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Garden Plans for 2012: Edible Flowers
We are planning to make good use of the variety of sizes of our new raised beds by trying some different things in a small area, rather than devoting half or all of one of our old beds to them. One of the new 4′ x 4′ raised beds will have a theme of “Edible Flowers” this year.
Edible flowers are a fun subject, but the challenge that we ran into during the planning is that most of the really popular edible flowers are all cool season. In other words, since we won’t be able to plant them in March, we had to try something else. When we get to fall, we’ll be able to plant pansies, violas, nasturtiums, calendula, dianthus, snapdragons, etc. However, since we’re aiming for a planting date of mid-May, we had to focus on flowers that like warmer weather.
In the very center of the garden is an edible hibiscus, called Roselle. It is popular in southeast Asia and Mexico. The buds are used to make drinks, teas, jellies, and more.
Then we will have ‘Cardinal’ Basil, the same type we have in the “Beautiful Vegetables” garden.
On the edges will be a reblooming daylily, supplying us with edible buds. Then in the corners will be citrus marigolds and French marigolds. The citrus marigolds are sometimes called “signet” marigolds, and they have a definite citrusy scent and flavor, rather than your typical marigold odor.
Friday PhotoEssay: A Look Back at 2009
Last week I finally finished uploading all of the 2009 Demo Garden photos to Flickr. I have to say…the vibe from those pictures is much different than you get from looking at a lot of the 2011 pictures! I thought I would share some of my favorite pictures from that year, since I got to enjoy them again as I was uploading them. To see all the 2009 pictures, click here.
We overwintered this radicchio from 2008, and this is what it looked like just after Valentine’s Day in 2009! Still one of my all-time favorite Demo Garden pictures.
I think all of the radishes we planted in 2009 were Easter Egg Mix Radishes. At least, all the pictures I took were of them.
2009 was the year of the cherry tomato! We had them coming out our ears. This bowl was one of the first harvests in early July.
This was the year we had a full bed of zinnias. The flowers were extremely photogenic, even if the rest of the plants weren’t particularly beautiful.
We got lots of rain in 2009, and the garden was lush and full of insects. This big grasshopper was one of my favorites, but there are lots of pictures of spiders, grasshoppers, butterflies, and other bugs in the archive.
Fall 2009 was the season of beautiful Bok Choy. And rain, as you can see. I think that was the season that our Bok Choy looked its absolute best. The weather was perfect with no insects and no bolting.
Since 2009 was the year before our raspberries succumbed to Phytophthora Root/Crow Rot, the berries were large, luscious, and still ripening in November!
Doesn’t looking back at some pictures of a really good gardening year make you a little more excited for this year?
Have a great weekend!
First Look at our Garden Plans for 2012
It’s a little bit funny that we’re talking about our planting plans when we aren’t remotely close to having beds to plant in. However, we’re eternal optimists and are forging ahead with our planting plans, regardless of whether or not we ever actually get to implement them! I think we’ll have some very exciting things in the garden this year, assuming the construction goes well this spring.
Friday PhotoEssay & Link Around
It isn’t often that I’ve gone outside the boundaries of our Demonstration Garden for pictures or post topics, but since our garden is pretty barren right now (see the previous post), I wanted to keep providing some garden eye candy for as long as possible. This week, I went out and visited the rose garden!
Our hybrid rose garden is still looking amazing, even after a few freezes. Aren’t these roses gorgeous?
This if the flower from the ‘Mister Lincoln’ hybrid tea rose. It is an older hybrid tea (introduced in the 1960s), and has big, beautiful flowers. A lot of catalogs show it as being a redder rose, but ours is definitely a paler, fuchsia color.
I also found a number of different articles and recipes to share this week, covering quite a range of topics. Read the rest of this entry
Video Wednesday: Taking Cuttings
This video is maybe a little late, since we’ve already had a couple cold nights, but if you still have some plants you’d like to save cuttings from for next year, this is a great how-to video.
