Colour on a gray, wet day

Far from frail, puny or shrinking, these resilient pansies and violets thrive in nasty November.
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Optimism

BY JANE HIRSHFIELD

More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam returns over and
over to the same shape, but the sinuous tenacity of a tree: finding the
light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another.
A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers, mitochondria, figs—
all this resinous, unretractable earth.

"Optimism" by Jane Hirshfield, from Given Sugar, Given Salt. © Harper Collins, 2002. Source: The Writer's Almanac.

Sunday morning on the balcony

 Squeezed in between the pots...

...we spent half the morning doing mundane gardening tasks: watering, tying tomatoes, squishing aphids, dead-heading spent blossoms, emptying the containers of bolted lettuce, sifting old soil and moving pots either to follow or avoid the sun, depending on the plants' preferences.

And we spent half the morning -- ok, more -- just observing:

Nasturtium, 'Cherries Jubilee'

Eggplant, 'Millionaire', flower buds

Persian baby cucumbers, 'Green Fingers'

Cherry Tomatoes, 'Sungold', 'Sweetgold' or 'Supersweet' (I lost the tag)

If only tomato leaves were edible.  I do love the scent they release when you brush them with your fingertips.

Before Piper & before my camera, I did not take time to observe -- it was just work, work, work, and no play.

How did you enjoy your garden  -- and I hope you did -- this weekend? How do you make sure you take a well-deserved break, even for just a few minutes, from the work that is never done. Like me, do you find it hard to ignore the messy bits -- the parts of your garden that never appear in photos?

Sweet Peas for the Balcony Garden

I spent a little more time with my sweet peas & this post today so I've republished it with some minor changes.

 

Anticipation -- The sweet peas are blooming one...at...a...time.

Sweet pea appreciation -- a necessary respite today yesterday after spending my lunch hour running errands on foot in the urban milieu of heat, dust, rush, noise, exhaust fumes and traffic congestion. When I got home, I dropped the groceries and mail on the hallway floor, kissed the top of Piper's head, and then headed out to the balcony for sweet {pea} relief.

I have an embarrassing confession to make, though. Two weeks ago I considered pulling out the still unblooming sweet peas. In a brief, insane moment when I thought I was being practical and rational, I deemed them dispensable luxury plants taking up valuable real estate that could be used for tomatoes and cucumbers. (I did not get a community garden plot so I'm even more space-challenged than usual.) Thankfully, my sober second thought was to remind myself the garden is also for the "eye and heart" (1).

Maybe planting sweet peas hasn't been the most practical gardening decision I've made this season, but I have no regrets. And I mentally cringe to think what I'd have missed if I'd pulled them out.

In the rest of this post I'm going to share my gardening notes and favourite sweet pea resources.

Growing notes

1. Why grow sweet peas?
   #1. For beauty (the eye reason) -- I love the colours, scent and butterfly-like shape (2) of Lathyrus odoratus blooms.
   #2. To connect with the past (the heart reason) --  My mom grew glorious sweet peas along the east side of our Manitoba home and they were the background for many Kodak moments.
2. Seeds: Renee's Garden Seeds, two varieties: 'Heirloom Cupid' & 'Color Palette Cupid'.
3. Indoor sowing date: April 1st after overnight soaking in room-temperature water.
4. Germination: First seedlings appeared on April 11th.
5. Transplanted outdoors to 25cm (10-inch) glazed ceramic pots (3) in late April. Spacing: 4 plants per container at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o-clock positions. Here's a seedling 33 days after sowing.
6. Soil: the usual organic potting soil mix amended generously with vermicompost.
7. Location: balcony's south-west side, front corner. The walls on the east and sides and the overhanging roof limit the amount of direct sunlight to about 4 to 5 hours from April through early July. I've been putting the pots in partial shade at mid-day this past week as it's been very hot.
8. First blossom: the first flower, a pink 'Heirloom Cupid', bloomed on June 29th. I see plenty of buds this afternoon so I'm hoping for a cascading display of pink flowers.
9. Scent: Well, this has to be experienced first-hand and nose-first. I simply don't have words to convey the fragrance -- think soft, sweet, fresh. If the colour pink had an aroma, this would be it.

Resources:

The Sweet Pea Book by Graham Rice. The Google Books preview includes excerpts on dwarf sweet peas (page 27) and growing sweet peas in containers (page 31).

Renee's Garden Seeds articles:

• Secrets to Sweet Pea Success
• Starting seeds indoors and transplanting
• Sowing seeds directly into the garden

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If you aren't too busy in your own gardens, I'd love to hear about your sweet pea memories and experiences. Which varieties are you growing this year, either in the ground or containers? Which ones have you found to be most heat-tolerant?

Notes:

(1) "Flower treasures for the eye & heart" is the phrase on Renee's Garden flower seed packages.

