Garden Wisdom Blog — category: Garden Wisdom

Cress (Lepidium sativum) & Watercress (Nasturtium officinale) Cress (sometimes called garden cress, garden pepper cress, pepperwort, or pepper grass) is a leafy annual herb from the Brassica family. It is harvested when immature, around one to two weeks after germination, but will grow to a height of around 60cm (24”) if left undisturbed, and then form racemes of white flowers followed by small seedpods. The leaves and stems of young plants are crisp and succulent and high in water content, and the flavour is a bit spicy, similar to the closely related mustard greens. This makes for a surprisingly lively...

Catnip (Nepeta cataria) This perennial member of the mint family is native from eastern Europe eastward to China. It is a bushy, branching herb that grows to 50–100cm (20–39″) tall. Like many mints, its stems are square in cross section, and its leaves have a soft texture, being covered by minute hairs. Its white to pale-pink flowers are highly attractive to bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. Catnip is hardy to Zone 4, and works well in containers. Catnip has been celebrated for centuries as a medicinal herb, and it has come to be known by many names: Catmint, catnep, catrup,...

Farm Box Pickup Week Two After learning how the system works, it becomes immediately a routine part of our week. Every Tuesday we look forward to finding out what’s in this week’s CSA farm box program. Lydia at Cropthorne Farm does up a chalk board each week, and it’s kind of smart marketing. Already we have “box envy” for her customers who opted for the Medium size. They get a few more items each week, and the diversity is compelling. In week two we got carrots, cucumbers, spinach, radishes and the first of (no doubt) many zucchinis. Although the radishes...

Organic gardeners share one challenge that has many faces – how to nurse newly emerged seedlings along to the point when they are strong enough to defend themselves. Because seedlings are so tender and tasty, and low to the ground, they are easy pickings for a host of animals, from the very tiny to the enormous. Everything from wireworms and millipedes up to racoons and deer are perfectly happy to chomp on your veggies, sometimes eradicating a whole bed of newly emerged plants. Every spring I receive a host of emails asking, “How to I protect my seedlings from [insert...

Here’s a bit of geeky plant science for you. David Bradbeer at the Delta Farmland & Wildlife Trust sent me this great image of the roots of white clover. You can plainly see bumps along the roots that are called nodules. Over millions of years, the plant has evolved a symbiotic relationship with certain species of soil-dwelling bacteria called Rhizobia. This group of bacteria has the ability to take nitrogen from the atmosphere and “fix” it by metabolizing it into ammonium, which is a nitrogen compound that the plants can make use of. The plants benefit by using this extra...