry.


Sweet Cicely (Myrrhis odorata) is one of my favourite perennial edibles. It grows and flowers in part shade. The whole plant is edible tasting of sweet anise from its fleshy root through its leaves, green immature seeds that taste like candy to the mature black seeds ground for spice. There is also a native that shares the same common name: Osmorhiza longistylis.


Sweet cicely just before the height of bloom. The ferny foliage adds a delicate touch to this crowded corridor.

Blueberry blossoms en mass are one of those lean down to take a look flowers. They are dainty pinkish white bells that are irresitable to bees. A pretty plant for acidic soil with good moisture holding capacity, they are real stunners in the fall when their leaves turn bright red.


Young blueberry plant alongside iris.


Cabbage and friends are all in shades of buttery yellow. Here the thick purple leaves of red rock mammoth cabbage have sported towers of contrasting pale yellow. I also have bok choy, savoy cabbage and land cress in bloom. Cold resistant brassicas make wonderful additions to both the spring and fall garden. Don't rip them out when you are done with them but leave them when they bolt to produce spray upon spray of waving yellow flower, followed by seed.



Someone came round and asked what that purple leafed flower was. Yes, it's cabbage.


Quirky Sperling Toga Onion sports a spiky hairdo promising seeds for a trade in the near future. This is a very hardy perennial onion that gives greens while the year is long in a coldframe, along with providing a vertical accent for the front of the border.



Sperling toga onion is going to flower. Oh the seeds we shall reap! Yay!

Breaking up the predominance of white, are two lovely little flowers: Johnny Jump ups (Viola tricolor) which add a touch of rainbow to salads or desserts with their edible flowers and the tea plant Catmint (Nepeta cataria). Both of these make lovely edging plants for mostly sun that spill over walkways and self seed charmingly into little nooks and crannies.



Soft purple contrasts with sunny yellow in the children's garden.

One of my new favourite early spring salad plants, English Daisy (Bellis Perennis) is a common lawn weed in certain areas and I wish that I could say the same is true here. I will have to content with the more self controlled growth in my garden of this large flowered variety. Here pictured with the definitely less well behaved Sweet Violet (Viola odarata).



Densely spaced spoon leaves of English daisy with the large violets.

And lastly for today, Rhubarb's foamy blooms light up in the bright morning sunlight. One of best of the strong foliage plants. It is a mighty presence in my garden with leaves the size of placemats or larger taking up 6 square feet of space.





Do you have some food that is flowering in your garden?

Tomato Tuesday - Time to get Independent

The weather stations all agree and the May 2-4 weekend is fast approaching. Looks like there is no frost on the horizon so I kicked my tomato babies out into the garden. As I was planting, I noticed something very interesting:


Arctic Queen shows off its flower buds.

What's that? Flowers? Oh yes my friends... and it's not even June. I'd just like to stop here and remind myself that this was an experiment in starting tomatoes inside/outside. This is an alteration of the wintersown technique I use when impatient or with some tender plants. Seeds, sometimes prespouted, are sown in wintersown containers and left outside during the day but brought in at night if frost threatens. I figured it would be an easy way to do tomatoes as I have taken down my seed starting shelves in preparation to move - no time soon as it turns out but I digress...


Tomatoes planted in an old pond area that has been filled in. My veggie garden has been converted to yawn to sell the house.

As it seems that we won't be finding our rural slice of the pie in a timely fashion, I also figured I would sow other tenders like beans, and summer squash. I'm hoping we'll be out of here by the time a butternut is nicely mature.

By the way, technically this could be risky as there *might* still be a late frost but I have frost clothes and cloches if such an event happened. The average last frost date here is actually in early May though it varies greatly. Most years, I put out my tenders mid-May.

Planting times in Ottawa.

Harvest Monday - Something Creepy

Don't worry, it's not crawly but if you have ever tried to eradicate it then you may shiver when I say its name: Creeping Bellflower - Campanula Rapunculoides - otherwise known variously as Cancer-of-the-Garden, Hellcat Bellflower and Harebell*.



How often does your urban harvest fill your wheelbarrow...


An embarassingly short number of years ago, someone told me to stop pulling the weed from beneath my hedge as it was a pretty wildflower. I didn't recognize the basal leaves so I let it be and it matured into a not unattractive tower of purplish-blue bells. Shortly afterwards, I discovered its true identity and tried in vain to pull it up, but this ingenious invasive has a clever trick. Its taproot and future source of its spawn is connected to its many tangling runners by brittle thin roots. If you weren't familiar with its anatomy, you would pull up one its clones and find some weak roots dangling from it., no hunk a taproot like in a dandelion giving you a clue to its power source beneath. You might think that you had got it all. Ha! Not only does it propogate vegetatively but also by seed and its flowers are pretty enough that some people will leave it in their garden... perhaps feeling that this naturalized European native belongs here as much as the dandelion. Like the latter, it is here to stay and also like the latter, you can delight in devouring it.



You can see the tenuous connection between the taproot and the roots to the above ground part.


Creepy Bellflower is edible from its sizeable leaves to its starchy taproot(s).** If you like the taste, you might even have the incentive to hunt them down into the depths of soil. Before I tried the taproot, I was imagining how excited I'd be if my potatoes went feral like this. After I sauteed them with a little butter and drizzled them with paprika, salt and honey, my verdict is: "Meh, not bad. Good texture, slightly bitter, inoffensive taste." The typical description is more positive such as "nutty, crunchy flavour. A delight in salads" or as in A Field Guide to Edible Plants: Eastern and Central North America, "The taste is slightly sweet, suggesting parsnips."


The next day, I cooked up some of the plentiful greens, cut with an equal portion of baby kale, in stock and mixed with toasted sunflower seed and pepper. All this was put between two toasted slices of bread. They were pretty good, not bitter at all. Again, the adjective inoffensive comes to mind as they had no strong flavour.


So do I recommend Creepy Bellflower? Well, I wouldn't plant it. For those that already have it then just remember that like the proverbial pot of rice/oil/whatever, empty it as much as you want, there'll always be more and for a food plant, that's a quality we can appreciate.


* Also known as European Bellflower, Rampion Bellflower
** I have seen a couple references to eating the flowers but not enough that I would try it without more double checking.

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Do I have Creeping Bellflower? Ministry of Agriculture of Ontario
Plants for a Future lists some edible Bellflowers
Oft mentioned on the web, true Rampion - Campanula rapunculus - is not the same plant as the above plant. Instead, it is a biennial with a radish tasting taproot (so I'm told, my seeds never germinated) that enticed Rapunzul's father to harvest either to help her mother in childbirth or for food. I've read both versions. (Some of you botanical latin geeks might find it interesting that 'loides' bit means 'is like').
For some fun, read Dave's Garden's page on the plant and hear some vitriol against it.

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In other news, I owe you some posts:

Tomato Tuesday - Frost tender veggies that you know and love
Alliums Part II, Wild Onions - I haven't forgotten!

Don't miss this update

If you can drop everything and haven't heard of this before, then go get chicken and meet with Cluck Ottawa to talk urban poultry.

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