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a gardening interlude
2008-Jul-10, Thursday 09:41 amA simple and unimportant post for today. I'm still busy pondering replies to a more substantive post, and I'm also still busy working on the next NoLAR conference. More on those later...
I don't garden to landscape something into perfection. That can be a bonus if it works well, but mostly I garden just to see what happens. One surprise by letting a small square-meter-or-so patch go wild was to find that the previous owners of the property used to have poppies. I saved seeds from the one plant that appeared, threw out some seeds this spring, and now I have several more of them showing up.
Last year, I had no success with a packet of special seeds that I bought. I tried my last remaining seeds this year, putting them someplace that I knew would get a lot more shade. Good luck, I have 3 of them growing and fruiting. I hope to save more seeds from them to get a small patch going. They are native to Canada and northern America, so maybe they'll be self-sustaining. I might have to attend to their water needs, though, unless I can put them in deep shade and they like it there. (I dislike the concept of watering because of my sustainability concerns. I very much prefer a xeriscaping philosophy).
These are Strawberry spinach, Chenopodium capitatum. Supposedly both the fruit and the leaves are edible. The berries, while pleasant, are too weakly flavored to be very useful in cooking. The leaves were a bit leathery like spinach, with a short burst of a nice mild pepper, but then followed afterwards with some sort of astringent that wasn't as nice. I can see why this plant could be a good "standby" choice of food but not a primary choice. The seed packet recommends the berries as an addition to salads. It also says, "Also referred to as Strawberry Blite, grown in Europe for centuries."
Helpfully, the packet includes instructions for saving the seeds, since they are hard to locate commercially. "Mature seeds can be saved from the ripe fruits. Simply crush ripe berries, then add a little water and the good seeds will sink. Pour off the water and pulp, drain the seeds, and set out to dry." Yes, I'll be trying these pretty plants again.
I don't garden to landscape something into perfection. That can be a bonus if it works well, but mostly I garden just to see what happens. One surprise by letting a small square-meter-or-so patch go wild was to find that the previous owners of the property used to have poppies. I saved seeds from the one plant that appeared, threw out some seeds this spring, and now I have several more of them showing up.
Last year, I had no success with a packet of special seeds that I bought. I tried my last remaining seeds this year, putting them someplace that I knew would get a lot more shade. Good luck, I have 3 of them growing and fruiting. I hope to save more seeds from them to get a small patch going. They are native to Canada and northern America, so maybe they'll be self-sustaining. I might have to attend to their water needs, though, unless I can put them in deep shade and they like it there. (I dislike the concept of watering because of my sustainability concerns. I very much prefer a xeriscaping philosophy).
These are Strawberry spinach, Chenopodium capitatum. Supposedly both the fruit and the leaves are edible. The berries, while pleasant, are too weakly flavored to be very useful in cooking. The leaves were a bit leathery like spinach, with a short burst of a nice mild pepper, but then followed afterwards with some sort of astringent that wasn't as nice. I can see why this plant could be a good "standby" choice of food but not a primary choice. The seed packet recommends the berries as an addition to salads. It also says, "Also referred to as Strawberry Blite, grown in Europe for centuries."
Helpfully, the packet includes instructions for saving the seeds, since they are hard to locate commercially. "Mature seeds can be saved from the ripe fruits. Simply crush ripe berries, then add a little water and the good seeds will sink. Pour off the water and pulp, drain the seeds, and set out to dry." Yes, I'll be trying these pretty plants again.