Sunshine at last! 16 June 2009

A white stock with one of the Salvia greggii plants on the 12th: This stock was planted in a different spot than the others and is still doing pretty well without being transplanted (I transplanted the rest to a new spot recently).

This morning I harvested the most peas at once so far this season – ten in total.  There were three ‘Golden Sweet’s, two from one of the dwarf peas, and five from another snap pea (a curved-pod green one, so one of the older cultivars, but unfortunately with the beans staked now it’s getting harder and harder for me to read the tall peas’ tags).  I also harvested two more alpine strawberries and a couple sprigs of peppermint to munch on while I worked in the garden.   This afternoon as I was working in the garden (more on that shortly), I noted that another dwarf pea plant had dwarf pea pods forming on it!  Though they were still small, the peas were already forming, making it the smallest pea pods I’ve ever seen.  I snapped one off and munched it and found it pleasantly tasty, so I did the same with the second.  It is by the tag ‘De Grace,’ so if the ants didn’t rearrange the dwarf pea seeds (ant redecoration is always a possibility with seeds that produce flowers and/or fruits that aren’t distinctly different from each other), that’s what it is (I have never grown ‘De Grace’ before, so I’m not sure what it looks or tastes like).  [I looked on Google before finishing this post to see if anyone else is growing ‘De Grace,’ and discovered one blog post about it besides my previous post about planting them.  The post says that they’re even better if you wait to eat them till the pods fatten up, so I’ll try that next time.  Here is the post for those interested; the blog in general looks to be interesting too.  And while I was at it, I refreshed myself on the history of the garden pea with this post from a pea breeding hobbyist (and general gardener) whose blog is always linked in my blog’s sidebar.]

While working out there, I also noticed that the edamames (soybeans) have had an abrupt burst of growth on this suddenly sunny day, and that many of the plants have gone from being a couple centimeters tall to being a few inches tall!  I noticed that the lentils that sprouted have grown a lot as well, though not as remarkably as the edamames.  The two that sprouted first and second, and ‘Black Beluga,’ still have the most lentil plants and are also the tallest. One of the three that I sowed more of, ‘French Blue,’ has added some more plants to its menagerie, and they’re all growing taller as well.  The fourth one, ‘Petite Crimson,’ still only has one plant despite my sowing more, and the fifth, ‘Ural Dal,’ never did sprout at all, despite sowing a second batch of seeds.  I don’t know what happened with those two – if they were more palatable to ants or birds or similar; if something about their exact spots in the garden was unfavorable to lentils, or if perhaps they are less suited to my climate and/or my garden’s general conditions; if their seeds were bad; or what else might have gone wrong.  It looks like a couple of them might be contemplating blooming (they seemed to have tiny buds), but none have produced flowers yet.

I was thrilled when yet another forecast turned out to be wrong but in the opposite direction of recent ones – and the day turned brilliantly sunny!  I spent a few hours in the garden today, the longest I’ve worked in it in a single day since before I got sick last week.

This afternoon I mostly worked on doing planting and replanting.  The greatest amount of time was spent digging up a corner of the garden to expand it a little so I could plant three large plants, Mexican evening primrose, a gaillardia, and yarrow ‘Fireland,’ which is my absolute favorite yarrow and which I’d been searching for since I moved into this garden (I had it in my old garden, bought from the flower farm that now no longer attends the farmers’ market).  I checked on Mexican evening primrose’s preferred conditions before going out into the garden and discovered that many people despise its spreading habit, so I ringed it with large rocks that I partially embedded in the soil.  I know that might not stop it – it certainly wouldn’t stop Maximillian sunflower; I just pulled a fresh root sprout out of the Oriental poppies today – but it will at least make it easy to tell when it’s gone beyond its bounds.  When I finished that section I walked down onto the sidewalk and paused a minute to consider how it looked.  I really, really like it.  I like how adding some tall things to that spot draws the eye and how it frames the smaller things blooming in front of them (like a Cape mallow) so that they’re more easily seen by the eye than they were before, and it makes the yellow and white yarrows in front of the grouping stand out more somehow than they did before.  It’s not often that a planting section immediately so pleases me, so I was very happy.

