Heirloom Plants
- Bees, Birding, Gardening adventures, Heirloom Plants, Other Insects, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Photos
Bouquets for Birds and Butterflies
Lilliput zinnia At the beginning of this summer, the new subterranean drip irrigation system was installed on my property. It features tubing with holes at either twelve or twenty-four inches apart. When it runs (from my well) it leaves circles of dampness polka-dotting the soil surface. I had purchased two packets of wildflower seed, one with a selection of plants to attract bees, and the other for butterflies. Mixing them together, I figured that they wouldn’t fare well scattered, at least this year. My daughter and I pressed seed into many of the wet spots and hoped the rabbits wouldn’t notice.
What happened was a delightful surprise, as only a garden can provide. In many locations around the yard grew mixed bouquets of wildflowers.
Mexican sunflower, cosmos, nasturtiums, zinnias, surround a white calla lily If we had separated selected seed and planned the planting, nothing so beautiful would have come of it. Although many species either didn’t emerge or were eaten, the most common survivors were zinnias, cosmos and borage.
Cosmos, borage, zinnias and alyssum. I was amazed and thrilled; I had purchased a borage plant and then fed it to the rabbits (at least, that is what they thought). Here now are borage plants all over the yard, their royal blue, cucumber-flavored flowers dipping modestly behind the flaunting cosmos.
Sweet basil, cilantro, dill and zinnias In fact, I now have several very hearty sweet basil plants that put the carefully cultivated plants in my raised veggie beds to shame. There is also dill and cilantro growing well even this late in the season.
Cosmos, sweet basil, zinnias, borage, camellia balsam, alyssum There are some plants in the bouquets that haven’t reached maturity yet, so there may still be some surprises. The only flower that emerged that I didn’t recognize and had to look up was camellia balsam (Impatiens balsamina). Two stalks of it, one pink and one red, give these ‘arrangements’ a vertical line.
Camellia balsam (Impatiens balsamina) Although not all of these wildflowers are native to San Diego, or even California, they provide food for birds, bees and are host plants for butterflies, providing the caterpillars food, a place to form their chrysalises, and nectar for the mature butterfly. Bees like small flowers with little drops of nectar too small to drown in, with a nice landing pad of a petal close by. Everything in the carrot family works well. Here are some suggested flowers to plant:
For butterflies:
Mexican lupine, Mexican sunflower, borage, calendula, camellia balsam, scabiosa, cornflower, milkweed, parsley, crimson clover, aster, coreopsis, cosmos, prairie gayfeather, purple coneflower, sweet sultan, sneezeweed, sweet William, bishops flower, black-eyed Susan, dill, snapdragon, yarrow, bergamot, cleome, verbena, and butterfly bush.
For bees:
Cosmos, sunflowers, borage, coriander, Siberian wallflower, dill, coreopsis, poppies, gaillardia, zinnia, sweet basil, purple prairie clover, globe gillia, catnip, lemon mint, black-eyed Susan, goldenrod, lavender hyssop, bergamot, yarrow, mint, California buckwheat.
Be sure to plant flowers that bees love away from paths and walkways if you or your family want to avoid contact with the bees.
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What Bugs See
To veer off from the vacation photos, I thought I’d talk about bugs! I’ve been working in the garden a lot and watching the myriad types of insects drawn to the various flowers blooming all over, and it reminded me of something amazing that I learned last year. The way flowers look to us is not what most insects and birds see. The flowers are bright and showy, but they offer up visual clues to pollinators through colors and patterns that can only be seen with eyes that see UV light. Humans can’t. We can’t assign colors to UV light in the way that we understand them, so when photographing with UV light we substitute our colors to show the change in patterns. The markings on the flowers are guides to where the pollen is, like lights and painted lines on airport runways. Just as baby chicks’ mouths are large and brightly colored to show mom and dad where to put the worm, especially on the inside as they gape and wait to be fed, so have flowers made sure that the pollinators get to the right place for pollen! The differences between what we see and what insects see can be startling; there is a whole hidden world right before our eyes, just as there are supersonic and subsonic sounds that we cannot hear. Elephants make subsonic noises that other elephants can hear miles away, but we aren’t aware of it.
