joene's garden » Edibles

Papaloquelite–You Can Grow That!

joenesgarden — Sat, 04 May 2013 15:31:44 +0000

If you are looking to spice up your summer cooking and are a fan of cilantro, papaloquelite is an annual herb worth trying. Native to Central America, papaloquelite can be started indoors from seed or sown outdoors after danger of frost has passed in northern climates. For lovers of gardening and Mexican foods, papaloquelite is definitely a You Can Grow That! plant.

Papaloquelite (Porophyllum ruderale) will attract attention – in my zone 6 Connecticut garden it grew to 4 feet tall. It has lovely blue-green leaves that emit a cilantro-like aroma when brushed.

Because I like to observe and understand just how new-to-me plants grow, I allowed papaloquelite to grow into late summer until it began to flower. However, like many herbs, papaloquelite's flavor is best when the leaves are young. I can attest that older leaves tend toward the bitter side and are less tender. Fortunately, each plant throws out many side shoots of tender, young leaves which are best used fresh. Like cilantro, papaloquelite loses its flavor when cooked.

If left to grow to full height, papaloquelite is best planted as a background plant. It will easily reach 4 to 5 feet in height if not pruned to maintain a shorter stature and will shade other plants growing between it and the sun. Papaloquelite can also be grown in containers in full sun.

Papaloquelite does not bolt in summer heat, as cilantro does, so those who love cilantro-like flavor can use young papaloquelite leaves as fresh garnish all summer.

On the 4th of each month, C.L. Fornari at Whole Life Gardening urges garden bloggers to champion the virtues of gardening by sharing You Can Grow That! suggestions. Read the rest of the May 2013 posts, as well as previous posts, at the You Can Grow That! website. You are bound to get some ideas for trying something new in your garden.

Categories: Edibles, Herb Highlights, You Can Grow That!.
Tags: gardening in Connecticut, papaloquelite, You Can Grow That!.

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Bulbs to Plant, Bulbs to Store; Avoiding a Gardening Oops.

joenesgarden — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Bulbs to Plant, Bulbs to Store; Avoiding a Gardening Oops.

Welcome to December and the monthly Gardening Oops … the GOOPs confessional. On the first of each month, here at joene's garden, it's time to fess up a GOOPs, a garden-related miss-step or downright mistakes. The December 2012 GOOPs theme is too much to do, too little time, all revolving around bulbs and tubers.

Autumn is planting time for spring-blooming bulbs. My order of Hyacinthoides (Spanish Bluebells), Camassia quamash, Dutch Iris, and two varieties of Crocus tommasinianus arrived and promptly went to the garage for safe keeping until planting.

The hyacinthoides and Camassia found permanent soil-based homes a week ago, with the helping hands of three-year-old granddaughter Avery - her first experience helping grandma plant bulbs.

Not so for the iris and crocus. They remain packaged in the garage.

Does this qualify as a GOOPs? Not yet. Even in December, in southern Connecticut, it's not too late to plant spring-blooming bulbs, provided the ground has not yet frozen solid. The predicted warm weekend temperatures should entice me to plant these beauties outside. If not, they'll be planted in pots and stored in the garage or the cold stairwell of the basement hatchway. With a bit of soil moisture, and a few weeks of the cold temperatures bulbs need to sprout, late winter should bring new growth. A third, least desirable, option is storing the bulbs in paper bags in the refrigerator to pot up later. Though never trying the refrigerator storage thing myself, it's purported to work.

Another bulb to-do: properly storing the canna bulbs. Cannas are a bit too cold-intolerant to survive outside through zone 6 winters. Rarely do I take on a plant/bulb that requires extra care to survive Connecticut weather, but a friend shared these cannas last spring. They grew beautifully all summer in large clay pots in full sun, needing little more than regular water, so now I'm hooked. Removing the bulbs from their pots was quite a chore but, after yanking, tugging, and forcing the bulbs from the soil, they went into a cardboard box in the garage to let the soil dry. And, there they sit.