After that, I planted one more plant in a large pot, a penstemon that’s loaded with bloom stalks that are in turn loaded with buds, and then a number of things in smaller pots -two of the three globe amaranths (‘Strawberry Fields’ and ‘Buddy Purple,’ which indeed looks like a cute little buddy), a third gold coin (Asteriscus maritimus; I wish I understood why this gorgeous, pollinator-pleasing, very-low-care little annual [in my climate] weren’t more popular; I bought this third one recently just because they were looking sad at the nursery, one of the few early annuals that had yet to sell out, and as I paid for it, I remembered doing the exact same thing last year!), a Small’s penstemon (mine appear not to have made it through the winter, and I liked it enough to buy one more from Toadshade and try it in a different spot; but if it neither survives nor reseeds this time, I probably won’t try again), the perennial chamomile, the two iris ‘Honorabile’ rhizomes, a petunia ‘Rainmaster’ (I’ve never tried petunias in the front garden, so we’ll see how that goes), the snapdragon ‘Black Prince,’ the second African foxglove (which I ordered in my Select Seeds sale plants order as the first one seems to be doing so well in the front garden, though it’s not blooming yet), a rosemary ‘Irene’ (the previous one was one of the three rosemaries I killed over the winter!   – ‘Irene’ is that one that drapes so beautifully over the retaining wall), and I think something I’m forgetting.

I also moved two of the (three) African daisies to shadier spots as they already seemed to be suffering under the teeny amount of greater heat of this cool-so-far summer.   I moved the dwarf sunflower to where one of the African daisies had been, as it wasn’t growing fast enough in this cool weather to keep up with the plants around it, and had begun to suffer in the greater amount of shade.

Today I also made the little domes for the chiles I’ve already transplanted outside, and put two of them out there.  I didn’t realize one of the chiles had already grown tall enough to be bigger than the dome (which is OK because the domes have a large hole at the top for ventilation and to allow rain inside), but hopefully the dome will help shelter that one as well, and help keep the soil around its roots warmer.

This morning I worked on undoing the latest squirrel damage, and finally cracked after seeing that they appear to have taken out the entire crop of pearl onion seedlings, 50% of the salsify seedlings, 25% of the (entire!) large pot of “miscellaneous greens,” and nearly a full pot of mesclun seedlings, and finally went into the garden tools closet to get that trellis netting like I’d been considering doing.  I rearranged my small containers so that all the mesclun pots are together, and put it over them.  The netting is big enough that if they pull a square to its full length their paws will probably be able to reach through, but I’m hoping that they either never realize this, or find the netting as annoying as I do (which is why it was sitting in my closet instead of being used in the garden – it gets tangled very easily and is difficult to untangle) and give up quickly.  I hope the bird netting I ordered gets here soon so I can add netting to the large crop pots too.

Today I discovered that not only did the hardy begonias make it through the winter in their pots, as I reported last month, but they have also self-seeded rather prolifically in the bare ground around their pots.  I guess the soil needed to reach a certain warmth before the seeds germinated, as the spot has gone from having nothing to having maybe a dozen seedlings just since the last time I looked.   The plants are beautiful and nearly no-care, but that’s more than I’ll ever need in this little garden, so I am planning to give some away.

I have no idea why I see the ladybug larva every alternate day, but I do.  Today was the day to see it, and I saw it nearly right away – as I was harvesting the peas, I noticed that it was sitting on one of the fava/broad bean leaves next to them.  I saw many other insects and relatives today too.  The tiny ants (one of two or three visible ant species in the garden) grabbed a grub that I uncovered as I was digging the new corner of the garden and a struggle ensued; it continued out of sight as the ants dragged the grub into the soil.  As always, I also saw many more ants (I think I see more ants than any other invertebrate in my garden).  I saw a caterpillar or lookalike sitting on the purple basil (it didn’t appear to have been eating it) – it was odd-looking, mostly lime green but with a pattern on its back that reminded me of a snake’s pattern – and then this afternoon I saw a second, somewhat similar looking caterpillar in the front garden, also seemingly just sitting on a leaf (I forget which plant).  I saw some tiny red mites or similar on some of the ice plants (??) and a single red mite elsewhere in the front garden.  I saw some daring jumping spiders (tiny relatives of wolf spiders, and one of the most common garden spiders here), and I saw some other types of grubs as I was digging the corner.  I saw a brown leafhopper or similar, and an odd looking larger winged insect, and a green bee, and a hoverfly.  It seemed that the insects and their relatives were all as happy about the sunshine as I was.

Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny as well, and a bit warmer – I hope the forecast isn’t wrong again, and that my health continues to improve.  I’m planning to do as much more work as I can, finally planting so many of the things that have been waiting, but starting with planting the rest of the things in that sad little package I got yesterday.

Long Time No Post 22 May 2009

I’m sorry it’s been over a month since I updated.  The thing about spring is that you’ve got so much to do in the garden that’s it’s often a choice (at least for me) between updating the garden blog and actually being out in the garden!  I have some partially finished posts saved on my computer and hopefully I will be able to finish those and upload them soon.  I also have a lot of photographs to upload, hopefully also soon.  In the meantime, here is a brief update on things here in the past month-plus:

*The shade/partial-shade garden in back is doing really well.  Spring is really its best season, I think.  There have been bulb blooms, woodland phloxes, epimediums, primroses, and violets, and now the columbines and wild native ginger and the alpine strawberries and the last bulb (Silver Bells)  and the new lowbush blueberries and new mourning widow cranesbill are blooming, and the foxgloves and comfrey are budded. The foxgloves I seeded in last year have survived the winter with pretty good germination and most of them are budded (in addition to the foxgloves that I had last year; all but one of those have come back for another year). The comfrey is doing unbelievably better than its sad start when I first planted it last year (if I hadn’t watered it regularly, I think it would have died) – it is huge and has several bud clusters and looks like it is forming new ones as well.

*More improbable winter survivors: In the back garden, the Salvia patens has survived another winter, and this year not just one calla lily has survived, but five (so far)!  In the front, all the agastaches appear to have survived, even the ones that weren’t supposed to be winter-hardy here.  Additionally, the two hardy begonias finally sprouted over the past day, rewarding my belief in them.  That means that all but two things survived in pots in the back garden – the ones that didn’t make it were one epimedium and one sedge.  Even the other stuff in tiny pots did, like violets and lyre-leafed sage.  My incredible experience with this last year led me to take more risks with it this past year, and I know I’m lucky my risking paid off.

*Self-seeding: There has also been some nice self-seeding.  I always appreciate plasnts that are tough enough to be able to self-seed in my harsh front garden.   The sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis), in particular, has pleased me so.  I’ve counted at least five seedlings, some nearish the parent plant but others farther afield in the garden.  Sunflowers have again self-seeded and/or been seeded in by birds.  It also looks like the tovara (‘Painter’s Palette’) has self-seeded this year (something it is notorious for doing, and how I first got my plants – a friend gave me their self-seeded seedlings), and it looks like there may be at least one baby echinacea as well, which would please me so.  The squill, muscari, and glory of the snow have all developed seedheads, but we’ll see if that results in actual self-seeding (I hope so).

*Overwintered plants: I carried out most of the overwintered plants today, another hot and sunny day here.  The brugmansia (‘Charles Grimaldi,’ now with me for two years), Cestrum (‘Orange Zest’), and lemongrass have done the best over the winter, all growing significantly from their size in autumn.  The sweet violet and fuschia (sharing a pot) and the tweedia and snail vine have also done decently.  The bay seems to still be alive but is continuing not to seem particularly happy, still about the same size it was when I got it several months ago.  I saw that the nursery is offering bay laurels that are larger and look more robust than the one I got from them last year, and am considering trying a second plant to see if it does better than the first one has.

