Grow Journey on a Bun

The last day of March. Did anyone see it sprinting past? In what direction was it headed? What was it wearing???

Tomorrow is April.

And I have microgreens. I have been collecting all my leftover Grow Journey seeds - just a few from each packet from over a year's worth, mixing them up and tossing them in seed trays every few weeks. They have provided welcome and miniature salads for lunches at home, while I work. I have been tied to my laptop with writing for the forage cookbook. Taking a break to snip microgreens and cook an egg (they belong together) has been very welcome.

These seedlings are a collection of kales and mustards and beets and lettuces.

Please note the steam. Bitten into while hot.

And then there was today's breakfast of defrosted baked olive oil dough (worked like a treat) experiment, with hot sauce...

In the garden I have sown Grow Journey's mâche (lambs lettuce) and a purple Indian mustard. After swearing off tomatillos last year (they made so many I was overwhelmed), Grow Journey's seed of the month package contained purple tomatillos. What is a gardener to do? Simple: change her mind. Who could resist? I will bottle them and make them into sauce. I have never done real canning, but it is time to learn something new, in the preservation department.

I am waiting to sow the tomatillos as the seed trays in the bedroom - the brightest room in the apartment - are beginning to take over the world.

As always, you can sign up for a free, 30-day Grow Journey trial, no strings attached. In return you will receive 5 packages of USDA certified organic heirloom seeds. One of the greatest benefits of membership, as I have said before, and will again, is the growing support you receive on your personal dashboard. The specific as well as general horticultural information made available to you is top notch and reliable; it is not only exceptionally educational, but also very interesting. Having this resource in one place, rather than having to surf the web for answers, is time saving as well as convenient. I know I have learned a great deal.

What are you planting now?

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Book a Spring Forage Walk

Mesclun, a short word for lots of leaves

Grow Journey seeds of the month in the blue light of a cold winter afternoons, above. We had a two day spring scare but are back to more appropriate temperatures, and I don't think they will last. I have been gardening. Seed trays are sprouting (8 artichokes, so far), and in the vegetable plot seeds have been sown after one more oyster shell powder application. As fast as I prep beds, the damn squirrel trio has been excavating. I must figure something out.

When you log into your personal Grow Journey account you now have access to an expanded My Seeds description, which covers the seeds you have received, past and present. The information here goes far beyond anything any other seed company is doing in terms of providing specific background and cultivation instructions for those seeds, edible landscaping advise, and other useful growing tips. So instead of Googling madly and deciding what online sources to trust, you have everything in one place. The information is equally helpful for new gardeners and experienced gardeners. This component comes from Grow Journey's Education Director, Eliza Holcombe Lord, who is a permaculture teacher, master naturalist, and master gardener. "She knows more about plants, soil, insects, and the natural world than anyone we know," writes Aaron von Frank, Grow Journey's co-founder.

Bear with me for a copy and paste, to give you a taste of what I see when I log into my account. This is two thirds of the info for just one of my February seed packets, a mesclun mix. Every seed gets the same treatment (the photos are of my mescluns past, as the current batch is still germinating).

"...this [Spicy Spring Salad Mix] is our exclusive robust mix which we’ve curated to contain varieties that are unique and grow well together. We’ve put together a blend of traditional arugula, ‘Winter Red’ kale, ‘Bellesque’ endive, ‘Paris Island’ romaine (cos), ‘Brussels Winter’ chervil, ‘Pokey Joe’ cilantro, garden chives, ‘Wrinkled Crinkled Crumpled’ cress, ‘Tatsoi’ spoon mustard, ‘Golden Frills’ mustard, and ‘Vivid’ choi. These are all fast-growing varieties that will mature at roughly the same rate to produce a colorful and richly flavored braising or raw mix. If you prefer your salads on the milder side, just mix it with the amount of lettuce you prefer to dilute the strength. TIP: If you don’t like cilantro, their seeds are easy to recognize and pick out since they are large and round (cilantro seeds are also known as coriander – the spice). In case you aren’t familiar with the appearance of whole coriander spice, we’ve included a photo to help you identify them below. The arugula and mustards will be sweet and mild after frosts and spicier once they age or the weather warms up.

