B-limey!

My kaffir lime tree and I like to play a game every year.  Each year I bring it inside when it gets chilly.  It hangs out in the warm kitchen and I merrily take leaves from it for delicious ethnic dishes during the cold winter months (you're supposed to use the leaves, I've never seen it produce flowers, or obviously w/o flowers... fruit).

When it gets warm again in Memphis I attempt to acclimate it outside, in a shaded, sheltered location where invariably, a little bit of wind does this to it:

THEN, (each year) I freak out and fuss if the stupid tree will make it with no leaves, though it did retain two stubborn leaves for once this year.

AND AS USUAL, it shows sign of new leaf life again after weeks of worry:

(Yeah, I need to stop freaking out about this stuff... just my nature)

I'd like to add that I got my lemon and this lime tree at the same time on Craigslist, both for $20, with their original terracotta pots, base and pretty rocks for water to drain into.  A steal I say.  Just a plug (I'm not affiliated with them!) for the awesomeness of Craigslist for having connected me with all sorts of very interesting people and deals like these trees and my super reproductive cannas. 

(NOTE: as much as I love Craigslist... if you do use this great system, please be careful still.  Strangers are strangers, so make sure reliable friends know where you are and when you are meeting with people to purchase or exchange items!)

Secret Agent Bee: Gentlemen! (click title to "get it")

(UPDATE: Pardon the idiotic un-finished post, was going to go back before it was scheduled, but yeah...)

Popping around the garden I was charmed by a very odd looking inverted teardrop shaped be.  The head of this bee was at the pointy end of the teardrop and it was very wary, yet seemed playful at the same time alighting to pause here and there, waiting for me to get to it to get a better look before flying away again.

After LOTS of time on the internet trying to figure out what it was I've determined that it's a parasitic, potentially beneficial pollinator fly from the Bombyliidae family.  The cool feature about this fly (besides its appearance) is that it lays its eggs by its prey's den or home and the fly's larvae crawl into the den and then eat the prey!

The unfortunate part is that it seems that Bombyliidae's don't distinguish between annoying crickets/grasshoppers and wasps (which can be helpful too as pollinators) and helpful beneficial pollinators such as solitary bees and etc.

Still, nifty to see and have around!


MORE INFO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombyliidae
http://www.cirrusimage.com/flies_bee_Bombylius_major.htm
http://thenaturalstone.blogspot.com/2006/04/studies-of-bee-fly.html

Utterly re-purposed potting bench (it ain't pretty)

Though I lust after a sculptural, beautifully handcrafted cedar or whatnot potting bench, with pegs(!) to hold tools, shelves that separate pots from other shtuff, a soil drawer and slatted table top that allows soil to fall through and be collected/recycled for later use... I ain't got the monies.

Which is fine. Such luxuries, as nice as they are, are not necessities.  (Hurray! My head's screwed on relatively straight in that category!)

So, after many years of collecting random stuff has evolved into my recycled/thrifted potting bench:

Just about everything in this picture has been either re-purposed/recycled/thrifted or curb-side found.  The major aspects of my potting bench are the 2 plastic barrels, gotten from the local Coca-Cola plant I frequented to make rain barrels with (these were extras I magically was able to fit into my now defunct mini-van... how I miss that vehicle..sort of)!

The table top of the bench is an old, but sturdy, plywood/laminate countertop someone down my street chucked.  It was originally pink-ish but thankfully faded to more beige (I hate pink).  It has a hole for a sink in the middle that is now covered by my greatest recent find that has I think completed my bench: PLANTATION SHUTTERS!

These shutters are of terrible cheap material;  material that is too flimsy for good household use I think (which is probably why they were chucked) but excellent for my use.  They must have been used outdoors partially as they were filthy.  I didn't even bother with washing them off because dude, they're going to get dirty on the potting bench anyways.

What I feel sort of awesome about is that they allow me to have that nifty slatted soil table top part I've always been craving:

They're slightly tilted to have enough room to let soil fall through the slats into some plastic containers (also curbside found) below for collection, OR can be fully opened to allow bunches of soil to fall through.

HUZZAH!  So yeah, who needs a fancy schmancy cedar bench?

Experiment in bypassing damp off

Most of my original tomatoes that I started by seed fell victim to damp off.