*Blooms in front: We are up to the stage where the heirloom irises are blooming or budded.  ‘Eleanor Roosevelt’ was first (as she is well-known for being even in gardens with dozens of irises), with just one bloom so far. ‘Gracchus’ is blooming now, with several more buds spread over two bloom stalks, and there are many buds on ‘Quaker Lady’ and ‘Mme Chereau,’ which were the two irises to bloom their first year here (last year).  My other three irises have yet to show visible bloom stalks, but I haven’t given up hope yet.  All seven are growing more robustly than last year (when I think the trauma of having their roots stomped on, having heavy things dragged over, etc. by the workmen really damaged them), so I think there is definitely a possibility they will yet develop bud stalks. The wild native columbine is also blooming (I planted that this spring) as well as the Mt. Atlas daisies, and there are buds on the (parent) sundial lupine, the false/Carolina lupine, the peach-leaaved bellflower, the dianthuses ‘Rainbow Loveliness,’ the chives (which have been budded since the last heat wave in late April), and one each of the perennial salvias and the cranesbills.  There are also a lot of blooms on annuals I’ve planted – pansies, violas, bacopas, heliotropes, snapdragons, Swan River daisies, stocks, Felicia heterophyllas (that beyond-gorgeous blue-on-blue daisy that I planted last year, not realizing it was a different Felicia than the species I’d grown the year before until it bloomed), an alpine calendula I’ve not grown before, …  Lots of success with direct-sowing in front, as usual.  There are a ton of clarkias (nearly 100% germination, as last year) as well as smaller numbers of many other things, such as California poppy, annual poppy, corncockle, calendula, and love-in-a-mist.

*Crops: The fava/broad beans have started blooming!  The garden peas are growing like mad now.  Some of the garden peas had poor germination in the first round, so I recently seeded in a second batch of those and they are catching up now (‘New Mexico,’ ‘Tall Telephone (AKA Alderman),’ and ‘Mammoth Melting’ are the ones I can remember off the top of my head).  I don’t know if it was a difference in placement (perhaps different amount of sunlight/different intensity, different texture to the soil, etc.), if perhaps they happened to be more prone to rotting before sprouting than the other cultivars, or what.  The fava/broad beans seem to have had pretty even germination rates amongst them, even though they are planted in a row westish to eastish like the peas are.  The lentils, meanwhile, have had very uneven germination.  (If you forget, this is my first year growing lentils.  See a recent post for more details.)  ‘Spanish Pardina’ germinated first and to date has germinated best (I think it may have had 100% germination).  ‘Black Beluga’ germinated second and has similarly had overall second-best germination.  The other three haven’t done as well, with a handful (‘French Blue,’ ‘Petite Crimson’) to none (‘Urid Dal’) up so far.  I’ve also had no srpouts of the garbanzo ‘Black Kabouli,’ but my beans ‘Yellow Arkiara’ (the earliest garden bean to plant) have sprouted and are growing nicely, and now with the heat and sun, the runner beans and purple-podded beans are coming up as well.  (Purple-podded beans can be planted earlier than other beans because there’s a special chemical in them that both gives them the purple coloring and makes them less prone to rotting in cool, wet soil.)  Aphids turned out to have sheltered over the winter on the fuschias and decimated the majority of my seedlings in just a day.  After they had mostly died out, I started a second batch of seedlings.  I’ve got lots of young plants again now:  26 cherry tomatoes (nearly 100% germination), 20 regular-sized tomatoes, 12 tomatillos, and 2 chiles (the chiles survived the onslaught better than the tomatoes and tomatillos, so I didn’t seed as many new ones in).  I’ve never had aphids on indoor seedlings before, and it’s really a serious pain.  I also got a cherry tomato plant at the living green festival my town held recently.  A non-profit that does gardening work locally was selling them to raise money.  They said it was an heirloom hand-selected by their main grower (and indeed, it appears to be named after him), but the two people staffing the stall couldn’t tell me more about it.  When I tried to ask more detailed questions, they just kept shrugging and saying, “It’s a cherry tomato,” as if that explained everything.  So I figured I’d just grow it and see for myself what the answers to my questions are.  There are also shallots, parsley, cilantro, French sorrel, thyme, and sage growing in front, and the scallions, chives (or as the person that gave me the Chinese leek division two years ago calls them, “American chives”), lavenders, winter savory, and Chinese leek/garlic chives have all survived the winter and are doing excellently.  I also finally planted the bare-rooted highbush blueberries in front since my last post, and after initial shock, they seem to be adjusting well.  In the sifted compost, I found a squash vine, and transplanted it to the main crop area.  I’ve also got melon seeds to sow.  Today’s a ‘fruit day’ in biodynamic parlance, as is tomorrow, so I should do that while the time is right.  Perhaps I should seed in my edamames today too, and give them a chance to get going before the pole beans shade them out (which seems to have been their biggest problem the last two years).