"All of these varieties are tolerant of light frosts and grow best in cool fall, spring, or winter-covered weather (season extension supplies). In warm weather they become bitter, spicier, and bolt (flower and set seed). Mesclun is usually sown densely, like pepper sprinkled over soup. To make sure your seeds spread evenly, you can thoroughly mix the packet of seeds with around a pint of sand or potting soil before sprinkling it in your desired planting location (only mix in the seeds you plan to plant that day). If your soil is kept moist and fertile, you can start harvesting in as little as 3 weeks! Make sure to use scissors and trim the plants approximately 1-2 inches above the soil level so their crowns can resprout additional flushes of leaves. Harvest at any size (even sprouts, though 4-6 inches tall is ideal). You also have the option to space the seeds further apart if you prefer mature “heads” of leaves instead of giving a haircut to a “chia pet” patch of baby-leafed varieties. Mesclun is grown a little differently than regular greens, even though it is often the same species and varieties of seeds. Make sure you check out our instructions to get the best results.

"Mesclun mixes are one of the easiest and most aesthetic vegetables to mix into an edible ornamental landscape. They automatically include a rich palette of colors and textures, provide almost instant gratification with their short maturity, can be adjusted in size to fit almost anywhere, and they even have attractive flowers later in the season. You can squeeze a square foot patch of mesclun seeds between young transplants to make the bed look full while the transplants plod along to full size (by the time the summer veggies need the space, your mesclun can be removed) or you can get even more creative.

"For a really whimsical approach, take a long piece of yarn or other string and loop it in shapes and twists on the soil surface between the other vegetables in your bed until you like how it looks. Next, take your mesclun seeds and sow a 3 inch strip of them all along your piece of yarn. When the mesclun begins to grow, it will look like a ribbon elegantly woven between your other plants. If you prefer something less time consuming, try creating a stencil by cutting a shape out of a piece of posterboard or an old cardboard box panel. Lay it on the ground and sprinkle your seeds inside the shape. The larger the shape, or the more often you repeat it in the landscape, the more visual impact your mesclun plantings will have. Even just a simple circle could look great—if you use your circle stencil every 2 weeks when you succession sow your greens, your garden will have an eye-catching, uniform case of the polka dots in no time!

"Planted in a Container – Just like using mesclun in the landscape, there are few edibles as easy to turn into a pretty patio or front door accent as mesclun mixes in pots. If there were ever a “just add water” option for ornamental container gardening, mesclun would fit the bill. Since you know your mesclun greens will look great all by themselves, your biggest task is selecting a pot you enjoy. There aren’t many restrictions for colors or patterns either, since this mesclun comes in an array of pretty greens, blue-silver, chartreuse, and purple. It’s also got nicely textured spiky, feathery, rounded, and compound leaf shapes to prevent monotony. As long as your pot is at least 8 inches deep and has a diameter wide enough that you can plant your seeds approximately ½ inch apart from each other, you’re good to go.

"If you’d like to do something else to spice up your spicy mesclun, consider tucking other fully edible plants in a large container and then sowing your ring of mesclun around them. Pansies are a great option since they prefer the same cool growing conditions and their leaves and flowers have a faint wintergreen flavor. Pea shoots or podding peas are another perfect partner, perhaps with an attractive trellis or topiary ball to climb on. Another choice is to use larger specimens of greens in the center of your mesclun for size contrast (such as colorful kale or chard) or a plant that will eventually take over the pot when the mesclun fizzles out (just make sure to choose a plant that tolerates cool soil and has no toxic parts in case you accidentally clip its leaves when doing your salad haircuts). Some fully non-toxic options are strawberries, most culinary herbs, nasturtiums, borage, calendula, celery, fennel, or onions."

...they're not messing around.

Also new on the Grow Journey website is the Organic Gardening Supply Store, a curated Amazon store and effectively a one-stop shop for anyone who wants to garden organically. Want great organic, heirloom seeds, organic gardening learning resources, organic gardening products? All there, from live ladybugs to seed starting supplies to  gardening books.