According the the video below, all that's needed now is to place them in a paper bag, move them to the warmer, but still cool, basement, and check them occasionally to make sure they are not too dry.

Canna care

Time will tell whether this canna experience becomes a GOOPs … they may just survive my neglect to grow in potted homes again next summer.

The last bulb … well, actually tuber … left on my to-do is horseradish.

The tubers, dug from the ground, shaken free of as much soil as possible, and left in a cardboard box to dry and cure now need remaining soil brushed off. Then, after washing and peeling, they will be food-processor ground. It takes some doing to turn these unattractive, fresh dug horseradish roots into an edible condiment, but the sweetness of the finished product makes it worthwhile.

Tick-tock, tick-tock … all I need is time.

Do you find time lacking in your gardening life? You can share your tale of time-woe, or confess another type of GOOPs, in a comment below or on your blog … just leave a link and a teaser comment below.

Don't be shy. All gardeners have GOOPs. If you've not made mistakes, you are not gardening hard enough.

Categories: Bulbs, Edibles, Gardening, GOOPs-Gardening Oops, Techniques.
Tags: cannas, gardening in Connecticut, gardening oops - GOOPs, horseradish, spring-blooming bulbs.

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Tomato Mystery-Part Two: a surprise Gardening Oops

joenesgarden — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 11:59:27 +0000

Tomato Mystery-Part Two: a surprise Gardening Oops

If you've started vegetables from seed, then wondered, «where in the world did that come from,» you will identify with this gardening oops, or GOOPs, tale. On the first of each month I share one of the gardening oops I've made or dealt with during my decades of gardening in Connecticut hoping to either prevent other gardeners from making similar blunders, or at least offer some GOOPs solace for those with similar tales. My GOOPs tale this month is not one I made, but one of a cherry tomato surprise.

I have limited vegetable gardening space, thanks to voles that totally undermined my former vegetable beds. Until construction of new raised beds is completed (a project that's taking longer than I hoped) I grow tomatoes in large pots. I order seed after carefully reading and analyzing multiple seed catalogues and choosing the exact varieties I'd like to grow. My favored cherry tomato is Sweet Million; one plant provides ample red cherry tomatoes with a wonderfully sweet flavor. Still, I like to try different cherry tomato varieties.

This year I decided to try Red Currant, an heirloom tomato described as producing hundreds of tiny, tasty fruit on three-foot tall vines that can thrive in leaner soil. This sounded like a potentially doable potted tomato. Because of space issues I only planted three cherry tomato plants – one Sweet Million and two Red Currants.

The Sweet Million has performed as expected … lots of wonderfully sweet cherry tomatoes.

The two Red Currant plants are also producing lots of tiny cherry tomatoes but ...

just one plant produces red fruit.

The other plant, from the same packet of seeds, produces yellow fruit.

Normally I happily accept such surprises but the fruit from these two plants has been less than memorable. If these are, in fact, Red Currant tomatoes and the yellow one is just a fluke, then I now know what the word 'tart' means when describing tomato flavor. If I were to buy these tomatoes at a farm stand, I would not do so again. Likewise, I will not grow Red Currants again in my garden.

The tiny fruit is cute but I don't find the tart flavor pleasing and the red-fruited plant produces more cracked than non-cracked fruit.

By contrast, the yellow-fruited 'supposed' Red Currant produces few cracked fruit, but the flavor is less than sweet.

My cherry tomato surprise is just part of this season's tomato mystery, but it's a reminder that sometimes gardening oops are blunders of our making but events thrust upon us. We can learn from every gardening experience, and it's especially good to share so we can learn from each other.

Do you have a GOOPs of your own to share, either tomato-related or not? Tell your tale in a comment below or on your blog, leaving a link below so I can find you.

Categories: Edibles, Gardening, GOOPs-Gardening Oops.
Tags: cherry tomatoes, gardening in Connecticut, gardening oops - GOOPs.

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