*Compost: Yesterday, in anticipation of yesterday and today’s heat, sun, and wind, I mulched all the back beds and the main crop area in the front bed with compost.  I also top-dressed the front’s plants that I know most like it – the Oriental poppies, peonies, scallions, and chives – plus I added some compost around the blueberries, stocks, and alpine calendula.

*Caterpillars: I found a caterpillar in the crop patch recently, the first I’ve ever seen in the windy, hot, high front garden!  It was so convincing at playing dead I thought it really might actually be dead until I gently poked it with a twig and it freaked out.  I also found a couple caterpillars in the back garden yesterday, one green and hanging out on the sifted-compost holder and the other munching the comfrey.

*New plants: I mentioned some of the new plants above.  I’ve also gotten more new plants from the nursery and mail-order.  I’ve planted some of them and others are awaiting planting. Some of them, particularly much from my Select Seeds mail-order, are meant to go in pots:  a datura, petunias, fuschias, tender (‘zonal’) geraniums.  I’ve also got flowering tobacco, salvias, tender vines,  coleuses, and more from Select Seeds.  I’ve already planted lantanas and some salvias and a double-flowered feverfew and a silver foliage plant from them. I’ve also got some tender “bulbs” to plant – dahlias and gladiolas and a rain lily from Old House Gardens and a few cannas from the local hardware store (Old House Gardens had already sold out of cannas by the time I placed my quite tardy order).

I think that’s plenty for today!  More another day.

Two beautiful mild spring days / More root crops / Lentils / Perennials 12 April 2009

[Started on the 10th] The past two days have been beautiful, mild, windy, mostly sunny spring days – perfect for spring gardening.  Yesterday I planted several of the things from the photo in my last post of what had needed to be planted as of the 4th – two each of parsley (it is called ‘Sal’s Choice’ on the front of the tag, though I believe it has a different cultivar name on the back; from Gilbertie’s Herbs [Sal is Gilbertie’s head], it is the same parsley that performed so spectacularly for me last year), borage, and dill (‘Fernleaf’), as well as the potted shallots (a brown-skinned one from Gilbertie’s; no cultivar name on the tag) and two hen-and-chicks (Semperviven) that I got at the nursery yesterday.   I also weeded out the latest maple seedlings to sprout.  These cool, wet springs of recent years have been perfect for them to have a very high rate of germination.   Then today I planted shallots from Johnny’s Selected Seeds and sowed a bunch of root crop seeds.   The shallots are ‘Pikant,’ but Johnny’s own description isn’t particularly informative, so here’s a compilation of descriptions from two other websites:

Pikant has a wonderfully robust flavour and produces smaller bulbs that crop very heavily. One of the earliest red shallots. Probably the earliest of all shallots, this Dutch red variety produces a heavy crop of smaller bulbs that have an intense flavour.  It is not unusual for this variety to be ready for harvesting in July – yet often it will keep firm and well until the following May.  Couple this with an excellent resistance to bolting and it is easy to understand why it is so popular.

To make a bed for them, I had to dig up some more grass.  I ended up with a few extra bulbs because even though I might have had enough space to plant them all, I’m also getting shallots from Moose Tubers and Cook’s Garden (the latter of which I unfortunately forgot had been bought by Burpee’s till after I ordered), so I’ll need that space for the others.  It’s too bad my first box of ‘Pikant’ was stolen, as the (opened, empty [even of the receipt!]) box arrived in time that I could have taken the extra ones to the garden club meeting to see who wanted them.  Ah, well.   I’ll also need to dig up grass to make room for the blueberry bushes (still living in my kitchen at the moment; I’m waiting to plant them till the local shrubs have leafed out, since they are already leafed out) and probably also for the sunchokes from Moose Tubers.