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Grow Journey - gardeners in arms

Waiting for me when I stepped through the winter-dark Brooklyn doorway recently, fresh from the South African sunshine, was a packet of Grow Journey seeds. It has been a year since I received my first seeds from them, and I have come a long way in terms of how I garden.

While the 'Little Bells' heirloom peppers in the December package seem like a dream in late January, their backstory on my Grow Journey dashboard when I log on, is cheering. I don't think of my garden as pepper country because it receives full sun only in the midsummer days, but, says their story, these "cute, delicious miniatures need less sun and nutrients than bigger peppers do to develop their sugars...and if you have an exceptionally short season, cut the entire dwarf, densely fruiting plant at the base & hang to ripen the last peppers indoors." Huh!

November 2015 soil test

Grow Journey co-founder Aaron von Frank got in touch with me at a time when  I was very despondent about my edible gardening prospects in our new garden. To recap: I discovered, via a late 2015 soil test (above) that our soil had high lead levels and a low pH. It took a few hours of bug-eyed reading for me to appreciate the significance of that relationship. I learned that if I raised the pH of the soil, the lead would not be available for absorption by plants. I also learned that - with exceptions - little lead is absorbed, anyway; the real issue is lead dust sticking to leaves, or hands and feet, then being ingested. But I was still verskrik, as we say in Afrikaans, and preferred to be as safe as possible. Mission Raise pH was launched in late December of that year. And my first Grow Journey seeds arrived in the mail.

While the Cornell lab that tested the soil provided instructive guidelines for correcting problems, I learned specifically about egg and oyster shells for sweetening soil (raising pH) from Steve Masley's website Grow it Organically (garden lime was no good because it also contains magnesium and my levels were borderline high). He was generous with his time in emails (his Instagram is @growitorganically).

 From late December 2015 through early summer 2016 I applied 12 lbs of powdered oyster shells (Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply, in California) in two 6 lb batches, and about 3 lbs of egg shells, digging the powder in about 5" deep. And I planted seeds.

Fava beans, cover crop, nitrogen fixers, green manure

There were other issues with the soil in this central plot (I did not test or amend the soil on the garden's edges at all): our Phosphorus was too high, the Aggregate Stability was very low. So I planted cover crops and green manure (plants dug back into the soil), mulched with crop thinnings and leaves, and did not fertilize at all. What I think of as Grow Journey's onboard flight navigation system (for the garden pilot) taught me many of these healthy growing and management techniques. As a member of Grow Journey's seeds of the month club, you are not just paying for monthly seeds; you have digital access to all the wealth of information that accompanies your physical seed packets. Well researched and referenced techniques for improving your soil organically and using concepts such as polyculture plant guilds are Grow Journey mainstays.

December 2016 soil test

And, as my dad would say (if he could remember), results count.

Recently my second soil test results were sent to me by Cornell. The pH has risen from 5.4 to 6.6. From acidic to optimum, and near-neutral. This is pretty dramatic. My overall soil quality score went from 54 and Low to a score of 75 and Excellent. It seemed like the best news of the year. And I felt like I'd aced my exams after a dodgy start.

But this garden turnaround was not my own - I had help, from people who see the bigger environmental picture, and who use time-tested, science-supported methods. And that is my lesson for 2017. If we are going to survive under a crazed president, or in any of our personal troubles to come, we all need the right kind of help. Choose your community wisely, accept help, and be there for them when they need you.

January garlic

This winter has been disconcertingly mild, so far, and some of the crops in the vegetable plot are still green and growing. It is a temptation to sow cold hardy seed, like the pretty purple Indian mustard that was also in my December package. But things will change.

You can access Grow Journey's behind-the-scenes support and info with a free 30-day trial (you pay a $3.99 shipping and handling fee). I recommend it highly.

Grow Journey and the stories that seeds tell

Sometimes, on a rainy day, when plans have been thwarted, there is time to dart down a rabbit hole.

(The plans included photographing finished Douglas fir recipes in daylight, but we ain't got no daylight, so next best thing: plant talk.)

When Aaron von Frank, co-founder of Grow Journey wrote to me a few weeks ago and said that December's seed of the month packet would have stories to tell, he was not kidding.