(2) See Brian's Johnston's excellent online article "A Close-up View of the Wildflower Sweet Pea" (Lathyrus latifolia) for photos and a description of the perennial sweet pea's structure. It is cousin to the annual sweet pea, Lathyrus odoratus.

Dainty, feisty breakfast radishes

  

'Petit Dejeuner' Radishes
"Dainty with a feisty taste" is how @sophiemostly describes the ideal French Breakfast Radish. I harvested this crop on June 2nd, 59 days after sowing.
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The first thing I'm going to do is send you away to read The Radish on the beautiful Nourish Me. Lucy's prose and photographs make me feel like I've feasted when I haven't eaten a bite and illuminate aspects of food I'd forgotten or never known. And perhaps like me, after experiencing this lush post you will admire and desire this humble root even more.

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Now I'll assume (and hope) you've returned to Greens & Berries, nourished by Lucy's post, your mouth watering, craving pickled radishes & wondering how to grow your own crop of Raphanus sativus. In this post I'm going to share with you all I've learned so far. Keep in mind I'm a novice needing more radish education as I've completed only one crop cycle of sowing, tending, harvesting and tasting.

Growing radishes

After harvesting my first crop last week, I found these two resources:

• Barbara Damrosch, in this Kitchen Gardener's International article, asks us to "rethink the radish" and suggests crisp, crunchy, colourful, zesty (and all its synonyms) varieties to try in our gardens.
• According to this NYT article, radishes are "easy to sprout" (this I knew) but "hard to grow right" (this I didn't know, thankfully, or I may not have tried them in my limited space). The article explains how to grow the ideal radish, "a crisp, delicately piquant root, nice for slicing into salads or eating out of hand with a sprinkle of salt and a slice of buttered bread."

Now that you and I know the "right way" to grow radishes, I'm going to tell you what I actually did:

1. I grew 8 radishes in a 20 cm (8-inch) diameter pot, though I probably would have gotten bigger roots if I'd planted the seeds deeper and thinned out more seedlings.
2. I used a mixture of 3/4 organic potting soil and 1/4 vermicompost and did not amend the soil after sowing.
3. Here are photos of the seedlings 18 days and 29 days after sowing.
4. The weather was mostly just right (cool) in April and early May though there were many warm, summer-like days from mid-May on. I kept the soil moist, never letting it dry out completely but not soaking it either.
5. The growing radishes received full sun for no more than 5-6 hours each day, usually between 8 am and 2 pm.
6. They grew next to pots of kale, broccoli raab and mixed greens creating a pretty mix of leafy textures. Though I didn't have any flowering ornamental plants in May, I think these edible greens would make a lush filler for a brightly-coloured thriller.

Eating radishes

Here's a handful of recipes from my food network. So I can try them all, I've written a note-to-self to sow more radish seeds next time and sow them every week during the cool weather.

• Pickled Radishes from Nourish Me (recommended by the the incomparable Kathryn Elliott - one of my favourite sources of healthy & delicious recipes)

• New Moon Radishes, Radish Leaves Rasam, & Fresh Radish Chutney: 2 cups fresh mint, 25 g radish, 1/4 onion, salt, green chilli, 1/2 tablespoon lime juice. Blend. Add water to thin if necessary (recommended by @Ganga108, a new online friend)

• Asparagus Salad (with radishes & broccolini)  from 101 Cookbooks.

Two mornings ago I finally solved my pleasant quandary: what to do with my tiny harvest of petite radishes. Though I'd received the tasty suggestions from my food network, by Sunday morning the crop had dwindled to just four small roots so I made a quick decision to slice them thinly as a topping on toast spread with creamy cheese. The radishes added a pop of colour, crunch & a subtle piquancy. Definitely dainty but not quite feisty -- more like politely assertive.

Nutrition (or the section where the gardener puts on her dietitian hat)

Though I've never seen radishes on any "healthiest foods you should be eating" list, they aren't just water & cellulose --  they're tasty, low-energy, good sources of fibre, vitamin C and potassium.  (See complete nutrition profile here.)

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So now I'd like to satisfy my new breakfast craving and harvest another crop in about 40 or fewer days (before it gets too hot) plus increase my radish knowledge and recipe collection. Which varieties of radishes are you growing this year? Do you have any growing or eating tips? Please share them in the comments below.

Balcony garden progress report

Growing and/or blooming this past week:

The tulips have peaked and are waning but white Lewisia (seen in background) is still blooming strongly with many buds yet to open.

Lettuce is getting lush. I nibble on a few leaves every time I water it.

'Sungold', 'Sweetgold' and 'Supersweet' cherry tomatoes have been soaking up the sun.

And Piper has been keeping watch over all.

So what's up in your garden? Please share surprises, successes, disappointments and/or lessons learned.  Like sharing a meal with family and friends, sowing and growing together is more fun than gardening alone.