Below are photos taken with and without UV light by the brilliant Norwegian scientist-cameraman Bjorn Roslett. Remember that the UV colorization is man-made to show the difference in patterns. More technical information can be found at his site here: http://www.naturfotograf.com/UV_flowers_list.html , with lists of types of flowers and what approximate color changes there are under UV light.
Dandelion 
Vinca minor 
Vinca minor under UV 
Norsk mure (Potentilla norvegica) 
Norsk mure under UV 
Primrose 
Crocus 
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The Lost Gardens of Heligan
If you ever go to England, go to Cornwall and spend at least a day at the Lost Gardens of Heligan (http://www.heligan.com/ ). Due to a flat tire we only spent four hours there and we didn’t see even half of the 400 acres of incredible restored gardens. The story is this: a thousand acres on the southern coast of Cornwall has belonged to the Tremayne family for about 400 years. At the end of the 1800’s, one of the Tremaynes had built extensive theme gardens. There were walled gardens, enormous hedges, glass houses, cold frames, a pineapple pit where the only pineapple grown in Cornwall grew warmed by horse manure. Melon houses, leisure gardens, formal flower gardens, woods, kitchen gardens and unbelievably, tropical gardens, filled the estate. Due to Cornwall’s position by the English Channel the climate is such that with care tropicals can be grown there. The estate was fantastic; then came WW I, and almost half the family and staff were killed. The gardens were abandoned. Subsequent wars and taxes took their toll, and the gardens became overgrown. Vines, brambles, trees and weeds ran rampant, breaking through the glass roofs, pulling apart brick walls, upsetting carefully laid pathways and covering every trace of the gardens under a head-high blanket of tangled, thorny brush.
Twenty-one years ago, the Tremayne who inheirited the gardens, asked one of the founders of the neighboring Eden Project ( http://www.edenproject.com/ ) to try and restore the gardens. The task was phenomenal and reads like a mystery. Hacking through the overgrowth they found the walls, the foundations and the clues as to what had been. Since then the gardens have been restored. They are everyone’s dream of a garden combined. There is a mound that was a beacon mound during Nepolianic times, but then discovered dates back to the Armada, and then back to Medieval times! There is a jungle with massive gunnera plants and palm trees, about half an acre of vegetables all grown from seed that dates from the late Victorian time, walled flower gardens, ‘antique’ poultry and cattle, unique sculptures recently added, and a wildlife garden to encourage the existence of so many insects, birds and animals that are disappearing. Even with weeding through photos I came up with so many that I want to share, that I’ll just post them below. Visit the website and read up on the Lost Gardens, voted Britain’s Finest Gardens. They are magical.
Entrance to a magical world. 
The Tremayne who built the gardens holding a single Gunnera leaf in front of his famous pineapple pit. 
Flavors of ice cream… we didn’t get to have any! 
A mysterious mound was uncovered and thought to have been a beacon site in Nepolianic times, and for centuries beyond that. 
Stone steps into the ravine 
The Italian garden 
Ivy coming through the roof, trying to reclaim the building once again. 
Hot houses and cold frames 
Cold frames for veg. 
Espaliered pears of many varieties. 
Writing on the wall of the ‘thunder room’, or original composting toilet 
All plants and veg grown are from the late Victorian period 
Espaliered fruit trees make use of warm wall space 
About a quarter acre of mixed greens. 
Bee skeps (baskets, pre-movable hives) were kept in boles for winter protection. 
A bee skep in a bee bole 
History of the Bee Boles 
A banana grows in Cornwall! 
Melon houses 
Potting shed with greenhouses in a walled area. Sigh. 
Cold frames in the potting shed 
A robin watches, just like in The Secret Garden 
The overgrown remains of mud brick walls 
A very steep pathway lined with chicken wire to prevent slipping 
The Jungle 
A wire sculpture of a woman with her arms out… can you see her? 