The email from Grow Journey that precedes each month's package reads: "...your December seed varieties have a fairytale/storybook theme. Folklore like this shows how human civilizations throughout history have emphasized the deeply ingrained importance that passalong foods hold in their livelihoods and culture, by embedding those foods within their oral and written traditions. By contrast, modern stories are rarely about varieties of food we treasure..."

The very first thing that came to mind when I thought about food, plants, and folklore was an illustration that opened one of my favourite childhood stories, which resided in an anthology - red-cloth bound and enormous, called  the Children's Treasury of Literature in Colour (Louis and Bryna Untermeyer, 1966): Rapunzel. In the picture I remembered,  luscious green plants grew in dark brown soil, behind a wall. It was one of many childhood images that informed my idea of gardening.

And guess what was in the seed packages? The third packet I looked at contained seeds of mâche ('Baron' cultivar). The description on the packet reads: "Mâche (rhymes with squash) is so delicious that the Brothers Grimm say it's the plant Rapunzel's parents stole from the  witch's garden, forcing them to give up their first child as penance."

Rabbit hole.

I found the illustrations I remembered, online. The illustrator is Gordon Laite.

And then I found the story.

"There were once a man and a woman who had long in vain wished for a child. At length the woman hoped that God was about to grant her desire. These people had a little window at the back of their house from which a splendid garden could be seen, which was full of the most beautiful flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared to go into it because it belonged to an enchantress, who had great power and was dreaded by all the world.

"One day the woman was standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a bed which was planted with the most beautiful rampion - Rapunzel, and it looked so fresh and green that she longed for it, and had the greatest desire to eat some. This desire increased every day, and as she knew that she could not get any of it, she quite pined away, and began to look pale and miserable.

"Then her husband was alarmed, and asked, "What ails you, dear wife?"

"Ah," she replied, "if I can't eat some of the rampion, which is in the garden behind our house, I shall die."

[She really, really liked salad. I can relate.]

"The man, who loved her, thought, sooner than let your wife die, bring her some of the rampion yourself, let it cost what it will. At twilight, he clambered down over the wall into the garden of the enchantress, hastily clutched a handful of rampion, and took it to his wife. She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It tasted so good to her - so very good, that the next day she longed for it three times as much as before. If he was to have any rest, her husband must once more descend into the garden..."

Which is when the poo hit the fan:

Note the nice radishes and black cat...

...one of the other seed packets is filled with 'French Breakfast' radishes. I seem to have lost my radish touch, though. They are the first crop I remember growing as a very small girl. No problem. Now I get huge leaves, very little radish. Most sources cite too much nitrogen in the soil - I do not fertilize.

Back to the story. I looked up the plant referred to as rampion in  the English translation (remember the brothers Grimm were German). It seems that the common name rapunzel (she was named after this tempting plant) could refer to one of two plants: either mâche (also known as lambs lettuce and corn salad), as well as to Campanula rapunculus, which was eaten as a vegetable in ye olde days. Plants often have more than one common name, so it's hard to know which is the right plant. But I am grateful for the nostalgic trip into childhood. That old book still sits on the little bookshelf in my bedroom in Constantia, and contains many other botanical treasures.

Of course, in typical Grimm fashion, terrible things happened (as they do): violence, blindness, banishment. And then some foraging. The blinded prince was forced to survive in the woods on "roots and berries" as he wandered in darkness.

All in one tale, some important themes of my life: edible plants, a passion for salad, foraging. And the black cat, of course (ours behaved better, by a whisker). Also, against all odds, I found my prince.

I cannot wait to  plant this new mâche. Mostly because it means gardening will have begun, again. I do have some very small plants from last spring's self sown seeds which germinated in October and I hope they will overwinter, as they did last year. It is one of the most rewarding of cold weather greens and trying a new cultivar will be fun.

We are just back from Montreal's outlying suburbs where we shopped at a supermarket chain called IGA. I love it (the cheese!). But in the salad section I bought beautiful mâche - something rarely seen in the States (once at Trader Joe's).  The first time I ever saw it sold commercially was in another French-speaking suburb, this time outside Geneva, one snowy December in opera singing days.

