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Farmer's Almanac Weather Prediction for Ontario: "Cold, flurries."
This time of year is the blah zone. I'm growing some seedlings but they're for the contest, not myself. Other than that there just isn't anything to do. I haven't even looked at the seed catalogues that have been arriving in my mailbox in the last few months. I don't want any temptation since I've resolved myself to grow only a few things from seed this year. Last year I went insane with the tomatoes and tomatillos and I am not doing that this year! I might grow one yellow pear cherry tomato plant (those things are huge) and one of a heritage variety I have never tried called Purple Prince. Or I'm thinking I'll grow one of those crazy green zebra varieties if I can find seeds. Everyone went crazy for the tomatillos last year so I'll probably grow a few of those. I saw an amazing purple heirloom variety that I want to get. But that's it! No more 15 plus tomato plants in pots on my hot deck begging me to go out there and hose them down every damned day of the summer! It's easy to get carried away, but hard to maintain.
I had decided by the end of last summer that I was going to just grow herbs in the big planter boxes. For health reasons I am on a very restricted diet. As a result, basil, dill and oregano are the only three herbs I am allowed to consume. Last year I went crazy and grew no less then five basil varieties. This year I plan to continue my basil explorations. I grow a lot of other herbs, either for the smell, foliage or culinary use for others (teas etc). However, the only thing that saved me from complete and utter food blandiness over the past 8 months was the variety of flavours I could achieve using different types of basil. My favourite variety last year was Thai basil. It's beautiful to look at, and has a really interesting spicy licorice flavour with a hint of mint thrown in. I really love the look and smell of African blue basil but couldn't figure out how to use it for culinary purposes. It has the most unusual camphor-like scent.
This year I plan on growing purple delight basil (because it makes a great dried herb), the usual sweet basil and cinnamon basil. I also hope to try east Indian basil (it has a clove scent), lesbos basil (supposedly has a citrus, floral, and spice flavour) and sacred basil (if I can get it to germinate).
As far as herbs go I will once again be growing anise hyssop, lavender, bergamot, dill, coriander, lemon balm, various types of thyme (last year golden and silver thyme), persian catmint (for the cat), catnip (for the cat), mint, lime mint, pine geranium, greek oregano, sage and nasturtium. This year I hope to try out stevia (leaves taste amazing and make a good sweetner), borage, lemon verbena, epazote (good in black beans) and nigella. Every year I say I'm going to try a new geranium variety and then when it comes time to pick I can't decide between the assorted types. Richters has a new variegated strawberry in the 2002 catalogue that I'd like to try out since I was so successful with strawberry on my hot, sunny deck last year.
I really need a proper garden. There just isn't enough room for the amount of plants I want to grow for culinary purposes. It may be time to look into getting a plot somewhere.
See last year's tomatoes and tomatillos.
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