i hope you eat good food, grow beautiful things, and have more love than you know what to do with.
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 …
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 caught my eye, I would snatch it up and ferret it home, until I had a veritable patch of them, all shapes and sizes and varieties.
Blueberries need a pollinator in order to grow large, beautiful fruit (they can self pollinate, but the fruits would be less and smaller) so I bought so many different kinds that I started losing track of them. I know I have tophats and highbushes, and my personal favorite: Pink Lemonade. I love the pink lemonade one because birds and other animals leave the fruits alone, thinking they’re not ripe yet, and I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but I find that particular variation sweeter. In the fall, the foliage turns a brilliant, flaming show of yellows and oranges and reds, providing an excellent fall landscape color (which is how I tricked my husband into getting three for our front yard.)
If you choose to plant more than one blueberry bush, be sure to pick those that flower around the same time so they can pollinate each other.
They require full sun to really ripen the berries, although I hear they can do okay in part shade as well (but I haven’t tried.) They’re quite attractive bushes, and seeing the berries clustered on their branches always make my heart do a little dance.
The main reason why they are reportedly difficult is that they require extremely acidic soil, around a pH of 4.8 to 6–it might be due to the fact that the natural habitat may have poor soil, as acidity is required for the roots in nutrient uptake. This means that they can be difficult to layer with other plants because those plants have to be able to tolerate that range as well. If the soil is too alkaline, the plant won’t set fruit, and the leaves will look quite sad. Some people like to use commercial fertilizers, but I’m of the opinion natural is best–especially since if the soil’s composition itself is not good, no matter how much liquid fertilizer you give it, it will not become self sustainable. Therefore I mulch with a layer of peat moss and compost to give my sandy soil organic matter, which also increases the acidity, as well as retains moisture (I have my sprinklers set for once every 3 days for a long and deep watering). Given that I have consistently gotten fruit from my bushes, I would imagine that this approach is a rather good one for this particular berry bush. They are winter hardy to USDA zone 4, and grow best if it goes no hotter than zone 7–so Long Island is perfect for them. Indeed, we have many, many Pick Your Own style blueberry farms out in eastern Suffolk County and they always have lots of fruit.
I’m really glad I had stepped out of my comfort zone and confronted this challenge of growing blueberries, which wasn’t so challenging once you knew what to do. My almost 4 year old daughter is very glad for it, especially as she picks the ripe, juicy berries and pops them in her mouth!
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 …
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 tender enough for saute-ing with pork and dried tofu. When they get older and a little tougher, we use them for pork and leek (a misnomer, as it’s not leek but garlic chives) dumplings, or scramble them with eggs.
It’s no wonder why garlic chives have become such a staple, given its winter hardy and perennial nature, and it’s drought and soil tolerance. I have it doing well in full sun and full shade, and it’s in several places in my garden. You can differentiate it from onion chives in that garlic chives have flat, blade like leaves instead of hollow tubed ones.
We call it “Jiu Cai” in mandarin, and we harvest both the leaves and the flowers. The flowers are used to make “Jiu Cai Hua Jiang”, translated into Garlic Chive Flower Sauce, which is used as a sauce for hotpot (Chinese Fondu) once winter hits.
It’s a cut-and-come-again vegetable, lasting us throughout the season into late fall. It sometimes, depending on how mild our winters are, is still seen poking out of the snow. Sometimes people blanch it (covering it so it grows yellow/white, the way we do asparagus) and it’s sauteed with river eel for one of my childhood’s favorite dishes.
Propagating is easy as you can do it both by seed and by splitting. Its thin bulbs underneath splits over time, and to maintain health, they should be thinned out every couple of years. They are difficult to dig up though, and once firmly established, form large clumps.
No matter, I’m always happy to give them a haircut because that means we get to eat it for dinner that night!
Scientific Name: Allium tuberosum
USDA Hardiness Zone: 3 – 10
Grassy, clumping, perennial herb with strong garlic notes that die back to the ground in the winter, but coming out early in the spring. Tolerant of shade but thrives in full sun. Drought tolerant. Propagate via seeds or root division. Used in a variety of dishes in Asia.