Aggravating, but many horticulturists suggest not starting tomatoes too early anyways as frost or disease from cold/damp that can occur early from early planting of tomato crop.  Luckily I had some seed leftover and so I've begun again, this time with the luxury of reasonably warm and sunshine-y outdoor weather.  A later home-started harvest, but with luck there will still be a crop!

A very kind friend of mine purchased a good size Bonnie's indeterminate heirloom tomato for me in addition to a smaller hybrid indeterminate (that had 2 plants in it!) so that I wouldn't be without the deliciousness early this year.  Oh us vegetable gardeners and our tomatoes!

But back to damp-off crud:

After I started pulling out the totally damped off seedlings from their small egg carton "pots," I wondered to myself  about the famously well known stem-rooting properties that tomatoes possess and thought that  I might still yet be able to save some.  So I kept one Tropic tomato seedling with a pinched damped off stem and popped it in a small bath of water I was growing a grocery store fennel bulb in, making sure that the damped off stem base was under the water line.   .

Here is the result after a week or so:

(at this point I had discarded the damped off portion that existed below the newly rooted part you can see now)

Now that I have potentially found a way to save damped off seedlings I am slightly smacking myself at not having done with more of the sad looking plants I chucked. 

So, just wanted to share if any of you run into damp off issues.  (There is hope!)

Oh, hai there!

Spring only truly arrives when I see this in the garden:

ASPARAGUS!

I really should have taken a pic of this earlier.  One day ago it was but an inch tall!  Asparagus, like rhubarb, is known for its ridiculously fast growth (which I still need to procure...)

Not only is asparagus fantastic for being a perennial vegetable, but the speed of its growth just makes you feel like your garden is really working hard.  Plus, have you seen the price of asparagus these days?!  In addition, I can't describe how awesome fresh asparagus is (sprinkled with some parmesan cheese, olive oil, wrapped in proscuitto...mmm).

It's a spring veggie, but on odd occasions, my asparagus has been known to grow a few stalks late in the year, like in August... I'm not complaining!

Once I saw this stalk popping out of the soil I started hunting for others because 1) what sort of meal would be good with just ONE asparagus stalk (that's almost a mournful looking image isn't it?) and 2) if there's one, there's GOTTA be more ready to show their stalk-y self.

AND THERE ARE:

Other good signs are the fern-y leaves:

I purchased my asparagus 3 years ago when they were 2 year old crowns.  Asparagus takes a while to get started and settled into a bed (and really don't like to be moved, though I did do it once for good reason).  When they're 3 years old you can start gently harvesting them, but year 5 (now for mine) is when things really get going I understand so I'm totally REVVED to eat 'sparagus all spring! 

Pat on my back!

It's a good time in the garden!  Things are sprouting up (except the lettuce, blah.  Planted that out too late I think)  but the true successes are those that I weren't sure if they would make an appearance!

Every year I typically take cuttings of the mother plant for the winter and then cover mama plant with about 5-8 inches of pine needle mulching and pray that mama will come back.

The stevia got covered too late last year and didn't return despite having survived 2 years my garden when super-mulched (granted it was a dang, cold winter).

My lemongrass was unintentionally left all winter in a pot in the unheated and barely lit sunroom, but after taking pieces out of the pot there was still green and healthy white roots, so though I'm waiting for some real growth still now that they're back in the ground I can still cheer on for once the hardiness of grasses! Woohoo!

The real big news is that the lemon verbena which I took cuttings of that never ended up rooting up, survived under my mulch method and is looking lovely and pushing out leaf buds.  I'll work on taking cutting earlier on this time because I don't like gambling like I did last year.

One of the sunchokes that I bought from a grocery store, kept in the refrigerator for months and then buried in a small bed looks like it's coming up.  Unless there's some other strange fuzzy-leafed inhabitant in my garden bed that I should be aware of... I can't wait to anticipate potentially 10 ft tall chocolate scented flowers and root veggies!  *dances*

FINALLY, my big thrill is the my Haight Ashbury may have survived the winter too (YES!).  I was digging around the area I originally had planted it and pruned inch thick trunks when I noticed some growth of a purplish nature that I can only believe to be the hibiscus.  The hole I dug had roots that were white and healthy looking too, and though the old plant parts that I had pruned were dead and dry looking, I've know from past experience that hibiscus are just like that until they get going and send new branches/shoots from the ground.  More news on that another time in case I'm jumping the gun, but it's great to see things, especially uncertain things, making their appearance again.