I am very happy to be able to grow it now, especially having learned - the hard way - that it simply will not germinate until the nights are reliably chilly, below 50'F.

Gift season is here; seeds are such rewarding ones, because they give back and they teach.

Seeds represent hope, courage and perseverance.

Keep digging.

The garden of greens

I Heart Grow Journey. Made from 'Prize Choy' bok choy leaves, planted a few weeks ago.

I know my bok choy will not make big boks, because they are now very shady. But I like the little boks. I mix them into salads or add them at the last minute to Asian curries for a swirl of dark, anti-oxidant green.

Nasturtium (top left), teeny kale, minutina, sheep sorrel
Tatsoi, rapini (middle) baby arugula
Fava bean leaves, bok choy, mature arugula

My fall greens are giving us daily salads and side dishes.

Interestingly, one crop that has not done well is the red chard. It is in a super-shady section of  the vegetable plot and I think I just pushed it over the edge, or simply planted it too late. Or maybe the seedlings don't like being stamped by little possum feet.

The arugula right beside it is just fine.

As I wrote in my piece about edible shade gardening for Gardenista recently, arugula is the Obama of the shade garden. It germinates quickly and reliably and grows from spring through summer and well into the cold nights. Its leaves are always in great shape. You can count on the arugula not to disappoint. Also, it looks good.

In my most recent seeds of the month package I received a wild arugula cultivar, 'Grazia.' I am very curious to see whether it will germinate better than another wild arugula cultivar I tried from Botanical Interests earlier in the year. That one had an abysmal germination rate, in each of three sowings. Like, 5% (I'm not knocking Botanical Interests - I seed from them every year).

Regular arugula is actually a different plant - Eruca sativa. Wild arugula is Diplotaxis tenuifolia.

Plant now? Our first frost date technical falls this week. I think I will, as wild arugula tolerates colder soils. The peas and chicory I am going to hoard for early next spring.

Basil ice cream and other garden wonders

The Grow Journey Thai basil that I planted out in late spring grows in two huge troughs (gifts late last year from my friend Julia Miller, who lives a few blocks away) right against the house. Apart from mid-June and till mid August, when they receive an welcome hour or so of direct sun, these troughs are in full shade. The basil is three feet tall and forest-like. I also planted some ginger rhizomes in the same deep troughs and their bamboo-like stems and long peppery leaves lean out above the Thai basil. The feeling is Edible Jungle.

So. You can grow Thai basil in shade. Yes, you really can.

What do do with so much basil? In Cape Town in August I tasted the most delicious ice cream I have eaten. Connie Finnemore served it at the end of a dinner and I was mesmerized by its flavor. Can you guess what it is? she asked. I got the lemon right, but I missed the basil and thought it was mint. It was so unexpected. And green. In short: Lemon curd, basil, cream and gin (recipe here). I was converted to ice cream eating on the spot. Back in Brooklyn I mowed down the Thai basil to take upstate to friends for the weekend, and whipped the ice cream up quickly when we arrived (I use home made lemon curd), so that it would be frozen by that evening. Everyone hummed with pleasure.

I made it again last week. The gin stops the cream from setting very hard, so it can scoop quite well. Even better, no ice cream maker required.

In the last few days New York decided to turn from an unseasonably hot 'n humid (yet rainless) September to chilly gusts with rain. I am wearing a sweater. And thank goodness, because I am thinking about mushrooms; it is hen of the woods season. Speaking of which,  the founders of Grow Journey, Aaron and Susan are into foraging and mushrooms, big time - you can see some of their finds on their Tyrant Farms blog. Another reason to like them.

So, it's time to plant fall greens in my garden where the glorious sun of summer has retreated to the very rear of the long plot, again. We have lived here for one year, and I remember how worried I was about the light, this time last year.

What is coming up? Here are the baby greens, all from those seeds of the month packets.

Bok choy - this cultivar is 'Prize Choy.' I have never grown it before and am hoping for the best - the birds have left it alone, and while I see some nibbles, mostly the bugs seem to stay away from brassicas. The online Grow Guide that you can access as a Grow Journey member tells me 30 days till baby harvest, 50 days till maturity. With my sun situation it may be a little longer. Cross your fingers.

