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• Lettuce By Any Other Name...
• The Little Allium...
• The Gourmet’s Onion: Leeks...
• Where exactly IS Batavia?...
• Five Thousand Eyes...
• Pie Plant Heaven...
• Spinach weather...
• Winter Kale...

The Celery Challenge...

Celery I bought some celery starts at the local garden center this spring, even though I didn’t think celery would grow here on the wet side of the Cascades. Celery needs a long growing season, 5 months, and cool weather. We have the 5 months (May through September), but generally not cool summers. Celery gets tough and stringy in the heat. But this has been an unusually cool summer. We had a...

Kale Flowers...

Kale flower buds My over-wintered kale decided it was time to produce seeds in March. We had unusually warm weather in February and March which triggered the kale clock to get on with it and produce the next generation. It bolted, forming single towering stalks with flowers. Normally when vegetable greens bolt they become tough and bitter, good fodder for the compost pile but not good eating. However,...

Winter Kale...

Winter Red Kale Kale is a perfect vegetable garden plant. It will grow almost anywhere. It survives our Puget Sound winters without cover. It tastes best in the cool seasons, especially after a frost. It’s easy to cook. It’s delicious. It’s good for you. Wow. I plant every year for a fall and winter crop, and every year I am surprised at its sweet taste. Kale is a brassica, a member...

Spring Leeks...

Spring leeks The little leeks planted last fall are wonderfully tasty this spring. These leeks were the last to be transplanted last year, intermingled with small cabbage transplants. The cabbages, alas, froze to death in that very cold snap in November, but the leeks lived. They will be good until the weather warms, at which time they will soften as they try to bolt. So we must eat lots of leeks before...

The Gourmet’s Onion:...

Growing leeks The Roman emperor Nero may have fiddled while Rome burned, but he did like his leeks. Egyptians grew them from at least the 2nd millennium B.C.E. As did the Mesopotamians. The leek is the national symbol of Wales, originating from a battle in a leek field (Wikipedia). I’m sure there were a few farmers weeping for their trampled leeks after the battle. Americans have generally...

Strawberries alive and wel...

Strawberries ripening The strawberries got off to a rocky start this year. We planted two types: Tristar, from the nursery, and some wild strawberries I took off a dune on the beach near the ocean. I divided my raised bed in half, keeping the plantings separate. We filled the bottom of the raised bed with composted sod mixed with kitchen compost, and filled in with good soil, then a one inch layer...

Blueberries are ripe...

Ripe blueberries Blueberries are such an easy berry to pick. No thorns. Just put your bowl under a bunch and rub the bunch. The ripe berries will fall into your container. They don’t all ripen at the same time, so don’t pick any that are not blue. At least try not to. If they have a bit of red or pink color to them they will be somewhat sour. Oh, well. Add some sugar. Apparently the berries...

Winter savory...

Winter savory Overlooked, practically forgotten, rarely mentioned. It is not summer savory, the more commonly known and grown herb. It’s peppery, spicy, bold, distinctive. A wonderful addition to hearty soups, vegetables, beans, and chicken, fish and meats. And, it’s very easy to grow. It is an evergreen perennial, so plant it once, instead of annually like summer savory. It likes sun...

Elephant garlic scapes...

Elephant garlic flower bud on scape. Flowering plants, aka angiosperms, appeared on land 125-250 million years ago, depending on what fossil you are looking at, how you classify angiosperms, what author you are reading, and whether you have looked closely at that strange rock you picked up on vacation last summer. My elephant garlic is flowering now. The flowering stalks are called “scapes.”...

Spinach weather...

Spinach, May 27. Cool nights, damp days, occasional sun breaks: perfect weather for spinach. We planted our spinach on March 21. Last frost is usually March 15, but this year we had frost through March. It didn’t seem to hurt the spinach. This year’s seeds were from Territorial Seed; Olympia Hybrid code SP778. It’s been a great variety! It’s managed well even through the warm...