A deciduous walkway 
Mud Woman 
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Cucharas
- Cucharas served with hot rice and homemade dill pickle.
Cucharas is one of my favorite eggplant dishes. With several huge Black Beauty eggplants ready to eat, it is time to make these treats. There are several steps, but none of them difficult. The eggplant doesn’t need to be salted or oiled, and the result is tasty hot or as leftovers. It doesn’t taste particularly eggplanty, so for those who don’t think they like eggplant, they may want to try this recipe.
- Halve, then quarter the eggplant.
The word ‘cuchara’ in Spanish means spoon or scoop. The eggplant ‘flesh’ is cooked then gently stripped away from the skins, which are reserved. The insides are then mashed with yummy ingredients and then plopped back on the skins, then baked. The process is very forgiving, so if the skins tear, it is okay. It all sticks together with filling in the end.
- Scoop out the ‘flesh’ from the cooled skin, and save the skins.
If you are using larger eggplants, then when filling the skin, just cut them in half. The cucharas should be either small enough to be picked up and eaten out of hand, or eaten with a fork.
- Cucharas make great finger – food as an appetizer.
The original recipe is from Sundays at Moosewood Cookbook.
CucharasAuthor: Diane C Kennedy (From Sundays at Moosewood Cookbook)Recipe type: Main dish or appetizerPrep time:Cook time:Total time:Serves: 16 coucharasIngredients- 2 medium eggplants with smooth skin
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 3 eggs beaten
- 2½ cups grated cheddar cheese
- ½ cup grated Romano cheese
- ¼ cup matzo meal or bread crumbs
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
- freshly grated nutmeg
Instructions- Stem the eggplants and cut each in half lengthwise.
- Cut each half crosswise into four pieces.
- In a covered suacepan, simmer the eggplant chunks in water to cover for 15 minutes until pulp is tender.
- Drain the eggplant in a colander and set them aside to cool.
- Whjen you can comfortably handle the eggplant, use a teaspoon to separate the pulp from the skins, taking care not to tear the rectangles of skin.
- Reserve the skins. Should any tear apart, save them anyway because you can overlap two torn pieced to form a single iece and the filling will hold them together.
- In a bowl, vigorously mash the eggplant pulp with the garlic, or use a food processor or blender.
- Mix in the remaining ingredients, except for ½ cup cheddar cheese and nutmeg, and combine thoroughly. Add more matzo meal if the mixture seems too thin.
- Place a skin, shiny side down, in the palm of your hand.
- Mound it with the eggplant mixture about an inch thick.
- Place it on a well-oiled baking sheet. Continue until all the skins and mixture are used.
- Sprinkle a little of the reserved cheddar and a bit of nutmeg onto each couchara.
- Bake 350 degrees F for 20 minutes or until golden brown on top.
- The preparation can be done ahead of time and the coucharas baked just before serving.
- Chickens, Gardening adventures, Heirloom Plants, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Photos, Ponds, Rain Catching, Vegetables, Vegetarian
The August Garden
Plants have been enjoying the beautiful weather and the constant irrigation from the well, and the garden is flourishing. So, unfortunately, is the Bermuda grass, but that is another tale. Since I see it everyday I don’t notice the change so much, but when I show someone around I am thrilled all over again with the incredible change that has happened on this property. There are so many birds, insects, reptiles and other animals either already here or scouting it out that I know the project is a success. It is a habitat, not just for me and my family, but for native flora and fauna as well. It wasn’t so long ago that I had a cracked, weedy asphalt driveway, a termite-ridden rickety porch that needed pest control, a house with a stinky deteriorating carpet and old splotchy paint, a tile kitchen counter with the grout gone in between and a cleaning nightmare, and a yard full of snails, weeds and Washingtonia palm trees, with the embankment eroding each rainfall. Over the last four years we’ve survived some pretty intense construction projects (none of which were done on time, no matter what they promised!). My house still has some repairs that need to be done but I no longer am embarrassed to have anyone over. The garden is wonderful to walk in and explore. I’ve taken some photos this evening to show you how things are growing:
Bees enjoying purple coneflowers 
The luffa squash has mighty asperations. 