Kale 'Dazzling Blue,' above.

Very tiny chard. But not Swiss: "‘MacGregor’s Favorite’ is touted as the best tasting of all chard (unlike Swiss chard, this variety has small veins like regular beets — beets and chard are the same species bred for different uses but you can also eat the young beet-like roots of this variety). The glossy, tender leaves are a deep, antioxidant-rich red with darker burgundy veins. An improved heirloom variety from Scotland, this plant can be “cut-and-come-again” all season long in most areas.' 

May it be so. I love chard, I love eating beet leaves (borscht season is almost upon us), and I love harvesting crops when the living world seems to be retreating.

And finally, 'Dragon' carrots are purple-red, and the Grow Guide says they have the same lycopene content as tomatoes. Good for hearts. Carrots are also a new crop for me. As a longtime container gardener I never felt I could offer up pot-space to carrots. Only 30 days for baby carrots, 70 to 85 for full size. And if the roots fail, there are always the leaves - very good in soup.

Gardening with our brains

After more than a month in Cape Town I came home to a late summer garden where beans were bristling from bushes and fence. Also a lot of weeds. Long, hot days, lots of water from the stellar watering team of Julia and Kirstin, and the weed seeds of years resulted in something close to a jungle. And then there is the Wisteria that Wants to Rule the World. It should work for ISIS.

So two straight days were spent gardening. I was eaten alive by striped-leg mosquitoes.

I admired the basil hedges. The Thai basil (left) arrived in a late winter packet from Grow Journey. Late winter is now a funny memory. The fennel is a row I made from many of the scattered volunteers that popped up late in early summer, dropped by my plants last year - the ones that moved with us from Harlem.

And then I picked all the beans, to make way for cooler weather crops to come (I left the climbing scarlet runners in hopes of luring those hummingbirds).

Grow Journey's 'Painted Pony' beans are surprises in disguise. Their slim green pods hide the real treat, which is the beautifully mottled seed inside. While we ate plenty of these beans fresh in July, I now have a pile which I am in the process of shelling. This is the first time I kept beans long enough to dry and harvest just the meaty seeds. They will be cooked gently with whole cloves of garlic and garden thyme, with a nod to Terence Hill, who will always be the best bean I eater I don't know. You have to watch My Name is Nobody to see what I mean.

Grow Journey's packets of Chinese cabbage, kale, and August subscription of bok choy and lettuce mixes will be planted, soon, and then there will the surprise packet of September. What will be in it? I have left rows open in anticipation.

I was thrilled to see a monarch feeding for a long time on the wild ageratum (Conoclinium coelestinum). I had cut quite a lot back in my gardening frenzy, but left plenty of flowers.

And now for a rant.

One of my (many) pet peeves is the thoughtless use, in smugly righteous but underinformed gardening circles, forums, blogs, and conversations, of terms like "chemical." It makes my hair stand up. "I don't use chemicals on my garden," or, "I won't eat food that is grown with chemicals."

Uh, yes, you do, and yes, you will.

For zot's sake. Everything is chemicals. "Organic" is chemicals. What you really mean to say is, I don't use synthetic fertilizers/insecticides." SYNTHETIC. The PR team for good science is about as efficient as Barack Obama's PR team. Which is to say, woeful. The failure in his presidency was his team and his party's utter failure at communicating its successes. Fire the lot.

The good stuff does NOT speak for itself. Good science and good leadership need as much PR as the total shite that is dispensed by people too lazy to read more than the headlines. In its absence crackpots flourish. In the garden, and in politics.

The Grow Journey blog, as always, provides excellent, thoughtful information about healthy growing practises. Problems are identified and sustainable solutions are provided. Aaron von Frank's essay on synthetic nitrogen and why you don't want it in your garden or in the edible landscape that grows the food you buy is essential reading.

As Aaron writes in the nitrogen piece, "some issues take longer than a tweet or a paragraph to explain." And if you are planting anything, or care about what you eat, it's on you to inform yourself. Read that article, and share it. It is fascinating, and important.