My birthday is in June, and I’ve been wanting a Juneberry (also called serviceberry, or saskatoon) for my edible landscape. As luck (or bad luck) would have it, my husband, in his over-excitement at using a chainsaw to do yard work, accidentally chopped down my …
If there is one thing that I’m always looking for, it’s an edible perennial green that also tastes good. Dandelions are great, but they’re bitter (which not everyone in my family likes) and not suited to cooking because they shrivel up into tough strings, better …
Shiso (perilla frutescens) is one of my favorite annual herbs. It’s much more commonly seen and used in Asia than it is in the US, and for the longest time I had been hunting for the green variety called ohba（大葉) in Japanese. I finally found it two years ago and have been cultivating them ever since!
The purple variety is now commonplace and has readily self seeded throughout Long Island. I often see landscapers and homeowners alike pulling it up and throwing it out, cursing this little purple plant for encroaching upon their territory, not knowing what a delicious and valuable herb it really is.
I have the purple kind dotted on my back lawn, but will have to move them to a better location lest someone mows over it. I had a single plant I lovingly saved from last year that gave these darling offspring, and I’ll be damned if I let them get destroyed before I have a chance to harvest them.
The green, red/purple, and Korean variety differ a bit in taste, with the red/purple tasting similar to the K-variety (which is red and green). The purple tastes strongly like what you would think pickled plums taste like, and indeed it is used to make umeboshi, giving the Japanese treat it’s signature pinkish color. The Korean variety is often marinated in soy sauce and made into a kimchi, which is wrapped around bite size mounds of rice, especially in winter. The red kind is also used to steam seafood, and helps give a nice fragrance to crab and shrimp when they can otherwise be a bit fishy. I love them wrapped fresh around barbecued beef or pork, and are delicious as garnishes.
Many people have probably seen the green variety without knowing what it really is and I actually think it’s a different species altogether given that the taste is quite a bit different than the other two. It just hasn’t been classified as such yet. It’s more citrus-y and tangy. The large leaves are often used as garnishes for sashimi platters, and while most people ignore it, I use it to wrap around the last piece of sashimi as a delicious finish to the meal. It pairs so well with cool, cold salads, and carpaccio or tataki or tartars. As a garnish, it elevates chilled tofu swimming in a delicate dashi-soy stock to high levels and gives you a very refreshing feeling.
I didn’t have much success sprouting them from seed and not that many people grow it on the east coast so it’s somewhat of a rarity. However, the successes I did have led to the ones that are now permanent, loving residents in my garden. I even gave a plant to my parents who put it in the ground in their front yard, but which was dug up and stolen by someone (who obviously knew what it was), braving their “beware of dog” sign and the three mongrels behind it. Thankfully I had enough to spare, and replaced their plant with another that they guarded closely until they too, had an established patch.
The purple variety does well in the shade and the sun, and the other two do well in part shade or sun too. They are annuals, and self seed so if you have a patch going, it should sustain itself, the seeds surviving Long Island winters just fine (USDA zone 7). It is okay with poor, sandy soil, and seems to be quite drought tolerant when established like most herbs. The purple variety is especially hardy in the shade, and provides a lovely splash of color in what may otherwise be a barren area.
If you feel like it’s invasive, simply pinch off the flowers when they start blooming (they can be pickled too) and you should be able to control it. I don’t have a problem with them because my family eats a lot of it during the summer time, but for those who are unused to it in their diet, it may become overwhelming.
If you aren’t sure whether or not you’d like it, head to your nearest sushi restaurant and ask for one. Try it with your sushi. I haven’t met a person who doesn’t like it yet!
Scientific Name: Perilla frutescens
USDA Hardiness Zone: N/A (Grown as an annual)
Annual, leafy herb that self seeds readily. Purple variety is full shade tolerant. Drought tolerant, but grows better with regular watering. Tolerant of poor, sandy soil. Does not have many pests. Has established itself in many places in the northeast US, including Long Island, NY. Grows 2-3 feet if given even space, light, and water. Used in a variety of Asian dishes.
Here are the recipes on my blog that utilize shiso, either as a central player or as optional garnish!
I had wanted to start beekeeping this year but because I had been busy setting up the rest of the garden, by the time I wanted to get to it, it was too late. I will probably start next year, if time and finances allow. …