Did you know that you can eat arugula flowers? And they are totally yummy? This is what I learned at this months meeting of the garden club hosted by Lisa in her garden.
It was a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon, and her roses were in boisterous bloom, giving her garden a rollicking color backdrop. The ever practical Lisa pointed out that the roses were there when she moved in, two years ago. Since then, she has removed some of the roses to make room for her vegetables.
In this garden, nothing is wasted. Against one wall near the table where we sat eating nibbles and drinking Lingonberry punch (a drink from Lisa’s homeland –Sweden), a wrought iron frame held shelves full of pots of blossoming annuals giving the immediate area a lovely Mediterranean feel.
Lisa has used her imagination by planting pots in unusual ways, e.g. succulents in strawberry pots.
Here she has planted herbs in pots and grouped them together into eye pleasing displays. Notice the lettuce in a plane white basin letting the variety of colors in the lettuce leaves ‘pop’!
I think what I loved most about the Garden Club this week is what I learned about blossoms and seeds.
I noticed that Lisa’s arugula (we call it rocket in Ireland
Lisa also showed me how to gather seeds from broccoli – seed saving is something I’m keen to learn about. Here is a broccoli seed batch being dried out for next season.
I love that Lisa uses every part of the plant, nothing is wasted. Anything that she can’t eat or save is composted. She even has some compost presents to look forward too. Here are some potatoes growing out of her compost bin.
I know from personal experience that these spuds will be the tastiest she will ever eat!
Her strawberries, in a small raised bed at the side of her garden, look lustrous and healthy – always a great plant to photograph as the leaves alone are so pretty.
Lisa has a profusion of oregano and is starting some rosemary in pots.
She tends to keep her herbs either in areas where they can’t take over her garden , or in pots.
Her vegetable garden has beets, lettuce , carrots, broccoli, onions ( the latter two not in this shot) and in the picture of the roses at the start of this post you may have spied the garlic planted between the rose bushes.
Here is the arugula in its full glory. You can just see the onions peaking up in the background.
In the corner, the peach tree is starting to form fruit. Lisa was complaining about how the birds take a bit of each fruit before she can get to it. She figures it would be fine if they would just choose a fruit and finish it rather than sample all of them!
The apple tree in the other end of the garden doesn’t produce fruit. Too hot we reckon, thought it is a lovely tree and provides a nice shade.
Lisa showed me a mystery plant she got in a plant swap. Actually, it was piggy-backing in a pot that held another plant, so it is probably a weed, but she planted it, and it looks pretty. Does anyone know what it is? Please leave a comment if you know - we’d love to find out.
We left the gardening club with the determination to start seed saving and looking forward to keeping a beautiful crop of arugula, flowers and all. Of course, as is the way, we had a great time eating drinking and being merry – all in the name of good gardening! Well, ultimately, that is what a garden is for – isn’t it?