Anyhow, I also sowed some more root crops, as it is (as you may have already guessed) a ‘root day’ in biodynamic growing parlance:

Radish ‘Red Meat’ This is a Chinese radish with a round shape and a red-colored flesh and green shoulder and is also called watermelon radish. It is juicy and sweet tasting. Harvest when roots reach 3″ in diameter. Use for pickling or cooking. Called “beauty heart” in Chinese, it looks lovely in a salad. In Northern China, this radish is carved into various flower shapes for use as a festive garnish. Maturity: Approx. 60 days  (Kitazawa Seed)

Radish ‘Green Meat’ This Chinese radish has an oblong shape and dark green colored neck and green flesh. The root grow approximately 10″ long and 3″ diamerter. It is juicy and sweet. Harvest when roots reach 6″ long. Use for pickling, cooking and salad. This radish keeps exceptionally well and is highly prized in Asia for its sweetness and juiciness. Maturity: Approx. 60 days  (Kitazawa Seed)

Radish ‘Japanese Long Scarlet’ This specialty radish is particularly popular in Japan’s home gardens. Scarlet on the outside, the flesh of this slender 6″ radish is white. Great for pickling, this radish is also quite at home in a fresh salad. Maturity: Approx. 25 days  (Kitazawa)

Daikon Radish ‘Iwai Daikon’ Unique for its small size, this traditional radish has long been a favorite in Japan for special celebrations, such as the New Year. The white root grows to a slender 1” diameter at the base of a clump of lovely green leaves. This variety of radish carries the designation Yamato yasai, which means it has been selected as a Nara traditional vegetable. The Iwai Daikon is perfect for a number of traditional Japanese New Year’s recipes, such as namasu (radish pickles) or ozoni, a shrimp and vegetable soup. Maturity: Approx. 50 days  (Kitazawa)

Radish ‘White Icicle’ Highly tolerant of heat, White Icicle is a 5″ white radish very popular in Japan’s home gardens. The beautiful root is crispy, mild and juicy when harvested young. Grate this crunchy radish in a fresh salad. This variety stores well and is perfect for pickling. Maturity: Approx. 29 days  (Kitazawa)

Bunching Onion (Splitting Type) ‘Evergreen White Nebuka’ This is a splitting type onion with long, slender white stalks in tight clusters. Hardy and cold resistant. Use fresh or cooked. Essential to Japanese and Chinese cooking, green onions are used as a garnish for baked fish, in soups, noodle dishes, or in stir-fries.  (Kitazawa)

Onion ‘Red Marble Cipollini’ A beautiful miniature, flattened Italian onion with a hearty, pungent flavor. A versatile onion, it can be planted at normal density (about 2 inches apart) for a nice cipollini size and shape, or planted at an extra high density for smaller red pearl onions. Stores well, holding its excellent red color throughout the skin.  (Cook’s Garden)

Onion ‘Barletta’ Small white onion. Early.  Great with peas in the spring. No more than 3/4 inch across. Pickle, use on skewers, whole in soups, etc. Direct seed and use thinnings in salads or use transplants.  (Seeds from Italy)

Radish Mix Formula mix of round radish of different colors. Includes red, white, yellow and purple. Taste & color for the salad. (Seeds from Italy)

The Chinese immigrant I know here says that daikons and long green radishes (like the above-mentioned ‘Green Meat’) are the two most common types in China, at least in their region (they are from the Beijing area).  I got the impression that they had not encountered the small, round radishes so typical of American markets until they moved to the States.  In Spanish there is a specific word for those radishes, rabanitos, and in my books from Europe they also are mentioned as one of many types of radishes.  It seems it is only here in the States that they are the standard kind rather than either one of many kinds or quite uncommon.

