A few garden pictures

I may not have a green thumb, and still have more gardening fails than wins, but when something survives me - it tends to really thrive.  Here are a few notables thriving outside right now.

17 broccoli starts - all still going!
(Pac-Man hybrid variety, so no seed-saving)

the Greek oregano that must dream of world domination

3 hibiscus flowers in a row, that inspired me
to grab the camera and get pics

2 more hibiscus flowers

Italian oregano, two full season younger than the Greek
but expanding its reach nicely

surviving curled-leaf parsley
(the other is being choked out by the Greek oregano)

Planting note spinach, chives, and marigolds

Just a note about planting seeds here.  The spinach is Burpee "Satin" variety, the chives are garlic chives (also Burpee) and the marigolds (edible flowers for us and the chickens) are "Crackerjack Sunset Giant" variety.  Yesterday I transplanted starts from Home Dept: two fernleaf dill pots, one regular green sweet basil, and another curled parsley.  I have been watering daily in mid-morning when the garden boxes are in the shade.

Acorn squash blossoms

For the past few mornings, I have had new acorn squash blossoms to look at.  The blossoms last less than 24 hours, so they really are a flash in the pan, so to speak, although we have not yet tried them as food.

first acorn squash blossom

 This very first squash blossom had a node under it, and it looks like it set into our first squash.  Several other blossoms have only been atop simple stems, and I am wondering if squash does male and female blossoms.  Something to look up when the rain hits soon.

new acorn squash blossoms amid the lettuce

My back has been all out of sorts this week, and part of it is my own fault for procrastinating way too long to order refills from the automated phone-tree hell VA has.  Ya know, there are over 7 billion people in this world, yet it takes the better part of an hour to get a live one to pick up the line at the VA.  This is not unique to this region: I had the same issue in Tennessee.  There is nothing quite as dehumanizing as needing to key in seven prescription numbers and having that recorded voice droning on over the phone speaker.  No, I usually do not get the numbers keyed in correctly each time, then it tells me there is no such prescription and I need to start back at that branch of the phone tree/flow chart.  This time, I will be certain to gather up the refill papers and snail mail them in ... I know hubby had a look on his face when I finally gave up on the refill thing while trying to get an actual person because they put the sticker on the box and not the bottle of one of them.  Oh well, I get what I pay for with VA.

Transplants 26 March

I picked up some starts yesterday at the little Ace Hardware in town before hitting the grocery store, and that errand pretty much wiped me out and made my back scream.  At least we have half and half for our coffee.  This morning, after looking at weather radar I went outside to put all the starts into the ground.

• Tomatoes: one each of Pink Brandywine (the larger of the two) and Heinz's Super Roma (heirloom type, not the hybrid one ... the flat were specifically marked each way).
• Peppers, of the sweet variety: one orange bell, planted next to the purple bell, and one giant Marconi, an Italian sweet pepper that I am hoping will be similar to the Carmen peppers from the year before last, as the peppers didn't sprout for us.
• Red onion, and a big bunch of them!  I took a little less than half next door to Maria, and she thought that was a lot until I mentioned "Estan menos de media de los cebollos."  Hubby will have a few fresh ones, and the rest will end up in the dehydrator then ground for onion powder and dried minced onion for the spice cabinet.
• A six pack of assorted coleus!  Must have my pretties, and coleus are my favorite of all time, going back to the first grade when I received a small one with my seed order through school.  I even won a blue ribbon in the school's plant fair.  Last year, I had oodles of volunteer coleus ... but then the neighbor's pet deer ate all the flowers off them last summer, and they didn't recover enough to make another round of seeds.

So now I am sweating in the high humidity before the rain starts, but have more plants in the dirt.

Cooking With Flowers book

One of my more unusual flea market finds is a book in rather good condition called Cooking With Flowers.  Copyright date inside is 1971, and the subtitle is Wherein An Age-Old Art Is Revived.  Written by Zack Hanle, who is/was a woman, and illustrated by Donald Hendricks ... neither name is familiar to me, but this isn't exactly a mainstream topic.  While I do have individual recipes in various cookbooks using flowers like squash blossoms and lavender blooms, I had never seen an entire book dedicated to the subject, so of course I had to snap that one up gleefully.

Cooking With Flowers, copyright 1971
by Zack Hanle; illustrated by Donald Hendricks

For me, this book was well worth the $1 I paid for it.  The table of contents lists: carnations, chrysanthemums, dandelions, day lilies, elderflowers, marigolds, nasturtiums, roses, squash flowers, violets, and yuccas.  I had already known dandelions, elderflowers, roses, and squash blossoms were all edible (or fermentable, in the case of elderflowers) but I did not know about marigolds, which I have always been able to grow as garden perimeter flowers, or carnations, mums, violets, and day lilies.

I've only browsed this book so far, but I do love the line drawings.  Since today is definitely a cooking day (light rain since before sunrise) I figured this would make some interesting rainy-day reading.

You can find some of the neatest stuff at flea markets, if you just look.