[Flower Essence Society]

This herb is another new addition to my garden this year. Of its two names, borage or starflower, I much prefer starflower. It is edible, medicinal, a good pollinator, and has gorgeous bright blue flowers.

Starflower is a self-seeding annual, which means it comes back every year in the garden. That can also mean it takes over a spot–my neighbor had to cut hers back quite a bit this year. The plant grows 2-3 feet tall and is covered with little hairs. Some people think it looks weedy, but I find that the flowers make up for it.

The flowers, as mentioned, are a brilliant blue and look fabulous as a garnish in drinks, desserts, and of course, salads:

[Chaumurky's Flickr]

You can also eat the leaves as you would spinach or any other edible leaf. The cucumber aroma the leaves give off is supposed to be particularly nice in a beverage.

Starflowers have been used by humans for a very long time. Originally from Syria, the plant was used by the Greeks and Romans and is mentioned in all old European herbal books. It has long been used to attract bees and other pollinators in the garden, and is said to be a good companion plant to tomatoes in particular.

And anyway, I just like it:

[Pictures Craze]

Have you grown borage? Tell me about it.

[Wikipedia]

I’m curious about the honeyberry plant, otherwise known as edible honeysuckle. I have never had the fruit, but once I do, there’s a good chance the plant will end up in my garden.

Originally from Siberia, Honeyberries produce a blueberry-like fruit. The berry is seedless, ripens early–even before strawberries come in–and apparently tastes like wild blueberries with a little bit of currant mixed in.

In addition to eating honeyberries fresh, people use them for pastries, jams, juice, wine, ice cream, yogurt, sauces, and candies. When frozen, the skin of the berry melts away, which makes them a good candidate for ice cream. They turn the ice cream bright purple-red because the juice has “10 to 15x more concentrated color than cranberry juice,” says Wikipedia.

[The Potting Shed]

Honeyberries are hardy plants, especially if you live in a cold climate. Because it originally comes from Siberia, the honeyberry can withstand winter temperatures of -47 degrees Celsius. It’s blossoms can stand cold up to -7 degrees Celsius.

Unlike blueberries, honeyberries aren’t fussy about soil PH. They can be put in a variety of soils and can thrive in either sun or partial shade. Since they get 6-8 feet tall, they sound like they would be a great way to screen out the neighbors.

You can purchase a honeyberry plant for $19.95 here.

Have you grown honeyberries? Tell me about it.

As I mentioned in my post about my 2011 vegetable garden, I’m trying out companion planting this year. Companion planting means grouping different crops together “on the theory that they assist each other in nutrient uptake, pest control, pollination, and other factors necessary to increasing crop productivity,” according to Wikipedia.

One grouping I’ll be trying this year is called Three Sisters, a combination of corn, beans, and squash that has been used for centuries by the Native Americans. The corn provides a pole for the beans to climb on and the beans provide nitrogen for the corn. The squash spreads on the ground, creating a living mulch that blocks weeds and keeps moisture in.

Here’s a tutorial on how to put in a Three Sisters vegetable garden. Essentially, you plant the three crops in a mound so that the corn is in the center, the beans are beside the corn, and the squash is on the outside. As everything grows, the corn shoots up, the beans climb the corn, and the squash fills in around the roots. It looks like this:

[Abri_Beluga]

How has companion planting worked for you?

[Courtesy About.com]

Fuchsias are one of the easiest plants to propagate. To grow your own, all you need it a clipping off another plant and soil.

That’s great because fuchsias come in all kinds of colors and styles and are very malleable. You can hang them from baskets, grow them as shrubs, or even train them into trees, like so:

[Read about how to do this here.]

Perhaps most importantly, fuchsias are forgiving plants. They grow in both shade and sun and they bounce back from neglect pretty easily. And hey, if you kill it, you can always start again with a new clipping.

How To Propagate A Fuchsia Plant:

Equipment:

Flower pot
Potting soil
Bucket or something to mix in
Water
Fuchsia clipping

Directions:

Start with a clipping from a plant. Simply pinch the end off an existing fuchsia plant, like so:

The clipping is wet because it fell into the cup of water I had it soaking in. I don’t know what kind of fuchsia it is, but the flowers look similar to this one, only red:

[Courtesy Love That Image]

Next, choose your pot. Pick one on the smaller side, since fuchsias don’t seem to like a lot of room while growing.

