You Grow Girl™

I’ve seen this spelled as ‘Constoluto Genevese’ and ‘Costoluto Genovese’. When I purchased it the package was marked ‘Costoluto’ without the extra ‘n’ and I’ve been going by that since. It’s an old Italian variety so anyone who speaks Italian would have a better idea of the true name.

I actually took this photo in August 2006 but as my tomatoes form on the vines and anticipation mounts, I can’t help digging up a photo to remind me of what’s to come.

2006 was the only year I grew this pumpkin shaped heirloom, not because it was a dud but simply because the maximum number of tomatoes I can grow within a season is limited by space, leaving only a select few to make it back for a second or third year. I grew this indeterminate in a BIG container although the yield was still fairly low. The plant can produce fairly large fruit making it a better choice for in-ground gardens.

Most of my peas are finished and have been replaced by beans but the Blue Podded Shelling Pea is still producing over at my community garden. I harvested a handful just yesterday. This beautiful purple pea with frilly pink flowers is one of a handful of unusual pea types that I can’t resist growing every year. I can’t say I love the flavour of this variety, but then again I tend to harvest the peas when they are small and eat them steamed rather than leaving them longer to produce real peas as is the norm. When cooking, the blue/purple colour actually bleeds off like a dye. I steamed a handful on top of rice once and the rice was dyed purple.

Another photo from my community garden.

Butter and Eggs (Linaria vulgaris) growing out of the gravel on abandoned railroad tracks.

Calendula had been self-seeding itself in my community garden plot in abundance, until last year when I put in a lot of soil amenders. I think the seeds got buried too deeply underneath all that extra compost. No matter, some are still coming up and in manageable quantities. The borage continue to self-seed with no noticeable change in population.

The flowers in this picture are not from my community garden. Those flowers are yellow, and try as I might I can’t get a bright orange variety to come up. No matter, this year I started some unusual varieties from seed and transplanted them into the garden. I’ll post pictures when they start to bloom.

Another wasteland favourite, Butter and Eggs thrives and blooms where most plants won’t.