…

By the time I am wrapping up this post, it is two days after I began it (now the 12th).  It’s not beautifully mild any more; in fact, it’s frigid and gusty despite the sunshine.  Yesterday and the night before, it rained and rained (with flurries in some nearby towns), and last night was very cold for mid-April.  Tonight it is supposed to be colder yet. So goes New England weather.  The dill and borage I planted earlier this week are sort of flattened by the wind, though they seem to be holding their own.  You can almost always tell which end of my garden is the leeward side.

I haven’t talked here yet about how I am planning to do a trial of growing lentils.  It is something I have never done before, and I am curious to see what it is like.  I bought a couple packets of them on impulse (which seems to often be how my trials begin!), before even knowing how to grow them.  I tried to look it up online, but didn’t really find much information in English.  I then looked through my books, but only found two that even mentioned growing lentils.  Both were in books I picked up in used books stores this spring.  The first, The Art of French Vegetable Gardening, simply mentions in passing that one of the major display partierres in France plants lentils at the same time as peas and fava/broad beans.  That at least gave me an idea of when to plant them (in other words: as soon as possible).  But I was also curious about their needs, their preferences, and such.  I looked in How to Grow Vegetables and Fruits by the Organic Method, an old, old spine-cracked, cloth-bound copy of the book written by J.I. Rodale himself (founder of Rodale Press, which was one of the major organic presses in the early days of a codified movement to re-emphasize growing organically, though these days [in my opinion] the press seems to generally emphasize style more than substance).  It goes into some detail about their cultivation, but notes at the end that they aren’t nearly as productive per plant as many other crops, and recommends they only be grown by homesteaders with a lot of space (I think his exact phrase might be “unlimited space,” but really, who anywhere has truly unlimited space?).  Well, that’s all right; soy beans aren’t really overly productive either, as I’ve mentioned here before, but I still enjoy growing them and they are an excellent cover crop that helps the soil regardless of the lesser productivity.  I love how you can just bury legumes in the soil after they’re done producing and they’ll break down lickety-split, so fast that many people recommend not even taking the step of throwing them in the compost pile.

After reading about lentils, I thumbed through the book a bit more, having still not had the chance to read through the entire thing.  I happened upon the section on rutabagas (AKA Swedes).  I love rutabagas (as I love most root crops) and they are difficult to find here, aside from ocassionally being able to find what I believe is ‘Purple Top,’ so I had been planning to grow them in a couple of half-barrel pots this year with the long carrots, long daikons, parsnips, salsify, scorzonera, and an experiment involving trying burdock (OK, so I always have bigger plans than my space will probably allow).  However, the book mentions something I’d never read/heard before – that rutabagas have an extremely extensive root system, quickly (I mean seriously rapidly) going down three feet, and implying they keep going.  According to the book, this actually makes them much more drought tolerant than many other crops, which certainly makes sense if the root system thing is accurate. Anyway, the point is that I am now considering edging my crop patch with them this summer.  I’m somewhat concerned about the rocky nature of the soil, since rutabagas are so large, but it certainly doesn’t seem like pots would be appropriate for them, and I’m also now very curious to see how well the plants would stand up to truly hot, sere conditions like my windy, sunny front garden’s summertime ones.

I stopped by the nursery this morning, wanting some annual besides pansies and violas (no offense to their lovely cheer), hoping they’d have sweet alyssum in, as the seedlings are but wee things in the garden and I always like starting out with some plants and letting the seedlings take over in the course of the growing season.  However, they don’t have any in yet; the only other annual they had added was African daisies.  I got a few of them.  Last year they did best during spring and autumn, not doing much in the way of blooming during the searing heat of summertime, so I want to plant them soon so they’ll put on a good show before hot weather arrives.  They’ve gotten a lot of shipments of perennials in since the last time I looked at more than the herbs and the annuals, and I ended up getting some of those as well:  two more of the unsung hero Mt. Atlas daisy (my current one was shaded out pretty badly last growing season and I’m not sure it survived); another yarrow ‘Coronation Gold’; another perennial candytuft and another basket-of-gold (different cultivars than the one of each already in my garden – they both did so well last spring); and a pot of blue-flowering ornamental onions.  I was stunned to  be far from the only customer at the nursery on a frigid, gusty Easter morning.