Zone bending!

After a cold spring, like the one we had this year, where we wonder whether even one pepper will mature past green. I can't help but feel a little jealous of the warmer climates. To curb some of the envy, I have bought a few of the more hardy warm climate plants, I suppose you can call it Zone bending. All of these live outside in the sunny half of the year, and inside for the cloudy bit of it.

My Olive Tree. Its tiny, and these trees grow oh so slowly, but given the very right conditions, most likely against a south facing wall with very well draining soil, some olives trees have and do fruit in Southern BC. Don't believe me? Check out http://olivetrees.ca/

 The Meyer Lemon. I watched a man who worked at a reputable garden centre essentially call a lady stupid because she was curious about growing citrus here. I'm shy, but if I wasn't I would have sent her here aGrowingTradition a top notch garden blog based out of snowy New England. My humble tree needs a bit of love before it gets there, but don't think it can't happen.

 The Tea plant of course, which actually prefers shade and moisture, but cannot tolerate cold. Hopefully more people in BC will try growing this, so that we'll have more inspiring photos to refer to. Til then, about.com it is growing tea at home

Wasabi! Another one that prefers cool, shady and damp, but not cold. I found this cool pdf put out in the states that was trying to guide farmers in how to grow Wasabi for market, check it out here Growing Wasabi in the Pacific Northwest

Lemongrass. This one is new, and truly lovely. My baby shreds it to pieces every once in awhile, and it just keeps growing back strong and fragrant. I keep it moist all summer long, but in the winter I will cut the leaves right back (makes a lovely tea) and keep it almost bone dry in a nice dormant state.

I don't expect to stop here, I saw this great video on growing ginger and I have a cardamom plant that my camera just keeps neglecting. I've seen cocoa trees with pods (growing out of the trunks) at the Vancouver Aquarium, Coffee with cherries at the Bloedel Conservatory, Banana trees with Bananas at the Calgary Zoo and my partner and Love of my life sprouts Avocados compulsively. An Orangery was a common site in the mansions of the rich not to long ago (but before our food system was globalized to the minute.) But possibly what I'm after is more what this lovely family who live in an Earthship in Ontario have, PINEAPPLES!

The Garlic Harvest

I like growing Garlic! This was my first year, so I'm likely benefitting from so much beginners luck, but I found it so easy. I also like the cycle, how it needs to be harvested in the middle of summer, leaving space in the garden to plant your winter crop. 

So, to catch you up, I planted the garlic on October 10th, in plenty of compost and leaf mulch. It started growing in february and got pretty big by mid June, when...

The garlic scapes began to emerge out of the center of the stalks. These are flowers, or plantlets, but I was advised to just clip and eat them, to help make my bulbs bigger. 

They are delicious, and were abundant. The first veg we got to eat out of the garden this season.

Fully a month later, after digging up one bulb per week to see if they were ready to harvest yet I decided they were.

I decided because the cloves were seperate from each other, and big. But they were not bursting out of the skins, which really reduces the amount of time they can be stored for.

Satisfied that it was time to roll I used a pitchfork and dug up all the bulbs, and left them out to dry flat, in the shade for a few days.

Then I removed the outer leaves, and much of the dirt in the process. Then the bulbs were hung to dry out of the way in my cool bike storage room.

About a month later they were dry enough to try braiding. Not easy, at least for me, but I finally got the hang of it right at the end.

But still, this is my best braid, and as you can see, its a little messy. What an art form, next year I'll have to grow lots more garlic to practice this on.

These are some of my seed bulbs, they are the biggest ones I got, and the ones in the best condition. They look like the nicest garlic you can get at the farmers market and I love them so much they are currently hanging up in my living room. I look forward to planting them in October and starting the cycle again.

The Experiments Continue...

Way back in May, I went to VanDusen's Plant sale, where I found a very special plant...

Originating in China, a country who for years held the monopoly on this plant, which quickly became a global commodity, rumoured to have been responsible for the creation of the British empire, the dried leaves, pressed into a brick have been used as currency.

Of course, China lost its monopoly on Camellia sinensis, once a variety was discovered that grew well in Assam India. Since then a few other strains have emerged, the one I bought does well in Russia, so hopefully here as well.

Most tea growers wait until there plants are three years old before they harvest. I got really excited after seeing this documentary All in this Tea ...

...and I also figured, based on the size of my plant, that it was at least two and a half years old. So, a few weeks ago, once small leaf buds started to emerge, I started plucking them off.

 

I got an alright handful,...

 Into the steamer I put them

 then onto a rack to dry in the oven, at 250 degrees F for 20 minutes

At this point they were looking and smelling like green tea, I was hopeful.

But the results were weak, tasteless with sad colour. 

Oh well, thats why it was an experiment. 

Tea is the stuff of ceremony for a reason, it is hard to perfect. The bug has bitten and I think I will keep trying to get my own, nice cup of garden grown caffeine.