Local Delicious

When I posted the photo and story about the freakish Strange Seeding Strawberry the other day, a lot of people asked what was going on and commented that they’d never seen anything like it. But no one could shed any light on the mystery.

See, typically strawberry seeds need to overwinter (a.k.a. freeze) in order to germinate. Having one germinate on the vine seemed more than a little unusual.

Well, I’m all about local so I decided to give our very own Driedeger Farms, a local strawberry farm dating back to the mid-1940’s, a chance to weigh in on the topic.

Rhonda responded to my query asking a few identifying questions that I couldn’t answer about what kind of strawberry it was. “Uhm, a red one” was about as specific as I could be.

In the end Rhonda did her research online and found me a link where the comments below referred to strawberries being planted in soil and sprouting that way. I appreciate that, but it was a bit disconcerting that the strawberry expert relied on eHow.com, even more so when  her parting comment was, “It was definitely interesting to see them in their ‘natural” state.’” Mind you, I can cut her some slack given that strawberries naturally propagate via runners and on a farm that’s 65 years old it’s not likely they’ve needed to rely on seeding in quite some time.

It has come to my attention that I haven’t posted a picture of my full garden since July 9th, and it’s not from lack of taking the pictures. While I was excited about the burst of garden glory back then, it pales in comparison of the garden at the height of its glory.

By mid-July the “tee pee” was completely covered in greenery in a combination of peas, snow peas and giant pole beans.

The garden in mid-July 2010

The tee pee is covered in delicious greenery

By early August most of the brightly coloured snapdragons were finished blooming, the rhubarb was in full spread, and the broccoli was well on it’s way to growing a lovely head. The beet greens continued unabated and the carrots were still a bit too small for harvest. In the photo below you can see that the snow peas are on their last legs, turning brown and suffering from a powdery mildew.

Garden greenery on August 11, 2010

By last August, the peas were long gone, the snow peas had died and been removed, and only the pole beans continued to produce a few beans here and there. The broccoli has all been harvested and one row of carrots has been partially harvested which allows more room for the rainbow chard to flourish. The dwarf tomato plant in the foreground is heavily laden with fruit but none has ripened yet. Brussels sprouts are on the rise, and most of the pole beans (behind the chard) have been removed.

Garden August 23, 2010

When I chat with other gardeners we invariably get to the subject of bugs. When I mention that I spray for aphids and other pests using a garlic spray, they always want to know the recipe.

It’s late in the season to be worrying much about bugs, but I’ve heard several people say things like “aphids got my beans” or “I had a real problem with whiteflies this year” so it’s worth taking note for any winter gardening you may do, as well as prepping for next year — after all, isn’t the whole purpose of autumn to plan for next year’s gardening?

Below is the recipe I got from a gardener I know. Search “garlic pepper spray” online for other variations.

• 2 hot peppers
• 1 large onion
• 1 whole garlic bulb
• 1 gallon of water

Pulverize peppers, onion and garlic bulb in a blender with a little water. Cover mash with a gallon of water, let stand 24 hours and then strain. Spray directly on plants. Effective against aphids, cabbage maggot, carrot rust fly, leafhoppers, mites, thrips and whitefly.

Related posts:

Slug Patrol 2010
Garlic Rust Fungus

There are no end of good things going on around our community when it comes to eating local. Here’s another organization I just learned about at the Kitsilano Growers Market last week.

The World in a Garden Project was established in 2007 by nutritionist, Tricia Sedgwick in collaboration with the Jewish Family Service Agency. The project’s goal is to teach participants about the seed-to-table process of food, as well as promote cross cultural acceptance.

In addition to the many events — from educational programs to community festivals — food from the gardens is donated to the food bank and local food programs.

The program is self-funded via plant and flower sales, market sales, responsible entrepreneurship programs, garden tours, food and gardening workshops, The World in a Garden products (greeting cards, t-shirts and seeds), community partnerships and an annual film screening.

One of my garden neighbours has a strawberry that has begun to sprout. Not the plant, the actual strawberry. Neither of us has ever seen anything like it, and I must say it’s a rather strange sight.

Each of the seeds on the outside of the strawberry has a green shoot extending out of it, giving it the appearance reminiscent of a just sprouted Chia Pet. Frankly, it looks quite alien.

Normally, strawberry seeds can only be activated or germinated after they’ve been frozen/wintered.

“The key factor in successful germination is the cooling or winterizing of the seeds before planting.”
How to sprout strawberries.

The fact that this one’s seeds all spontaneously sprouted in relatively warm weather is unusual.

I’ve not found anything in my online search travels to explain what happened or whether you can plant the strawberry like this and grow it successfully. If you’ve ever encountered this, I welcome your comments.

I made 2 pans of rhubarb crumble last night with a fraction of the rhubarb I have growing in my garden plot. I thought it took a year or two for rhubarb to really take hold, but I grew this plant from seed last year and even transplanted it a few months into the summer due to a gardening relocation.

For a while earlier this summer it was looking pretty limp and none of the stalks were any more than about 6″ long. I asked my mom,  a long time gardener, if that was because it takes a couple of years for the plant to really take root, but she didn’t know. Well, turns out as soon as I stepped up the amount of water it got, the plant took off like blazes. I harvested 10 cups worth of diced rhubarb earlier this week and that only marginally thinned out the plant.

Note: Rhubarb leaves are poisonous. Keep the kids away and don’t put them (the rhubarb leaves nor the children) in the compost bin.

I took one rhubarb crumble over to a friend’s to share with her and her family. Her daughter’s friend from California had never heard of rhubarb and was leery of trying it, even though it was dessert. We described it — something like celery but very tart — but when asked whether it was a fruit or a vegetable we were stumped.

I got an email this morning with the answer:

“It was nice catching up with you last night Liz. I looked up rhubarb on Wikipedia. Here is what it says:

Rhubarb is a group of plants that belong to the genus Rheum in the family Polygonaceae.

They are herbaceous perennial plants growing from short, thick rhizomes. They have large leaves that are somewhat triangular shaped with long fleshy petioles. They have small flowers grouped in large compound leafy greenish-white to rose-redinflorescences.

Although the leaves are toxic, various parts of the plants have medicinal uses. Fresh raw stalks are crisp (similar to celery) with a strong tart taste; most commonly the plant’s stalks are cooked and used in pies and other foods for their tart flavour. A number of varieties have been domesticated for human consumption, most of which are recognised as Rheum x hybridum by the Royal Horticultural Society.

Rhubarb is botanically classified as a vegetable; however, in the United States a New York court decided in 1947 that since it was used in the United States as a fruit it was to be counted as a fruit for the purposes of regulations and duties. A side effect was a reduction in taxes paid.

Thank heavens for Wikipedia, to answer all of life’s burning questions.