zirconium: tulip in my front yard, April 2014 (tulip)
zirconium ([personal profile] zirconium) wrote2020-04-09 07:37 pm
Entry tags:

gardening after sundown

Sometimes the urge to keep going wins out. Sowing green beans was on this week's list, and there was a pot's worth of outdoor mix left in the bag, so. Before that, I'd cleaned up and around the rose bushes, added topsoil to the mint patch, accidentally harvested some wild chives, and transplanted more of the Prairie Fire seedlings.

Yesterday, I'd deliberately harvested some gooseweed, turning it into a blenderful of pesto after picking out the bugs.

gooseweed gooseweed

I learned that it was edible while chatting with my boss, who's been foraging with her family; she referred to the plant as "cleavers," to which I responded, "Bzuh? Whazzat? ... Oh!" Making chimichurri and steamed buns with it is also on my list. As I told another friend, the Taiwanese peasant (me) and Memphis hippie (her) effect has kicked in.

Our fridge did a thing where it froze a bunch of things in spite of the temperature gauge claiming otherwise, so instead of devoting half a cabbage to slaw, I stuck the whole thing in a pot and then rolled/sandwiched the leaves around the bean-and-bulgur mess I'd slow-cooked earlier this week (doctored with eggs and breadcrumbs, with enough left over for a cabbage-loaf):

cabbage rolls

The rest of the pepper seedlings and the kalanchoe cuttings have been transplanted. I found an old packet of microgreen mix that I've scattered across the surface of a half-dozen pots. There are some more patches of chives in the yard I managed to leave intact, in hopes of snipping at them next week.

Someday I'll work up the energy to build an asparagus bed. It was my parents' most successful crop in all their years of gardening. That, and the daffodils that came back year after year for decades.

The spinach has sprouted. I think there may be some zinnia and pepper action by the front walk, but since I didn't label things properly I'm just going to leave it all alone until I can tell what's what. (Photinia leaves are piling on top of the stretch closest to our east neighbor anyhow.) There are a couple of stalks of something that might be pretty about to unfurl in the front yard, and against the ruined fence to the west, some tiny white blossoms can be glimpsed amid all the green and brown:

IMG_5169
antisoppist: (Default)

[personal profile] antisoppist 2020-04-10 09:57 am (UTC)(link)
I know it as cleavers and am amazed you can eat it. Thank you.

The cabbage leaves look like Finnish cabbage rolls, which are called kaalikääryleet. It does just mean cabbage rolls, but it looks so much more exciting written down.
okrablossom: (Default)

[personal profile] okrablossom 2020-04-10 03:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Is that second picture the edible stuff? I think we have that here as a weed too. Hmm (if so).
okrablossom: (apples)

[personal profile] okrablossom 2020-04-12 03:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Fascinating. Thanks for mentioning al this :)
aunty_marion: Orange tulips (Tulips)

[personal profile] aunty_marion 2020-04-12 02:11 pm (UTC)(link)
I learned 'goosegrass, or cleavers' from, I believe, a Brother Cadfael novel, long before I encountered it in the green! I'm not sure I'd want to eat it, though. My younger sister and I laboured for a long time occasionally, when I was down in Swansea, trying to remove as much as possible from Mum's garden; we called it 'stickygrass' for concise reference.