Garden Wisdom Blog

Every fall people ask us how to harvest quinoa. These tall plants produce masses of seeds, each seed resulting from the pollination of a single flower in their beautiful inflorescences (flower clusters). When the seeds are fully ripe and ready for harvest, they will fall out of the seed head easily. If part of the seed head is grasped in hand, the hard little seeds should easily dislodge. There will be seasons when cold, wet weather, threatens the harvest. If such weather is looming, simply cut the seed stalks about 15cm (6″) below the start of the seed head, and...

The elements of this Fennel and Golden Beet Salad really benefit from the use of a mandoline slicer to achieve very thin, even slices. Both the fennel bulb and beet are sliced this way (on the thinnest setting), but they are raw. A thicker slice would do, but the salad would be much crunchier. This is a salad to be served in small portions, more as an elegant palate cleanser than a vegetable side dish. It combines the delicious pairing of fennel with citrus, but the gold beets add a whole new layer of mild flavour and colour. The dish...

Roasting garlic transforms it from spicy, sharp, and pungent to sweet and smokey. The garlic loses its hard texture and becomes creamy and smooth. There are lots of ways to achieve this, but our preferred method is this simple roasted garlic recipe. Preheat the oven to bake at 400°F (205°C). Using a sharp knife, carefully cut through the top 5mm (1/4″) of the upper side of a whole garlic bulb. This is the flat side, opposite the root end. This cut should expose all of the largest cloves in the bulb. Be sure to keep the parts trimmed off for...

Pizza Margherita is supposedly the original prototype of all pizzas that followed. Tradition holds that its three simple toppings symbolize the red (tomato sauce), green (basil), and white (mozzerella) of the Italian Flag. It is a pizza constructed with restraint, that features the simple flavours of a minimal number of toppings. There are a multitude of variations when it comes to crust, sauce, and toppings, but we like this recipe for its simplicity. It’s a great way to use up cherry tomatoes, which can be very abundant during high summer. Our Margherita Pizza with Cherry Tomato Sauce recipe makes two...

Not so much an official trial, as an effort to grow out each of our sweet peas for comparative study. We grew out fifteen varieties among the other flowers and vegetables at our Kirkland House demonstration garden here in Ladner this year, creating one of the most fragrant garden experiences of all time. The sweet pea plant (almost all cultivated varieties are Lathyrus odoratus) originated in Sicily and the nearby surrounding Mediterranean region. They have been cultivated since the 1600s, and some of the oldest strains are still around. But every year new varieties and combinations are introduced, so a...