A luffa squash and bloom. They are edible small and green, but I’ll leave them to dry. 
Five eggs today! Each laying hen participated for the first time! The little girls have grown up. 
The small lower pond and the palm pathway. 
The veggie bed. 
Rushes, fleabane, waterlilies and other plants are growing in nicely around the big pond. The boat is still on loan from Aquascape. 
A pumpkin tree? This apricot isn’t healthy, but the pumpkins sure are. 
These bare areas I’ll fill with plants that will make up guilds, each plant filling a niche to help the others grow. 
The entrance to the bee garden. 
Native vinegar weed loves a place we left untouched, and so do the bees. 
Sugar pumpkins ready a little early for Halloween. 
A feral zucchini, still producing at least one a day. 
Melons, passionfruit, pitcher plant and many others under the back porch we call the Poop Deck. 
Very eager bamboo, sugarcane and hops. 
Olive trees tied to painted PVC pipe to make a hut. 
The ‘Nest’ beyond the dry stream bed. 
A thud and a swish… with no warning the neighbor’s tree fell across the fence. 
A green roof for the entranceway, just beginning to show. 
The watermelons in the vegetable beds were tiny… these monsters are wild. That one grew on the rock on its own. 
Entranceway flower tunnel… with dogs waiting to go inside! - Gardening adventures, Heirloom Plants, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian
Scarlet Runner Beans, A Perennial Bean for Food and Beauty
Scarlet Runner Bean Seeds Scarlet runner beans (Phaseolus coccineus) are beautiful plants that are easy to grow, and are often grown just for their red flowers.
Use taller stakes than I did! A trellis or 8-10′ pole is necessary because the vines wind their way up high.
Eat green beans when small They produce a broad bean that can be eaten very young when green, or allowed to dry and the seeds harvested for storing and cooking later.
Shell the pods to store in a dark, cool place The seeds are a spectacular purple and black, making this whole plant ornamental. Cook the seeds before eating them.
Beautiful purple and black seeds The entire plant is also edible, including the starchy roots. The flowers and young tendrils dress up a salad. Although the vine will die down for the winter, the roots will live on in areas where they won’t receive heavy frost. They are native to many places in South America and have been harvested for hundreds of years. This is a perennial bean which will live about six years with care. It is also a nitrogen-fixer, which is excellent for your soil. How fantastic is that?
- Animals, Gardening adventures, Heirloom Plants, Other Insects, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Photos
Ladybugs
Insect Egg Cluster on Parsnips My daughter’s eagle eyes spotted a cluster of insect eggs on the underside of our parsnip leaves. Many moths and butterflies are laying their eggs right now, so seeing a little white pearl glued to the underside of a leaf isn’t strange.
Unknown Butterfly Egg The parsnips in question are late in the garden; they’ve been in the ground for a while and don’t like the heat so they are stressed. Just as we become sick when stressed, so do plants, and the parsnips are under attack by aphids and ants. Ants feed off of the sticky excretions of the aphids, so they have become ranchers. Ants cultivate herds of aphids on stressed plants, grooming them and collecting their, um, poo. So trying to put that image out of your head, if you see a lot of ants on a plant, expect aphids to be there also. Aphids have rasping, sucking mouthparts that they use to eat away at a plant and suck the vital juices out of it. Sorry, there is another image that you probably don’t want. How to get rid of aphids? The natural way would be to make sure your plants aren’t stressed, and allow ladybugs to flourish in your garden.
So what would you do if you saw THIS in your garden?
Ladybug Larvae Eating Aphids Run screaming? Hit it with a trowel? Wait! You shouldn’t do any of those things! These are baby ladybugs! Just as many children do not resemble the adult into which they will grow, ladybug larvae look like something that Godzilla might take on… if the larvae were the size of a house or something, which they aren’t. Okay, I’m digressing here.
Back to that cluster of eggs my daughter saw. They were hatching ladybug larvae!
Hatching Ladybug Egg Cluster I’ve never seen them that small before. Good news for the garden: rescue forces are being hatched!
