i hope you eat good food, grow beautiful things, and have more love than you know what to do with.
It was so hard to come up with a pun for asparagus–you know, one that might be family friendly rather than raunchy, but I managed to do so after sleeping on it overnight. Asparagus officinalis (see, even they couldn’t come up with a better name) …
Ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) has been somewhat of a bane to me–I love it. I want it. But in previous years, I had no luck with it until the one I planted last fall took. I don’t know how it’s possible to do so poorly …
I tried to come up with a clever pun for the title of this post, but failed miserably. It’s sad because this is such an awesome plant that I managed to get a hold of here in the United States. Japanese Spikenard (Aralia Cordata), also known as Yama Udo (mountain asparagus), is a delightful perennial. Considered a wild sansai (mountain vegetable) it is foraged for its shoots that come up every spring. Despite being able to reach impressive heights and widths, it is not a tree and will die back to the ground every year.
It fares well in shade or sun, but does require frequent watering especially if grown in the sun. Most people stick this plant in a deeply shady corner where not much else will grow. It’s most commonly seen as an ornamental in the US, but should be recognized for its uses as a food crop.
I haven’t tried it myself yet, as I just got it into the ground this year. However, once established, it will come back year after year. I suppose the English translation of “mountain asparagus” is due to the thick, stalk nature of its shoots. Some people describe its flavor as “resinous” (doesn’t sound good) and others describe it like “fennel” (which does sound good.) Some people say it is bitter–but considering most of Asia treats bitter vegetables as delicacies, so if it is (and few sources mention it) I don’t think it should impede my enjoyment of it.
Grilled, steamed, boiled, tempura–almost every recipe I see calls for it to be cooked (to reduce the natural flavor) but there are other sources saying it can be used raw to add flavor. I haven’t tried it yet so I can’t say which way is best, but next spring I’ll definitely give an update.
Raspberries (rubus idaeus) belong to the rubus family which includes blackberries, thimbleberries, brambleberries, tayberries, etc. and can readily cross breed with them, so new varieties are constantly coming out. Some people find them invasive–but honestly, what’s so bad about a fruit that vigorously propagates itself? …
I hate ornamentals that have no utility other than looking pretty. I’m sorry, but in the event of the zombie apocalypse, everything on my property better have a use so that myself and my family can survive, and tulips and daffodils definitely won’t help on …
Regular strawberries are nice, but sadly we neither eat enough of it, nor have the patience to really protect it from all the creatures that want to devour it. The fruit sizes are varied, some years giving large ones, other years giving rise to strangely shaped and stumpy ones. The only person in our family who is excited to see strawberries regardless of how useful it actually is, is our almost-4 daughter who is delighted when she finds one ready for picking.
That’s not to say I don’t have any regular strawberries on the property–I do, but I don’t protect them nor really pay much attention to them. They’re the leftovers from past years when I thought we’d really get a good crop of it going and I don’t have the heart to kill them. They’re not suitable to my food forest style gardening, where vigor and utility reigns supreme.
Now, the alpine strawberries (Fragraria vesca), of which I have both red and white varieties of–these are the strawberries I can get behind. They are small, maximum size reaching the fingertip joint of my thumb, but they are a burst of flavor in tiny packaging. Very sweet, and very fragrant–when you bite into one, you go, “this. this is the flavor of strawberries.”
They are also vigorous, sending runners every which way, forming a dense groundcover even on poor soil. They don’t compete as well, but it doesn’t matter if you have them in an area where not much else will grow. The foliage and flowers are attractive, thriving even in full shade (as I have a large patch under an awning on the north side of the house, where everything else has died due to a lack of sun.)
They seem to be drought resistant, although they obviously do better with more water. I suppose my only issue with them is their lack of sizeable fruits, which makes them only good for munching in the garden while we work. But they propagate easily, and from an original three plants, I have now hundreds. They are obviously winter hardy, surviving just fine here in NY.
There are both white and red varieties, which the only difference is honestly whether or not birds bother it. Ants love the ones they can reach, while slugs in general seem to leave it alone (although I suppose I wouldn’t know, considering a large slug could make short work of one in a matter of a few minutes.)
One thing to be aware of is that they won’t put their energy into fruits if they’re constantly sending runners around (which they seem to love to do), so if you want them to give more and larger fruit, you should nip the runners. Of course, if you’re like me, enjoying the fact that they’re overtaking an area where nothing else will grow, you might just leave them to run how they may.
I must admit, I was very daunted by the prospect of blueberries (vaccinium cyanococcus), as people complained all over the internet about issues afflicting them and the difficulty in their care. But my hoarding instinct got the better of me and whenever a blueberry bush …
There was a cherry tree at my grandparent’s house that gave tart, dark red fruits that weren’t good for eating directly but made for some fun times when me and my sister would sit on our dad’s shoulders and pick them. I have a very …
Some time ago, when I had been earnestly following bento blogs and the like, one particular poster always had these beautiful, tiny red or white berries that she arranged in the bento she made for her children. I always wondered what they were, looking almost like glass or crystal, until years later, saw them in a nursery magazine.
Currants (ribes). I only knew there were black currants (ribes nigrum), with a strong musky odor that is only rendered palatable (and deliciously so!) once made into jam or jellies. They are relatives of gooseberries, and can be crossed to create Jostaberries (of which I have three bushes, but that will be addressed in a separate post.) It’s a flavor I was actually familiar with, because these old candies we used to get in tins contained it as one of the flavors. Imagine my delight when I found out there were white, red, and pink varieties as well! And they are okay for fresh eating, if you can handle things that are more on the tart side than the sweet side. Most varieties of black currants are too strong to eat out of hand, but there are a cultivars that can be.
Red currants make expensive jellies, called Bar De Luc, and is called the caviar of jams. They are eaten more in Europe than in America. It fares well in shade and sun, although it seems the fruits ripen sweeter in the sun. It does well in all types of soil (but obviously enjoy well drained and rich) and their pH tolerance is wide, although they do favor slightly more acidic soils.
The flavor… is hard to describe. It tastes like currants. And although they make for a fun snack while working in the garden, their value really is for their delicious and fragrant jellies. I love the way they look, and find myself dreaming of using them for plating, if nothing else. They are prolific, and one bush can provide a lot of fruit.
They do quite well in our LI weather, and I have them coming back year after year even though I moved them around a lot until settling on the perfect area for them.
Scientific Name: Ribes sp. (nigrum, rubrum)
USDA Hardiness Zone: 3 – 8
Perennial fruit bush, fruiting on canes. Somewhat drought tolerant, part shade tolerant and do well with some shade during the hottest time of the day. Not picky about soil. Clusters of tart berries ripen in summer. You should prune them every so often to encourage fruiting. Easily propagate by seeds or by cuttings.
Every Chinese family I know has garlic chives (allium tuberosum) in their garden. It’s a species of onion that hails from China, and is one of the earliest spring vegetables to come out, harvested beginning of March here on Long Island so that they are …