Explore

February 4, 2010

14 Comments

Caladium in the Lawn

You know, I’ve never much cared for caladium. They’ve always been a “whatever” plant in my book, a humdrum bit of foliage most often seen crammed into decorative baskets and seasonal greenhouse exhibits. Who cares? (Perhaps many of you. In which case, I’m a monster and a tasteless fool. Sorry.)

In all honesty, my eyes pretty much just skimmed over them, even during desperate mid-winter greenhouse trips when I was literally scratching at the walls for some greenery. Even then they just barely registered on my visual radar.

I’d sooner cuddle up to a massive pachypodium with deadly spines or grow a circle of impatiens surrounded by ring of decorative plastic edging before I’d go for a caladium.

That’s just how it was for me back then.

But somehow all of that changes when you see one growing up through a lawn in St. Lucia. Suddenly, you find yourself exclaiming out loud, Hey, look at that!

The next thing you know, you see a small caladium with bright, variegated leaves growing between the rows of raised beds on an organic farm and you think to yourself, Gee, that’s kind of interesting. You mention it to other gardeners as if you’re the first person in the world to have discovered that caladiums sort-of, maybe aren’t that bad after all. You even consider for a moment whether it would be possible to smuggle one home in your suitcase, a distinction reserved for only the most exciting plants because face it, you don’t have the guts or wherewithal to pull that off.

(I’m one of those people who gets really sweaty, forgetful and nervous going through customs for no reason at.)

Before the trip is out you find yourself regretting all of the photos you DIDN’T take of caladiums, all the times you passed one over for a ginger or a poinsettia. Major oversight.

And suddenly, without your consent, you don’t even seem to mind the most fakey fake, over-the-top, completely classless varieties with cheesy names like ‘Fantasy’, ‘Miss Muffett’, and ‘White Christmas.’

And you can’t help but wonder, Who have I become?

Leave a comment

February 3, 2010

18 Comments

This Week’s Inspiration

Yesterday I posed the question, What is inspiring your edible garden this year? I think it is only fair that I join in and divulge my current inspirations for the 2010 growing season.

I saw this book, Terrine by StÃƒÂ©phane Reynaud the other day but couldn’t justify the purchase. The next day I treated myself to a visit to a used bookstore I like for cookbooks and bam, there it was at a fraction of the cost. How’s that for timing?

Let’s pause for a moment to enjoy the endpaper. Very nice.

This recipe for Basil Coulis is what has me thinking about my garden for 2010. Basil. Lots and lots of fresh basil. Several different varieties of basil in all sorts of colours, shapes, and flavours. I can never have enough of it and even though we freeze it and dry it, nothing compares to the real deal fresh off the plant. Let’s hope for a summer that is dryer and hotter than last year’s, which was a total disaster for basil lover’s across Eastern North America.

Basil Coulis is really just basil in oil with lemon, but let’s call it coulis and be fancy.

This recipe seems like a lot of work for what is essentially cooked veggies in a jar, but sure, let’s pretend I’m gonna make this. It does look awfully pretty in that jar. Bonus points if all of the ingredients come from my garden. My broccoli kicked ass last year, although I can’t really claim all of the credit. What sucked for basil was great for cool weather-loving brassicas.

I also bought this book yesterday, Cook + Book: Memories and Recipes by Alain Coumont.

cook+book2.jpg

First I’m going to make my own sourdough starter using the recipe in this book, and then I am gonna make my own bread and use it to make this tartine. The key ingredient: fresh herbs. Again with the fresh herbs. Growing herbs isn’t anything different from any other year. I always grow enough to feed an army. And still it’s not enough. However, I didn’t grow herbs indoors this winter because we went away for a month and now I’m craving the smell, sight, and taste of them.

I’m ready. Unfortunately the weather isn’t. There’s still snow on the ground and while I could probably head over to the community plot and find a leaf or two of parsley underneath the snow or start some small basil plants on the windowsill, the fact is that we’re not going to be enjoying those big fragrant bushes just yet. Patience.

p.s. Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for my new book, “Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces.”

Leave a comment

February 2, 2010

32 Comments

First Sighting in the Wild & Ten Years!

It’s a big week over here as my new book, “Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces” (I’m already an expert at saying the title super fast) hits bookstores TODAY!

Except that we spotted it at a Chapters/Indigo here in Toronto last night.

If you pre-ordered a copy, it should be arriving any day now. Yay!

Books are available through a variety of bookstores across North America. I will also be selling signed copies via my online store. Details on that are forthcoming but I will post here once my shipment arrives.

Meanwhile, some very excellent reviews of the book have appeared online and in print media. Check those out over here if you’re so inclined.

I wanted to make a much larger book and was sad to have to leave out chapters on seed harvesting (luckily you can find that here & here), extending the growing season (you can also find THAT here), more recipes, and so many plants that I just love, love, love. Over the coming weeks I will be rolling out some of the extra content that I had to edit out.