Ladybug Larvae Hatching Ladybug larvae eat more aphids than the adults do (just think of teenagers and refrigerators). When they’ve grown as much as they can, they will transform in to the ladybugs that we all know and love (even though we sing a horrible song to them about leaving the garden to check on a false alarm about fire and their children. And people complain about not being able to keep ladybugs in their yards!)
Ladybug! So if you see a creepy bug on your plants, the sides of your house… anywhere… don’t squish him! It may be part of the Ladybug Larvae Special Forces out to break up the illegal ant ranches in your garden!
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Brief Garden Updates
Palm Throne I spent the day making two birthday cakes for my two children, both of whom will be flying in from different directions tomorrow. Recipes will be the next thing I post! So for now, just a few garden updates. As you can see in the photo above, I have yet another palm throne, this one at the entrance to the garden. These are so fun. As the palms decompose, I can always plant in the seat!
Six loads of rock A total of six truckloads of rock have been delivered, and are piled in various areas on the property. At about 12 tons a load, that’s over 700 tons of rock! These will be used to surround the ponds, line the dry streambeds, and as interesting features in the natural garden.
- Garbage Can Enclosure
Jay finished the enclosure for the garbage cans, and it is pretty ritzy. Those incredible hinges are hand-made and you can see the imprint from the blacksmith’s tools on them. Jay had several sets and I had to have them. I go nuts over skilled craftsmanship, such as woodworking and metalwork. Right now there is only a latch on the outside, so it would pay not to close the door while inside. It would be a little climb and a long reach to get out again.
- Frond Fence
Along the radically improved and stabalized area above the embankment, some of the chain link and posts used to hold the soil were showing. So today lots of pond fronds (hey, we have a lot of them!) were being attached to the exposed fencing as camafloge. It looks great in that area. Also, little birds like house wrens love nipping between old palm fronds, and they’ll provide some hiding areas for the Western fence lizards, too. The stairs were made from railroad ties, and the area around them planted and then mulched with palm chips.
In the bulb beds, one of my favorite daffodils has opened today, and unfortunately I was snapping photos in the evening and the close-ups were blurry.
At the bottom of the bulb photo are Hoop Petticoats, and at the top, Little Witches, which I wrote about the other day. The little center unruffled hoops are so unique; besides Rip Van Winkle (which haven’t bloomed yet) these are my favorite.Also, Double Delight rose has bloomed. It is a double delight because its coloration is gorgeous and ranges from almost pure reddish pink to almost all white with some red on large, softly ruffled blooms. It also is extremely fragrant; my daughter said that it smelled the way rose water tastes, and that is perfectly true.Meringue Mushrooms coming up soon!
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Heirloom Plants
- Fragrant Antique Freesias and Cyclamen
Little Witch Daffodil I am so fortunate to live here in Northern San Diego County, where Spring has come and gardening weather is wonderful. I may be a cold-weather wimp, but that’s okay. A morning filled with the scent of freesias and the repetoire of a mockingbird in love fills and feeds my inner self. I wish that I could waft that incredible fragrance to you from the photo! I was born in New Jersey, the youngest of five, and we came West when I was five years old. My mother never wanted to even look at snow again in her life, and my dear dad made that possible. I published a fiction story some years ago in the premier children’s magazine, Cricket ( http://www.cricketmag.com/CKT-CRICKET-Magazine-for-Kids-ages-9-14), called Taking Tea with Aunt Kate. In it I wrote about a lush, mixed-up garden. The illustrator for the story lived in some cold state, and emailed the editor with alarm that I had daffodils blooming at the same time as squash was in the garden. It took me a little to convince her that our narcissus bloom in early Fall when squash is still being harvested, and daffodils are still blooming when we can transplant squash starts out in the Spring.
Early Louisiana Jonquil 
- Van Sion (1620)
Despite the fires, drought, and cost of living, we live in an Eden most of the time, in my opinion. But I’m well off the track of what inspired me writing this morning.
