grow: escallonia

On Victoria Day, Blair and I bought this little princess, Pink Princess Escallonia, that is. I'm hoping this bush stays with the house for a long, long time. She's my number one girl.

grow: herbs

Sage, Vietnamese Coriander, Genovese Basil, Siam Queen Basil, Spicy Globe Basil

Asian herbs don't do too well during Island winters, so I opted to keep them in pots so I can bring them in during the winter.

grow: green onions

If you let green onions grow for too long without harvesting they get super pungent and a little unforgiving for your breath if you eat them raw.

Perfectly good in a Vietnamese Omelette though!

grow: strawberries

We have four different varieties of strawberries in the GGG Garden: Junebearing, Alpine (they mature to be white/yellow and are rumored to taste like pineapple),  Everbearing (which yields throughout the summer) and a mystery berry that we uncovered around the house (I'm putting my money on Junebearing.) Now, anyone who knows me, knows that I have a loathing for those Californian monstrosities that the grocery stores have the nerve to call strawberries, so you can imagine my excitement of having my very own organic and local versions. Junebearing and Everbearing strawberries send out runners (roots that produce a new plant) and make excellent ground covers and if you mulch them well (they don't like any competition with weeds or cold weather), you'll have them for many years to come.

If your own region can grow something reasonably well, I think we should do what we can to go local. Especially in a place like BC, where berries (and U-Picks) are bountiful! Just freeze and you'll have tasty, local, REAL berries all year.

the GGG Garden Collective

This weekend saw the boys working super hard on the garden, weeding and sowing. Looking pretty sharp, if I do say so myself.

tip: egg shell super fence

Save your egg shells friends!! Crush them up to be good and dusty. Now you have a fence to keep nasty little slugs out without killing them.

It's made a world of difference on my spinach!

I think I got to the kale a bit late though. 

Actually, this looks like the work of the unassuming inch worm. I'd guess they don't like crawling on scratchy egg shells either, but it's no matter to them. They can travel with a gust of wind right onto your salad greens!

Oh well! It's worth it to eat all them eggies.

grow: salad greens

Salad greens have been the easiest thing I have grown yet (followed by radishes, which are basically salad reds). A direct sow in the early spring, after the last frost, water and weed. The toughest part was keeping slugs and inch worms at bay. (Eggshells!)

grow: radishes

As a stubborn child, I didn't eat very many vegetables and missed out on a lot of tasty things. Radishes being one of them. Home-grown, straight out of the dirt radishes are pretty nice things though! 

Just wash and eat!

baked: Martha Stewart's Molten Chocolate Lava Cake

May I suggest a dessert recipe for the week? Martha's Molten Chocolate Lava Cake A simple and deliciously chocolate-y recipe. These puppies are only baked for eight minutes which makes for a sinfully gooey centre when hot and moist and dense the day after. Duncan (whose birthday I made them for) and Naomi seemed pretty happy with them. 

Simple and cute. That's all I ever ask!

None of the photos of the actually turned out nicely so you will have to settle for delightful close ups.

thanks: mr. dem!

For the hanging baskets. . .

. . . and the geraniums

tough competition

My neighbour's yard.

He is getting on in age so his kids do a lot of yard work. Save for coming out on a cane and yelling, they do pretty much everything. It's mid May and he only has a few small patches on the go. Impressively, no weeds!