Some days I with I was as tough as my plants are!

Basil! I needs it! (blue basil)

Along with my penchant for ornamental peppers (well, nearly any chile pepper) and tomatoes I love BASIL.  Who doesn't really?  And I don't mean just regular ol' sweet basil, but all the VARIETIES of basil (like my mint fetish, but not at the same rate of invasiveness).

It's not just the smell/taste that I love about basil, but its cool ability to so easily cross with others in its family (that sounds a little wrong doesn't it) and such simple propagation (cut, add to water, wait for roots)  makes me think of it as a saint among herbs.

So at the Memphis Master Gardener's Spring Fling earlier this year I got really excited when I saw a much coveted African blue basil plant and broke my plant buying moratorium (exotics/helpful perennials are more exempt from my new rule).

African Blue basil is a hybrid between an east African basil and "Dark Opal" basil, so it will unfortunately not produce true seeds (or seeds at all is what I've heard).  Though considered rather ornamental with gorgeous lavender flowers, it is highly fragrant witch a spicy clove-camphor scent.  Descriptions like that make me wish Smell-o-vision was available online!


The basil I bought was greenhouse grown and very nice and full, a great deal at $4 for its size and rarity.  It was already had racemes ready to flower, but as I wanted a large, strong and healthy plant I cut the racemes off so it would put its energy into growth rather than flowering.

I took a few cuttings from the side of the mother plant too and popped them in water  for rooting so it will be part insurance (in case the one outside gets killed) and part easy gift giving for those others who love basil.   Life is good.

Interesting Links:
http://articles.sfgate.com/2005-07-23/home-and-garden/17383831_1_basil-cuttings-companion-plants
 http://www.superbherbs.net/AfricanBlueBasil.htm

How Low can I go (cutting bulbs down)? Continuing the grocery store bulb growing tradition

I like not having to worry about those little things when cooking, like herbs or edible garnishes.  I like even more to not have to run out to the grocery store for those items that I don't use that often, like green onions.  BUT, I like it MOST when I don't have to re-purchase it and it keeps ALL year in the garden.

As I don't typically plan my meals, those little extra things that make a big impact to a meal like green onions, cilantro or rosemary come in handy when it's the garden and keeps well. 

So after my success with re-growing green onions from the store and keeping the growing bulbs in my refrigerator then house and finally planted them out into the garden after a couple months, I decided to try something more exotic like fennel.


I had a recipe for bouillabaisse, the classic French soup, except mine was more of a dumbed down vegetarian version, and I didn't use fish (oh well).

The only thing is that I needed to use the entire bulb it says, and as my bulb came pre-cut (without roots) from the store, most people would cut a certain amount of the more brownish oxidized cut part off anyways.

So I cut a little less than a half inch from the bottom of the fennel (preserving for food use what I thought would be enough for the soup) and wondered just how much can a person cut off a plant for it to regenerate.

A few days later after sitting in a saucer of water:

I suppose that answers it for fennel!


I'll admit, I got the fennel too not just for food purpose and to experiment with, but if my experiment in re-growing it worked, I wanted to grow fennel partly for food but also to feed deter the swallowtail butterfly caterpillars this year as I hear fennel is an excellent food source for them and the flowering heads of fennel attract beneficial insects such as hoverflies and helpful wasps.

Last year the caterpillars totally decimated my dill, parsley and turnip leaf crops (though the latter could have been turnip moths...) and so instead of grumbling like the mad woman I was last year, I'll working on trying to co-exist with the beasts.  The adults are pretty and pollinators of course, but in their crawly form... I am ashamed to say, but I was chucking them over the fence in a passive-aggressive "I'm not killing you (just marooning you a little), but if you can make it over to my garden again for food, kudos to you" sense in attempt to save the vegetables/herbs.

Since my experiment on one fennel bulb was successful, I'll be getting a few more for use.  I just need to find a bunch more recipes that involve fennel!

Unenchanted meeting

My little tomato seedlings are doing poorly.  As a matter of fact, I think they are kicking the bucket from damp off and now UV damage on my part (too impatient to get them out of the house and optimistically thinking that the UV rays would kill fungus/rid the seedlings of excess potential moisture...? I know, I know... hardening off, I did it a little too quickly and now I'm paying for it with dying seedlings, the surviving ones now splashed bleach white from the rays.

