In progress.
Can I make this shunned weed legal? Someone needs to.
Sad Looking Jute
Jute (aka Eqyptian Spinach) seeds sprout overnight but the seedlings are tiny and can take months to get big enough to eat. When they do start flowering the plants will quickly bolt, so I like to take cuttings before that happens in order to get more plants in a shorter time.
Diminutive flowers are edible as well as attractive. As long as I keep picking them off to eat, new flowers will keep coming. If I miss some, they will turn into tiny pods which are tasty and nutritious when they are small and tender.
This may look deader than a doornail just a few minutes after the stem is cut, but by morning it will be completely recovered and in a week or so it will have viable roots. The parent plant will then branch out instead of continuing to grow straight up on a single stem.
Raspberry jam
Adjustment pending? Fast resolution on this one. I have a similar photo of Seedless Strawberry Jam on my other blog. Exact same issue with 2 different sellers. A set of 6 glass jam jars shipped without any padding and only one of the jars in each big box was smashed, but it got goo all over all the others. What a mess. They would not be able to resell the good jars in that condition, so they issued a no-return refund for the full amount.
They have kept a customer happy without overburdening the landfill, RFLOL.
PS: The seedless jam is really good. I use it to flavor my home made ice cream. Yes, sugar, but not as much as in the average commercial product.
Tradescantia pallida
Tradescantia pallida 'purpurea' is a handsome and robust plant that can be grown in a pot outdoors in Southern California year round.
A spiderwort commonly known as purple heart, it is related to zebrina and spider lily.
These cuttings were given to me by a very good friend and I plan to root them in water.
UPDATE: 2 of my 3 cuttings taken on August 18 have tiny roots already on August 31 (13 days)
Yummy Tomatoes and a Brave Dove
These tomatoes overwintered from seeds I sprouted in the Spring of 2020, and the cayenne pepper plant was $1.49 at the 99 Cents Only Store. Economical eats, but a lot of work keeping them alive in the hot desert sun.
It is said to be fortuitous when mourning doves nest near you. This one is at eye level and just inches away from my beefstake tomatoes. She takes the night shift and stays until the light of day, but then her husband comes to sit on the eggs during the hottest hours of sun. He is bigger than her, with a longer beak, and although the markings are similar hers are more gray and his are a rosy pink. He sits unblinking when I go by with my watering can, but she is more expressive. They don't seem to mind at all when I rush past them. It is almost as if they know I am a friend and am just there to bring them a bowl of fresh water and to tend the plants.
Xxx
Unbelievable
One of my scratch'n'dent peperomia plants has 2 flower stems.
This is Peperomia obtusifolia (baby rubber plant) and although the flower stems grow up to 5" long, the flowers themselves will be miniscule.
Chicory
This is Cichorium intybus, aka Common Chicory. I have grown it before and enjoyed eating the leaves and flowers.
The roots are nutritious as well, but I haven't eaten them nor taken root cuttings yet.
Here is a close up of the bitter, but tasty leaves, which can be substituted for dandelion greens.
Aside from this plant's amazing nutritional profile, it is a pretty thing with delightful flowers that I particularly enjoy eating as a garnish over my breakfast tilapia.
Please note that although chicory leaves can be harvested at any time, the flowers are only open in the morning. They also change color going from their usual brilliant blue to almost white due to factors I haven't quite figured out.
They do bolt in extreme heat. When the plant is flowering, the leaves, while still edible are noticeably more bitter. It is said that blanching sweetens them, but I have yet to try that.
See also: Sugar Loaf, Radicchio, and Endive.
To view my Chicory Omelette please visit Ann's Air Gardens
This and That
These microgreens are red and green Daikon Radish from Backyard Vitality. They are expensive, but I like their cedar boxes with stainless steel trays.
Here they are looking good, but this week's heat wave got them. I probably should have put the trays in the refrigerator.
My outdoor air radishes went limp when the temperature reached 110°F, but they were OK in the morning.
It won't get much cooler all this week, so I picked some of these for soup.
Versatile Shiso
I am nuts about Shiso, but only recently started making tea from the leaves. This happened as a result of a fortuitous experiment with a less than perfect mango. I blended it with green Shiso leaves, ice, milk, and a wee bit of maple syrup. It tasted really good and I was ready to make another one.
But first I got online to see if anyone else had tried anything like that, and was amazed at the enthusiasm with which quite a few bloggers described their experiences with Shiso tea.
The only Shiso tea I have made so far was from fresh leaves of what the seed catalogs call Britton Shiso, also known as "tia to" (or beefsteak plant?) and it was instant love. It turned out to be the only kind of tea I have ever made or tasted that I like all by itself, without sweeteners of any kind. This is the variety that has leaves that are green on top and purple on the bottom. I can hardly wait to try the red Shiso tea and was delighted to see Lowe's advertise red perilla on their app, but there is some question as to whether what they are selling is correctly named, and I haven't found it in the local stores yet. What folks in the Midwestern USA called beefsteak plant was Coleus and decidedly not edible.
Perilla frutescens seeds I bought to sprout myself gave mixed results. First off, the seeds for the red variety did not sprout in my trial, not even one of them, and second, although the green seedlings sprouted and grew beautifully, I didn't think they tasted quite as good as the ones from Bonnie Plants at Lowe's. My plants were impressive, however. I took cuttings from one of my seedlings and grew a small plant to give to a friend. After being away for a few months I came back and she showed me that plant growing in her garden and it was taller that she was!
WARNING: Shiso is one of the many plants about which there is conflicting, incorrect, and misleading information online, particularly as to its suitability for use as food. Take care not to mistake culinary Shiso/Perilla with similar plants that are toxic, hallucinatory, or simply unpalatable. Be careful when buying live plants and/or seeds. Coleus and perilla can be barely distinguishable, but are not the same. Coleus may or may not be toxic to humans.