Ann's Air Gardens

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.  
 

Aero Radishes, RFLOL

This is a 12" baby radish pod that I picked to eat with dinner:

 

Comical, but I am growing more "air" plants outside of my AeroGarden planters than in them.  One of the most fascinating ones is Rauphonus cordatus or Red Rattail Radish, which I have in dirt.  But this wonder plant, also known as aerial radish, is not a root vegetable.  The pods are edible.  

Due to availability issues I got a rather late start on these last summer, but they are amazing, and still bearing edible pods after surviving the winter in my carport. Apparently, they are supposed to be staked, but I let mine hang down over the edge of an elevated planter.

This is one of my favorite vegetables, because it is easy to grow from seed, interesting, and attractive in its own way, with nutritionally dense leaves and pods.

I like them raw when they are between stylus and pencil thin and long, or cooked when they are short and fat.  I am getting both kinds on each of my 3 plants.  This summer I will plant a lot more and also buy seeds for the Munchen Bier (Raphanus sativus), which should taste good with my kombucha.  Munchen Bier is interesting because it produces edible fruit at both ends.  I don't know if the leaves are as delicious as the cordatus, not having researched this, but suspect that the tubers, like Daikon Radish, are also rich in inulin. 

 

I saved a few pods for seeds, and opened one of them too early, but after waiting a few more months (!) I tried again and was rewarded with these nice little sprouts which I will plant today. 

Reasons I like to sprout this sort of seed in vials of water include:

1)  It is a photo op and I like to watch the roots grow. 

2).  It gives me a window of time within which I can decide how and where to plant them (dirt, potting soil, hydro, some of each?) 

3)  They stay ahead of the fungus gnats.

My First Bougainvillea Plant

This was an impulse purchase!   I was looking for a geranium and did find a very nice one at an affordable price, but the Bougainvillea was right next to it, and I had just never seen such a pretty one before and had to have it.   A neighbor at my vacation home has a huge red one which I just love to see when I look out my window, but it is SO messy and bushels of the bracts blow across the street and become trapped in my carport.  One time another neighbor came by as I was sweeping them out and asked "Don't you hate that?"  I replied that I love the plant so much that I didn't mind.  The bracts are a bit difficult to sweep up, however, as they sort of stick to the concrete.  

So I am thinking I will try to keep this one indoors.  I should think it would make a stunning bonsai.

 

The yellow flowers are from my Edible Chrysanthemum aka Crown Daisy.

 

 

What is Not to Like about Succulents

For a desert rat, my former disdain for succulents (apart from purslane) was hard to fathom.  I say former disdain because all of a sudden, I adore succulents and am collecting lots of them, mostly in the form of cuttings given to me by people who appreciate that there is nothing like a convert.

 

This all came about as a result of my cousin's generous gift of )yard trimmings.  She has a veritable forest of elephant bush trees, most of which she grew from cuttings.   I plan to do the same.  

So far I have three varieties of Elephant Bush and each one has its own personality.  I like the Mammoth variety best for tea.  I have been boiling a few leaves in water for 3 minutes and then letting them steep.  I have seen Elephant Bush tea offered for sale online under the name Spekboom tea.  I had bought a pot of the Mammoth Elephant Bush at Lowe's Hardware and subsequently learned that its botanical name is Portulacaria Afra Macrophylla.  

After reading that the little green leaves of Portulacaria Afra (Green) shown at the bottom of this collage are good in salad I tasted one and it was actually pretty awful!  But I cooked a few and found them quite good.  Having seen a recipe for SpekBoom Muffins, I tried putting a few of the cooked leaves in my cornbread and was happy with the result.  It is said that this plant has a nicer flavor if the leaves are picked in the late afternoon.  I have found that to be true of edible chrysanthemum leaves, but 

Imagine my surprise, however, when I gingerly tasted a leaf from the Rainbow variety (Portulacaria Afra Variegata) and found it to be delicious. 

I first blogged about Elephant Bush HERE.

Mt. San Jacinto as Seen in the Pandemic

 

As seen from Interstate 10, the unmistakable North Face and the sun just starting to set.  I took this photo from the Rest Stop between Palm Springs and the Morongo.  

Winter Flowering Edible Chrysanthemum

Winter Eats!

Since this is the first time I have tried to overwinter one of these edible mums, I left the first bud on until it flowered....just long enough to take a picture.

Then I cut all the soon to flower stems off and brought them into the house to see if they will root in a glass of water.  Although the rule in rooting is to remove the flowers which sap strength needed to go into roots, in this case I will see if a few more buds open for a bouquet.

This was a tiny edible chrysanthemum plant cowering under the red okra in the big pot round back all summer, but come December when I cut the okra, the mum took off.  To prevent it from bolting I did the cut and come again bit, putting top shoots in my soup for several months until I missed a bud and now it is February and it has this flower.

Next year I should plan to have a whole hedge of these as both greens and flowers are tasty and nutritious.

The dead stalks behind this plant are from now defunct okra and jute.

Plans for next year include continually cutting the flowers off the just to prevent pod formation and allow branching out.  

I very much like the Egyptian Spinach leaves, especially as microgreens, but have to keep them away from the cabbage plants or they may be attacked by tiny (hard to find until it is too late) cabbage worms.

Last summer I thought the little white butterflies flitting about my bok choy and other cabbage kin were cute so I left them alone, but now I know better.  Apparently just a couple of them can lay hundreds of eggs! 

As for the brown moths that produce the giant tomato worms, there too, forewarned is forearmed.  I finally bought huge tweezers from an aquarium supply store and use them to pull the tomato worms off my tomatoes.  Those worms seemed to like the Genovese tomato vines best.

I have not yet to find an insect pest associated with the edible mums. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The stems in this bouquet may or may not root, except for the nasturtium, which is just for show. 

 

 

 

 

My chrysanthemum grow log is here.