Luckily I had some leftover seed of 7 of the 13 varieties (lucky old 13, eh?) that I had planned to grow that I now get to re-grow.  Woo.

Well, if things go poorly again in about a week or so, then I'm just going to have to buy some plants. And that would just make me want to express myself in words that I can't/shouldn't post on this blog.

Anywhos, I left the remaining potentially survivable (we'll see) seedlings on a tray  on the ground away from my platform of newly sown  seeds just in case damping off fungus spores want to travel and infect others like vampires.  I returned a few hours later  to have a look-see at my pathetic seedlings when I noticed that there was a disturbance in one pot-verse:

Can you see it?

A little bit closer...

Yep.  That's a TOAD.  That buried itself.  Between 2 seedlings.  In a pot just large enough to hold its warty little self.

*SIGH*

I watered the plants a bit taking care to give the toad a bit of a cold shower and wandered at why the heck it didn't choose some of shadier regions of the garden that are relatively plentiful (and easier to get into).

I figured this was a lesson learned so I raised the crummier seedling tray up a bit on some bricks, took out the toad inhabited pot and left it on the ground so when Mr. Toad (where was Mr. Frog?) decided to hop on out he didn't have to go mini-skydiving in the process.

Naturally, when I took out Mr. Toad's pot the scamp then decided to vacate.

*SIGH* (again)

I'm sure we'll meet again Toad (most likely in one of my other pots or plots.

We're rolling, rolling, rolling: Tea Rolling

A while ago I pruned my tea tree (Camellia sinensis) down a bit as it was done flowering because that's when I heard it was best to do so.  Since then I've heard potentially other reports as to when to go about it and now I'm a little conflicted and worried, but if anyone has any advice, feel free to give it here.

Anyways, I pruned the darn thing as much as I hated to do so, because everything looks so sad when it's pruned and now I have to wait for new growth, which is the point of course, to create new and exciting branches that will increase my tea leaf load in the future.

I had read that I should prune it a few inches from the ground (pot in my case) but that just was so severe that I decided to demur on that advice and just did about half the plant.  Bah, I need to be more of a risk taker don't I?

The leftover prunings I saved to attempt to root up and thus be able to have more tree trees/shrubs/plants in the future for my use and as gifts for friends.  Cross fingers!

Many of the leaves I stripped, while older than for usual tea drinking use, I really did want to give it a go.  If I only did that one bud and 2 leaves thing that apparently all great tea is made from I'd have very little new growth and probably only a couple good cuppas a year, so I've been biding my time.

My methods were pretty crude and my steps not exact I know:  I rolled and pan fried the leaves, rather than roll them at the final step...but hey, still homemade green tea and hopefully things will be better the more I do it, right?!

My wonderful husband went through the effort of helping me figure out the rolling process, which was first awkward as I just literally rolled the leaf, then I made little balls that didn't hold their shape and finally we figured out a cool pretzel-ly thing:

It's  necessary to allow the leaves to wither first for a day or 2 so that they are not so turgid and brittle for rolling.  After that you want to pan fry or fire the leaves to stop oxidation (for green tea at least) and I'm sure to drive off water that might cause fungus or mold which is not only bad for flavor, but also potentially bad for one's health (funny, 'cuz this is the much touted health benefit drink).  Lastly you roll the leaves (the firing and rolling, I got inverted), probably more for a shape and storage aspect in green tea, because whole open leaves take up lots of room.  In other tea types, like oolong, the leaves are rolled prior to firing, to rupture leaf cell walls and give more flavor.

So what I made was like a weird white and oolong combination...?!

I pan fried my rolled leaves and they took on an interesting characteristic: the leaves got slightly shiny from oil I can only surmise that came from the leaves (unless the pan was not perfectly clean and there was residual oil in it) and they got obviously drier, but emitted a floral, nutty toasty smell that was quite delish to my nose.

I had saved some non-pan fried leaves and made myself a cuppa tea:

There was so little to no color and I was worried that there would be no flavor, but WHOA was there flavor!  Oddly seaweed-like and fresh,  grassy but slightly musky at the same time?! (Musky possibly not so good to some, but I don't mind it, or maybe I totally screwed something up here).

Either way, the unfired stuff was interesting, so I can't wait to see what the fired stuff will be like!


Interesting links:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_processing
 http://www.o-cha.com/green-tea-processing.htm
 http://www.enjoyingtea.com/teaprocessing1.html