July 4, 2020 - Issue #468

The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses. ~Hanna Rion

ARTICLES TO READ

Growing Edible Flowers in Your Garden

While gardeners love flowers for their beauty outdoors in the garden and indoors in a vase, few raise them to eat. That?s a shame because many flowers are edible and bring lively flavors, colors and textures to salads, soups, casseroles and other dishes. Eating flowers is not as exotic as it sounds. The use of flowers as food dates back to the Stone Age with archeological evidence that early man ate flowers such as roses. Of course flowers have been used to make teas for centuries, but flower buds and petals also have been used from China to Morocco to Ecuador in soups, pies and stir-fires. Rose flowers, dried day lily buds and chrysanthemum petals are a few of the flowers that our ancestors used in cooking. In fact, many of the flowers we grow today were originally chosen for the garden based upon their attributes of aroma and flavor, not their beauty.

How Beans Grow

Most of the energy the young plant needs is stored within the seed. In fact, there's enough food to nourish bean plants until the first true leaves appear without using any fertilizer at all.

Preserving Herbs

The most common ways to preserve herbs are drying and freezing. You can also make herb-based sauces. Try one or more of these methods so you can enjoy that fresh-picked flavor year-round.

Patio Gardens

Patio gardens soften the transition between indoors and outdoors by bringing plants into outdoor living areas. This might involve something as simple as setting up a few window boxes on an apartment balcony, or as elaborate as enclosing an entire porch with trellised vines, potted trees and shrubs, hanging baskets, and containers filled with annual and perennial flowers.

Saving Flower Seeds for Replanting

Saving seeds can be economical, since a single flower can generate dozens or even hundreds of seeds. Although the procedure is simple, there are a few techniques that will improve your chances of being a successful seed saver.

Broccoli- A Superfood You Can Grow

Broccoli is full of so many vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that it is hailed as one of the top 10 superfoods and can be grown in your backyard. Grow it and eat it for a healthier you!

Edible Landscaping - How to: Start a Culinary Herb Garden

If you love to cook, especially with fresh herbs, then you must have a culinary herb garden. Nothing beats the flavor of freshly picked herbs in soups, stews, sauces, casseroles, pastas, salads and many other dishes.