Finally, tip of the day, fairly new to me (someone on my Facebook page suggested it - thank you), from a Grow Journey post about preventing garden pests:

Got mildew? Break out the fungicides? "No! Not unless you want to also kill the beneficial fungi in your garden that help your plants," writes Master Gardener Eliza Lord. "Powdery mildew can be easily prevented using organic methods. The easiest, most proven method of treatment involves milk. (Yes, that white liquid from cow udders.) Make a mixture of milk and water (30% milk to 70% water is fine) and spray it evenly on the surface of the leaves of affected plants during the morning on a sunny day... In studies, this method has proven to be as effective as any synthetic fungicide in stopping powdery mildew."

Now: Got milk?

It's summer - time for beans and basil

The jungle. In the foreground is my row of Asclepias syriaca, common milkweed, a forager's gardening experiment. 

It is just beyond midsummer, and the days are growing minutely shorter even as they grow hotter. We have had more sun than I had anticipated at this time of year, and I have been able to grow more crops than I had hoped. Like beans. Grow Journey sent me two different bush beans, part of my January and May seed-of-the-month membership. 

These Painted Pony bush beans arrived first, in January, when winter still had us in its very dark and depressing grip.Summer beans seemed like a fantasy, back then. But they were very pretty.

And then the sun came. The vegetable plot receives about six hours of sun right now, which is borderline for many vegetables, but I learned in Harlem that climbing beans can thrive in four hours of sun. So I planted the Painted Ponies in early June, after taking out the fava beans and the first sowing of arugula, which had bolted faster than we could eat the tender lower stalks.

I find bean flowers very pretty, so there is the extra, ornamental boost.

Dragon's Tongue bush beans, above, arrived next, and they are growing tall, already.

As always, if I forget something about my seeds, I log into my member dashboard on the Grow Journey site and can see previous months' seeds listed, as well as detailed information about how to grow them in my Grow Guides.

Bush bean-growing is new to me, although I remember my mother's very healthy bushes in Bloemfontein, when I was little. And the snap and itchy green taste of eating the beans right out of the garden.

Some beetle is eating holes in the Dragon's Tongue leaves, and I should get some beer again for traps, in case it's a slug, not a beetle. Aaron von Frank wrote a lovely tip-of-the-month piece about how to work with insects on the Grow Journey blog -  I have found it helpful. He quotes one of my gardening principles, which is actually part of the Hippocratic oath: First, do no harm.

Counter intuitively, the gardening industry is not very green at all.  From the thoughtless use of pesticides and herbicides, to overuse of synthetic fertilizers like Miracle Gro (not to mention their manufacturing process), from phosphorus runoff into waterways which causes dead zones in the ocean, to the mass production of plastic pots, to the destruction of peat bogs, to the planting of highly invasive species. 

What are we thinking? In short, many gardeners are not. Thinking, that is.

I am still surprised when gardeners tell me they do not grow organically (even as I am still learning more about permaculture practices and their benefits). Aaron writes in that article about the no-till method by comparing it to the effect a tornado has on a house, and how digging into the soil destroys the habitats of beneficial insects and microorganisms.

 AND I have just learned that firefly larvae live for two summers before becoming fireflies (we have dozens every night now) and eat insects like aphids! The adults do not eat.

Finally, the Thai basil is a small forest, now. I planted it in one of the shadiest spots near the house, in two gifted troughs from my friend Julia. I was not sure how it would do. But the plants are growing sturdier, and are now sharing space with some sprouting ginger plants, another experiment.

The Grow Journey season shifts at Chez 66

Here we are, in May's final stretch. The 10 x 10 vegetable plot in the middle of Chez 66 is producing daily salads. The Grow Journey spinach 'Verdil' - such a baby just the other day, is now sending up flower heads. When I bump one, an eruption of improbable pollen rises several inches and drifts away. I pick the bolting stalks as fast as I can, and we eat them in nightly salads. They are also very good wilted quickly in a hot pan and used as a bed for a poached egg. The leaves are still lush and upright, and just a few have been bothered by leaf miners (I pick those leaves and throw them far, far away, where the sun don't shine).

Nearby, the first sowing of arugula is trying very hard to flower and I won't let it. The upright budding stems are very peppery and good, raw.