I revere heirloom plants. I became involved with heirloom varieties when I was a Senior Park Ranger for the County of San Diego, and was in charge of the newly restored Rancho Guajome Adobe in Vista. http://www.co.san-diego.ca.us/parks/ranchoguajomeadobe.html . If you haven’t visited, you really need to. Its right next to the Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum http://www.agsem.com/ and open for tours on weekends and for special events. The most common comment has always been, “I’ve lived in Vista for years and driven past this place almost daily and never knew it was here!”
Tommies crocus (1847) Anyway, for the Adobe’s grand opening after it’s restoration, I was asked to create a Victorian wedding area using period-appropriate plants. In about 8 weeks. And, in one of the fastest group efforts ever, I did. Since different areas of the Adobe were built and interpreted for different times, I researched and planted gardens in the inner courtyard and in the front which reflected the plants available in San Diego at those times. The gardens have changed plant materials over the years, but have been lovingly kept by docents and staff. Two wonderful resources (among many) which I still shop from and refer to today, are Old House Gardens Heirloom Bulbs https://www.oldhousegardens.com/index.asp , and Heirloom Roses http://www.heirloomroses.com/index.htm. These are two mail-order plant suppliers who research and care for their stock, listing introduction dates and histories. Old House Gardens is particularly warm and fuzzy to deal with; they add personal notes onto the orders, want feedback about how the bulbs do in your area, and make sure that you know if
Cherokee Rose 
A cutting from the Cherokee Rose planted at Rancho Guajome Adobe circa 1880. So in my gopher-populated garden at home, I have been building bulb beds which are set on landscape fabric (to try and keep out the Bermuda grass which can grow anywhere) and lined with aviary wire. This is the time of year when these beds make my heart soar, because one after another these incredible flowers tell me more than anything that Spring is here. Daffodils aren’t supposed to be appetizing to gophers, so in January I bought a couple of bags of the common King Alfred variety (45 in a sack for about $7!) at Home Depot, and planted them all over. I got them in the ground a little late, so I may have to wait until next year for blooms. I love the explosion of daffodils all over Santa Ysabel and Julian.
Rosa rugosa, our native rose I have far too many roses planted; but I have to confess, one of the real perks of the permaculture work that is being done on the rest of the property is that I get to have more roses! 🙂 My side yard has the destinguished personages of Agatha Christie, William Shakespeare, along with Double Delight, Blue Girl,
Blue GirlMirandy, and some big red rose that was here when I moved in. Two Damask roses (which they use to make Attar of Roses) that my nephew gave to me are in the front, along with Rosa rugosa (our native) and some unidentified ones. The driveway is filled with artistocratic names along with Joseph’s Coat, and beginning to work its way up the post that stands outside the bedrooms is Kiss of Desire. (Sigh). In the back are many more which were here when I moved or came to me free and unlabeled, including two spectacular red roses which are side-by-side, are now enormous and lush, and whose bloom colors clash so loudly you could hear it inside!
Although they aren’t native, many of these heirlooms need to be saved from extinction, are often much hardier than any modern hybrids, and are gorgeous and unique. They have to be hardy, because my plants need to thrive on some neglect. I also fertilize them with Roses Alive natural fertilizer from Gardens Alive http://www.gardensalive.com/ . Organic fertilizer doesn’t build up salts in the soil or destroy the soil microbes that are essential for good plant health.
Unidentified David Austin rose About the recommendations: I don’t work for any of these businesses. I recommend them as a friend, for I have found them to be excellent in my dealings with them and they support good causes. I hope that you enjoy their breathtaking catalogs! (I actually have to go through the catalogs a little at a time because I get too excited and my heart rate goes up and I want all they have!).
Ice Follies daffodil So this was a long post, when actually this beautiful bird-song-filled morning I just wanted to bring you photos of Spring flowers, to brighten your day. Also, I’ve been trying to learn this user-friendly (ha!) blog thing, and I think I’ve made it possible to leave comments without you having to go through so many hoops (to prevent spamming.) I’d love to hear what you say! Have a great day.
Cineraria 
Wisteria chinensis