Fill the pot with dry dirt to the top:

Pour the dirt into a bucket or container. Add water until it is thoroughly moist, then pack the wet dirt into the pot again. Add more soil if necessary.

Stick your finger into the middle of the dirt. Insert the fuchsia clipping so that its stem is in the soil and the leaves are in the sunshine, like so:

Clean off the pot, and voila! You have the start of a new fuchsia plant.

Put the plant in a window where it can get indirect light. Once the soil has dried out, start adding a small amount of water every day. Fuchsias like a steady supply of water, but they don’t like to be drowned. I usually give a new plant about an ounce of water a day.

In a week or so, you will start to see new growth on the plant, and that is how you know that it has rooted. Continue to give it water. Before you know it, it will be taking over your windowsill.

I’m not sure whether “apron” is a better word to describe this, but Cut Out + Keep has a tutorial on how to make your own Gardening Toolbelt. It’s a piece of canvas that is folded and sewn so that you have pockets to put your gloves, clippers, and trowel in. That way you don’t lose track of your tools while you’re gardening.

Even though I have my nifty gardening caddy that I made from a $4.50 golf caddy, I still have a bad habit of misplacing my tools when I’m gardening, so that I often have to stop what I’m doing and run around the yard trying to locate them. Maybe a gardening toolbelt is the answer.

And if you like that, Sewing in No Man’s Land can show you how to make a child’s version of a gardening apron too:

Pretty cute stuff.

[One of last year's tomatoes]

I have been gardening already. I’m putting in the rest of the cool season crops this weekend (radishes, lettuce, etc.) and already put in some herbs, potatoes, and bulbs in the ground. In addition I started some seeds indoors and am generally cleaning the yard and getting things ready.

Of course, the bulk of planting will come in the next two months. I won’t be able to put in the really fun plants–tomatoes, peppers, melons, etc.–until late April and May. But it is spring, after all, and as far as I am concerned, it’s time to garden.

I have a lot of gardening posts planned for this year, and that made me look back on some of the posts I’ve done in the past on putting in a vegetable garden. Here is a round-up of some of the better ones to get you in the gardening mood:

* Does Gardening Save You Money?–An analysis of the costs and benefits of a vegetable garden.

* Planting A Vegetable Garden: A Wishlist–How to figure out what to plant.

* Planting A Vegetable Garden: The Soil–How to tell if you have good soil and how to prepare for planting.

* The Magic of Rot–The results of my first year of composting.

* What Not To Put In Compost–Talks about what should and should not be put in compost.

* Predatory Insects In The Garden–Identifies “good” bugs, the ones that eat the “bad” bugs, and tells you how to attract them to your garden.

* Cardboard or Sheet Mulching–A method of mulching that uses cardboard and newspapers to suppress weeds.

* How To Plant A Tomato Plant–My foolproof method for getting healthy, giant tomato plants.

I read somewhere that the more functions a plant has in your garden, the more useful it is. If you fill your garden with multi-use plants, there’s more of a chance that your garden will work together as a natural system.

What do I mean by functions? Let’s take a look at bee balm, a plant I’m putting in the front flower bed this spring. Bee balm is a perennial herb. It is:

* Attractive to beneficial insects–As you can tell by the name, bees love bee balm. They even sleep under its leaves.

* Beautiful–Bee Balm adds visual pleasure to the garden.

* Edible–The leaves can flavor food and the flowers are a lovely addition to a salad.

* Medicinal–According to this site, bee balm can help in the “treatment of colds, … headaches, gastric disorders, reduce low fevers and soothe sore throat, [and] relieve flatulence, nausea, menstrual pain, and insomnia.” Wow.

[How Stuff Works]

So, four functions, one plant. Sounds like a deal to me.

[University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture]

I was excited to learn about the Tea Bush, called Camellia Sinensis. All tea that we drink–black, green, oolong, etc.–is made from this bush. Thus, by growing it in your yard, you can make your own tea.

The Tea Bush is originally from Asia and closely related to the Camellia, as you can probably tell by the name. And like the Camellia, it is a pretty bush with fragrant white flowers and waxy green leaves. It takes well to pruning, can be grown as a hedge, and can get 10-15 feet tall. Best of all, this plant works in light shade, so it is a good way to add an edible plant to a shady spot.

I haven’t grown a Tea Bush yet, but I plan to put at least one in the backyard. According to the Sunset Western Garden Book, the plant can be grown in Zones 4-9, 12, 14-24. I would assume that if you can grow a Camellia, you can grow a Tea Bush.