To support the book we are furiously organizing media appearances and events to begin this month and continue right through the spring season. A full list of events as they are confirmed can be found on the Grow Great Grub website or the “Upcoming Events” sidebar on the right side of the YouGrowGirl.com homepage. If you’d like to have me speak at your event, garden shop, or bookstore please get in touch.

In the meantime, here’s what’s confirmed for the month of February so far:

TODAY! Tuesday February 2, 2010
Martha Stewart Living Radio Show
Morning Living
8 am EST

Saturday, February 13 & Sunday, February 14, 2010
Montreal Seedy Saturday & Sunday
MontrÃƒÂ©al Botanical Garden / Jardin botanique de MontrÃƒÂ©al
Montreal, Canada
10am-4pm

Sunday, February 21, 2010
Toronto Seedy Saturday (on a Sunday)
12:30-6pm
Artscape Wychwood Barns (Barn #2)
601 Christie St., Toronto, Canada
I’ll be here as always selling copies of the book along with some of my other gardening goodies.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Grow Great Grub Book Launch Party
Lula Lounge
1585 Dundas Street West
Toronto, Canada
6:30-10:30pm
FREE Admission!
Come out and help celebrate the launch of the book! Door prizes, book giveaways, seed starting station, nibbles, and music by DJ General Eclectic (Footprints, Uma Nota).

TEN YEARS!

And if that wasn’t enough, February also marks the 10th year that this here internet website has been online. Ten years! All last week I pondered something profound to say to mark the occasion but all I’ve managed to come up with is, ten years. TEN YEARS. Ten [insert expletive here] years.

When I look back on ten years it kind of blows my mind. When I started the site I was practically a baby, you know, comparatively. I worried about being blasted for starting an online magazine about gardening (that’s what it was then) without being a horticulturalist (in conclusion: irrelevant). I worried I didn’t know enough botanical names, like there was going to be some kind of test. As if I were applying to be on a game show. Name 300 plants, common name followed by Latin. GO! Over the last ten years I have worried about all sorts of things that I can now say with authority were kind of dumb and not worth the anxiety.

Ten years ago I was a graphic designer and that’s what I planned to continue to be when I grew up. Ten years later I still do some graphic design but it’s no longer my full time job. Not by a long shot.

Having spent a decade writing about gardening, speaking about gardening, teaching others how to garden and doing a heck of a lot of gardening myself, I find that I am even more enthusiastic, more challenged, and more excited about plants then I was back then. Ten years ago I would not have thought that possible. A big part of what fuels that excitement is YOU. Your enthusiasm is infectious as is seeing what you are doing in your gardens, and hearing about your trials and triumphs. I think of it like I am a part of a giant international classroom devoted entirely to gardening Show & Tell and I hope to bring more of that to the next ten years.

THANKS!

Leave a comment

February 1, 2010

Comments Off

Fresh Coffee Bean

On our last day of the trip, our friend David in St. Lucia picked some red, ripe coffee beans (aka cherries) off of the Arabica bush, one for each of us, and instructed us to bite through the thick skin with our teeth.

Next, he said, remove the beans and put them in your mouth, but don’t bite them.

We were all surprised to discover that the thin layer of pulp covering the bean had a sweet, citrus taste, not unlike the delicious fruit that covers the fresh cacao beans! Who knew? My mind was blown.

This is one of the things I cherish most about that trip. We experienced new tastes and delightful discoveries nearly everyday. And some days were bursting with more than my brain could take in.

I think I’ll go make myself a cappuccino now.

Comments Off

February 1, 2010

15 Comments

Garden Tour: Erika’s Small Apartment of Small Plants

Yesterday afternoon I was invited into the apartment of a fellow Parkdale resident to check out her collection of fascinating and unusual plants. The visit brought the plant junky in me out in full force. I went home conspiring to get my hands on a few of those amazing plants myself and then spent the remainder of the afternoon rearranging and caring for the gazillions of houseplants I do have. Visits to other peoples’ gardens never fail to motivate me to do better by my own plants.

Mesembs in the front window.

Erika collects alpines, Mesembs (conophytum & lithops aka living stones are examples), Gesneriads (not African violets), orchids, and euphorbias. Looking back on our conversation, I’m not completely certain that she is exclusive to those plant families. Most of her collection just seems to fall within those categories. When I asked her what inspired her collection, she replied that she has always loved diminutive plants. The perfect-sized plants for an apartment dweller.

Conophytums are a South African plant that consist of two fused leaves. That’s pretty much it. They’re some of the most simplified and reduced plants I have ever seen.

They kind of look like doughy buns. Or really cute anatomical models of the cervix. Apologies for putting that image into your head, but frankly, that’s what I see when I look at one.

Conophytum bergerii (red) and Conophytum ratum (green).

Say what? These freakish things remind me of jelly candies or those stinky jelly air fresheners everyone had in their bathrooms in the late 70s. When I was a kid, I could never help opening up the plastic cover and poking them. I REALLY wanted to poke these too but that would have been very rude. The flower (yes they do flower) comes up between the two “leaves.” I can barely distinguish where that is on the red one.

Leave a comment