The last of the garden cress has been eaten and the remnants tilled into the soil as a very light green manure - any organic matter helps, here. I have to re-water our abused soil often, as it loses moisture fast. And what about fertilizer? I have not used any, unless you count the many pounds of crushed oyster shell to raise pH. Last fall's soil test revealed high phosphorus levels, so someone before me fertilized a lot. And I am discovering that the use of fertilizer should never be automatic: This blogpost is enlightening.

Now the upland cress is flourishing and I mix it with the pretty beet greens ('Early Wonder Tall Top') for bagel toppings and stuffing for breakfast omlets/omelettes.

What's next? I have sown the Seeds-of-the-Month dill 'Goldkrone' and it has risen in a spiny little row. Thai basil and garden huckleberry (actually a variety of Solanum nigrum) are in a seed tray and soon I must transplant them. The basil will go into pots as I do not trust the European starlings to leave it alone, but the Solanum must go in-ground into the sunniest part of the plot, where it will be joined by some cherry tomatoes from Grow Journey as well as their beautiful 'Painted Pony' beans. When the arugula comes out.

Sun. I have to make myself remember The Dark of Winter. Because right now the whole garden is in sunlight as the rising Northern sun clears the tall townhouse. Closest to the house the shade begins again by late morning, while the back stays in sun more or less all day. In late fall, winter and early spring, not a ray of sun pierces our gloom.

It is challenging to choose the right plans for this space. But now I pretend that we are Alaska. Night, and then day, and then the longest night, again.

What did you plant today?

Seeds of the Month club - dill

Thank goodness the mâche is bolting (above). If it weren't, I would not have space for my latest seed from Grow Journey.

I had forgotten about dill. I need dill (in copious amounts, for this potato-dill salad, which rocks the socks off early summer; and then there is the German potato salad - below, which is dangerously addictive).

So this afternoon the mâche comes out and the dill goes in.

I am keeping one mâche plant in a seed saving experiment. Grow Journey includes an empty seed packet with every Seeds of the Month package for exactly this purpose, with space for notes and plant name.

What will happen to the yanked mâche? Summer rolls for supper, with pickled shiitakes and marinated bamboo shoots. And a shrimp ceviche on the side, with the last of the ramp leaves.

Today I picked the very first of my spinach 'Verdil' leaves (above), planted in early March, thinned in the third week, and now flourishing beside four rows of fava beans. The notes in my Grow Journey member dashboard* said that the leaves of ‘Verdil’ would be more upright than other spinaches', and that seems to be true, which saves them from a lot of soil-splash, and makes cleaning easier.

* (As a member you have access to in-depth information about your seeds, as well as up-to-date and very helpful advice about sustainable gardening practises).

The baby spinach leaves made a beautifully simple side salad to what has become deeply fashionable avocado toast. This was lunch. On top of the avocado are the tiny little garden cress (Lepidium sativum) leaves that I received in January. They are peppery, and delight the forager in me, looking as wild as they often are.

Garden cress is also known as pepperweed, and we discover it frequently on spring forage walks, when their tiny white flowers are in bloom on tall, narrow stems. Their easy-identify sprays of seeds in early summer are a surprisingly good wasabi substitute, if you are patient enough to harvest hundreds of them before crushing them with a mortar and pestle.

What’s next? I have a seed tray planted with those surprise black nightshade/garden huckleberry seeds (above), and by the time they are mature enough to be transplanted, I think another cool weather green will be about to bite the dust, to make space for me to plant them out in warmer weather. Also, there is the garlic to harvest, and that will give me two more rows. Exciting.

You can dip your toes into the Seeds of the Month waters by signing up for free 30-day tria. There are no gags or gimmicks. Susan and Aaron, the wife-and-husband, duck-owning, organic-gardening, foraging South Carolinian couple who own Grow Journey, practise what they preach.

Happy gardening!

PS: My dill repertoire is limited to those salads, to gravlax, and to the notorious sat-upon egg tortilla which my friend Mustafa brought along on a picnic many years ago. He put it on a rock beside a stream, covered in a pretty cloth, where I mistook is for a nice cushion and sat on it. It felt warm.

What do you do with dill?