You can purchase a tea seedling from One Green World for $20. They say the plant is 8-10 feet high and is cold hardy to 0°F.

Let’s grow our own tea.

This post is more relevant than ever, I suppose, since world food prices rose 2.2% in February, reaching a record peak. Yikes!

I am getting better at gardening all year long. Right now, for example, I have leeks, mustard greens, arugula, and chard from the garden, as well as two full lemon bushes and 2-3 chicken eggs a day. The fava beans plants are also tall and healthy, but probably won’t produce until April and May.

Of course the real time to plant is in the spring. Last weekend, as I mentioned, I sowed some seeds indoors. That required me to think about what I wanted to plant this year, which led me to plan my 2011 vegetable garden.

My garden is my science experiment and biology classroom. I learn so much just from watching it, and every year I try a new experiment to learn something new. Last year, I harvested my own seeds for the first time, finally figured out how to get rid of gophers, tried cardboard mulching, and realized the benefits of planting in groups instead of monocultures.

The last point was a tiny revelation for me. Most people put the same plant in long rows, thus creating mini-monocultures in their garden. I did this until last year, when I tried grouping different plants together in rows–a mustard plant beside a carrot beside a bean, etc.–and I found that it reduced pest damage to any one crop. If the same plant is in a long row, there’s nothing to stop a bug from indulging in an all-you-can-eat smörgåsbord. If the same plant is staggered between other plants, the pest has to search around to find more of the same, and thus is less likely to do as much damage.

In 2011, I’m going to take this concept to another level by experimenting with companion planting. I read a book on the subject called Carrots Love Tomatoes, which led to all kinds of great ideas:

I know some people are skeptical about companion planting, but it makes sense to me because it’s closer to how plants act in nature. Wild plants don’t grow in monocultures, they grow in groups with other plants. If we can imitate how nature works in the garden, we get healthier, happier plants–or that’s the theory, anyway. We’ll see how it goes.

Here is what I am planting in 2011, in the groupings I’m considering:

Corn
Kentucky Green Beans (to grow up the corn stalks)
Cucumbers (between the cornstalks)

Strawberry
Spinach (apparently these plants are “friends.”)



Bell Peppers
Jalapenos
Basil (turns out basil and peppers use the same water and light, so grow well together)

Zucchini (in groups together because they have to cross pollinate)

Butternut squash (the same)

Crane melons (too sprawling to pair with anything else)

3 Tomato plants (brandy wine, a beefsteak, and some kind of heirloom.)
Nasturtium (I’ll put these edible flowers in as a ground cover around the tomatoes.)


[This Garden Is Illegal]

Peas (snap beans)
Beans (probably haricots, i.e. French green beans)
Carrots
Leeks
Radishes (alternating in some way)

Large sunflowers (I want to group these with something, but haven’t decided what)

Lettuce (radicchio, endive, arugula, etc. They will be planted in the shade of other plants–by the raspberries or between the tomatoes, etc.)

Vegetable that won’t be going in the main garden:

Potatoes
Beets (I’m putting these in containers to keep the gophers out)

Chard (I find chard does great in the shadow of big herbs like rosemary)

Artichokes (I’m putting these in the front flower garden bed because they are perennials)

Bulb fennel (I LOVE fennel, but it is a gopher magnet, so I will probably put these somewhere away from the vegetable garden so that if they attract gophers, I won’t be directing them to an all-you-can-eat buffet)


[La Tavola Marche]

Sunchokes/Jerusalem artichoke (A new plant for me. Not sure where to put these, but they will go somewhere.)

Asparagus (Another new plant. It’s a perennial, so will need a permanent spot)

I’m still thinking, but this is the basic plan. I can’t wait to get out there!

What are you planting in 2011?

I’ve talked about using an egg shell to start seeds for the garden but I also like this idea from You Grow Girl: using a toilet paper roll as a seed starter. You fold down the ends of the tube, fill it with moistened soil, and plant the seed.

This is timely because I just planted a bunch of seeds indoors to transplant to the garden later this month. I used pots, but the advantage of using the the toilet paper roll method is that there’s no chance of damaging the seedling’s roots. When it comes time to plant, you put the whole thing right into the ground. Like the eggshell, the cardboard roll will break down as the seed matures. [Re-Nest]