I added a link to my flickr account on the sidebar of this blog, under “me”.
I added a tab with some plants that I am interested in parting with or I have extras of. It’s titled “available plants.”
Click on these links if you are interested in plants or images.
At great personal and communal expense, I have pickled a feral relish.
After harvesting the cheeses from the weedy mallows of my garden, I had extensive help from Adam and Cameron in removing their outer coverings.
This relish is pickled in tribute to the coastal first people gatherers who toiled long and hard digging roots and rhizomes, picking berries, and preparing and preserving these wild foods. They were taught that the berry spirits disapproved of those who ate while they picked, and scarcity would strike the berry patches of women whose berry-laden hands strayed to their mouths.
I am planning to serve this relish not with the Grease of the Eulachon, but with grilled cylindrical protein.
The relish is pickled with cider and rice vinegar, fennel seed heads, serrano peppers and garlic.
Photo credit for this first one goes to Evelyn. I might also mention that I just got a new digital camera, so perhaps I’ll be better about including my own photographic work in blog entries of the future.
Last night I made a soup with two plants that I had been meaning to eat for a while. Cleavers and Mallow.
Galium aparine and Malva neglecta
Mallow is from the same family as okra (Malvaceae) and probably the same subfamily, etc. Wikipedia gets foggy at this level of phylogeny. The important part is that mallows have a similar slimy (mucilaginous) texture to that of okra, so they can thicken a gumbo just like okra can. When I had the big pile of mallows on the cutting board, I thought it would be more than enough to thicken the gumbo, particularly when I picked up the gummy mass and tossed it into the pot, but once the leaves and shoots were cooked they got a lot smaller and I decided that I could probably have used 2-3 times as much mallow as I did. The texture was good, but definitely could have been thicker.
The cleavers I added very near the end, at the same time as some fresh oregano. I could have used a lot more cleavers too. I thought there were more of those growing in my garden. I will have to wait a week or two and make another weedy gumbo. Perhaps next time I’ll use the caribou stew meat that’s in my freezer. I think that would make a good wild gumbo.
Ingredients I remember putting in the gumbo, in rough order of addition: butter, onions, garlic, celery, potato, carrot, lots of capsicum flakes, veg. bouillon, filé, mallow, mixed cajun seasoning, asparagus, cleavers, oregano.
I am attempting to grow sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) in my garden this year. They need a lot of heat, so my success will probably largely depend on the weather. This weekend has a few days predicted into the 80’s of degrees Fahrenheit, so that’s a pretty good start. I am hopeful.
J’ai deux rhubarbe grandissant dans mon jardin. Les poireaux et d’autres tiges font soupe mieux pour le déjeuner.
Last night I cut the flower stalks off of the sorrel (Rumex acetosa) so that it might focus on leaves for sorrel soup and such. I used the leaves from the flower stalks in a salad. Once the leaves were removed, the flower stalks looked similar to little rhubarb stems. I thought a sour stem crisp for dessert sounded really good, so I chopped up the flower stalks, but them in a ceramic bowl topped them with some sugar and oats, and baked this in the toaster oven.
img: Dag Kvammen (Jan Mayen 2002)
I was impressed by how good it was, though perhaps anything sour would be good prepared in this fashion.
There are some volunteers in my garden that are particularly great. Neither of these was around much last year, if I remember correctly, and I didn’t plant either of them.
To the left is Myosotis
(Forget-me-not).
Below is Lunaria annua
(Money Plant or Annual Honesty).
Also, these are pictures of my actual plants.
Pictures of plants I pilfered samples of from a nearby lush community garden.
Lungwort (Pulmoniaria) looking somewhat vulnerable.
I thought the other one was a Fumewort (Corydalis), but after looking at the documentation I think it’s Fumaria.
As usual, these are just the best images I could find on the Web, not actual pictures of the plants I’m talking about.
Oh, I also purchased for $1 some seeds of Nicotiana sylvestris, as pictured in the last post.
This week I have planted a few things, and held back on planting things. I planted a rhubarb that I got from Cameron’s parents, and I planted sunflowers that Cameron requested. I planted a bunch of things associated with Cameron. The sunflowers I planted in the boulevard, the front garden terraces, the middle of the vegetable garden, and some in the side yard. The rhubarb I planted on the west side of the fence between the vegetable garden and the side yard. I spread the sunflowers out so that some of them will grow. If they all do it will be amazing.
Matt requested tobacco, but I haven’t found any yet. I’m sure I’ll find some Nicotiana species this spring to plant for him.
My tomatoes are growing very fast now, working on their fourth real leaf. The peppers and eggplant are both still working on their first leaves, and the basil is being sucked dry by whiteflies from the Kniphofia.
I need to take a break from the vegetables this weekend and plant the cyclamen, and maybe those damn Kniphofia. I guess I could plant some more roots and hardy greens and stuff.
Maybe I should get my fair-weather fixed-gear working again for when the rain stops.
Yesterday I planted summer squash. I planted two zucchini starts in each of two hills to the south of the zucchini patch. I planted cavili squash in the three hills to the north of the zucchini patch. 
Today I walked around green lake, picked up a chunk of Iris pseudacorus to see if it will grow in the foetid pool we have in our back yard. The only things that have been growing in it are algae, some unusually persistent land weed, and insect larvae. I stopped at PCC and picked up a much-needed big ginger root, an eggplant, a bottle of red wine and two pots of strawberry plants to compliment the three that Cameron gave me last year and a brownie.
I planted the strawberries and removed the tall grasses and Spanish Bluebells that were shading the strawberries from last year. Miles put the Iris in the barrel along with some other plant I found in the lake that looks like some kind of mint. Hopefully water mint. Perhaps they will be able to tolerate the barrel.