Vegetables need love too ...

Don't underestimate them ...

Peas sidle up, wanting to hug ...

Carrots need to cuddle ...


Parsnips get passionate ...

Tomatoes hold hands ...

Fiddlehead fern gets the message across ...


And so do onions, reminding you that love can sometimes make you cry ...

And freeze your heart ...


But sooner or later you'll warm it up again.

Happy Valentines Day!

Acknowledgements

With many, many thanks to the people who made these photos available under Creative Commons Licence on flickr :

wishymom - peas
Chris Campbell - carrots
beatlequeen - parsnips
Zep10 - tomatoes
libraryman - fiddlehead fern
Estherase - onions
waiti - spinach
kramerhawks - celery

And the potato? We ate it last week ....

The only herb you'll ever need ...

About ten years ago, browsing around a German supermarket, I came across a packet of herbs with the name Bohnenkraut. Well, that translates as "bean herb" and as I cook with beans a lot, I thought I'd give it a go.

It was wonderful. Following the suggestions on the packet, I added it to anything which contained tomatoes, beans, lentils ... and soon I was hooked. But what was it exactly?

It tasted a bit, but not quite, like oregano - though I preferred it by far. Could it be a blend of various herbs? A bit like the French Herbes de Provence? I decided it must be.

I couldn't find anything like it anywhere else. I tried in Britain, in Italy - but nowhere had a German blend of herbs with anything like the name bean herb.

And so, for about ten years I just stocked up every time I went there, bringing home enough packets to last me till I went again or someone visited and could bring them out. And added it to just about everything. Roast chicken, beef stew ... I don't think two days go by when we don't have Bohnenkraut in something. I confess - I'm an addict. The recipes say oregano? basil? sage? Forget it - stick in some Bohnenkraut.

And then, while I was there this Christmas, I went to the local garden centre to buy some seeds and found .... Bohnenkraut. So it wasn't a blend after all. But then what the heck was it?

I'll cut a long and Google-dominated story short. It's savory.

Now that's a herb I'd heard of, but if you'd asked me if I'd ever tried it, I'd have said no.

Try looking for recipes with savory on the web. You will find them, but they're few and far between. Why is it so ignored? If the web is to be believed it's used a lot in Canada,and also in Bulgaria and Romania, but here in Southern Europe is largely unknown - odd because apparently it grows here. I did find the Italian name, Santoreggia, and then remembered having seen it in a little greengrocer's which specialises in heirloom fruit and veg, but apart from that I've never heard of it being used.

Needless to say, when I came home after my trip to the garden centre, there was a packet of savory seeds tucked firmly into my bag. I've bought summer savory (Satureja hortensis),an annual which is apparently milder in flavour than the perennial winter savory (Satureja montana). I've no idea which one my dried herbs are - I'll find out when it's big enough to harvest.

If you can find it, I recommend strongly that you try it. If you grow from seed, it will germinate at 18-20°C (65-70F), so start it off indoors or in the greenhouse any time from now on. And then it likes the sun.

Apart from the fact that it tastes wonderful, it also acts against the anti-social effects that can often come from eating food like beans - all these years of wondering why the beans I cooked didn't cause the problems they were supposed to ...

And (or but, depending on how you look at it), according to the ancient Romans, it's an aphrodisiac. Now, I've been feeding it to my husband for the last ten years and I have to say.... But no, perhaps not. I'll leave you to try it. You can find out for yourselves.

A sad tale - but a happy ending

This is a tale not for the faint-hearted. A sad tale of cruelty and neglect which will probably get me drummed out of the ranks of the garden blogging community. If you're liable to get upset, it might be best not to read on ...

I have an office. And in my office there was an enormous Scindapsus (or Pothos, or Epiphremnum, or Raphidophora - see here for why this plant has more aliases than most of the criminals listed by Interpol). A lovely plant, which trailed down about 3ft from the top of a bookcase in the office all winter, full of glossy green and yellow variegated leaves. Then in the summer months, I'd cut it back and leave it to grow back trailing over the balcony - scindapsus loves the indirect light, the heat and humidity which the balcony gets.

Scindapsus loves the light. So what do I do to it? I leave it in a completely dark room for a week.

I didn't mean to be cruel, honestly. It was just bad planning. I don't work in the office every day, but when I'm not there I always go in the morning to open the shutters and let the light in, and then go back at night to close up. And then suddenly I couldn't get there for a week.

When I did get back, the signs of neglect were evident. Gone was my glossy, bushy plant. The leaves were yellowing and starting to fall, and were full of the tell-tale brown patches which scindapsus is prone to when it's ill-treated.

Full of guilt and remorse, I brought it home for some tender loving care. Comments from the rest of the family were not encouraging : It's dead .... Throw it away.... You're not going to leave that thing there are you... What do you want another one for - you've already got a houseful.

You can see from the photo that it lost most of the leaves, but after a month of intensive light therapy by the window, the colour has come back and there are signs that it's picking up again. Some fairly hard pruning this spring (there is nothing uglier than a "leggy" scindapsus) and it should be back to normal by the autumn. Phew. Here it is today sitting on what used to be the hamster's table with four other friends.

Because, as my husband pointed out, it wasn't the only one I had. Whenever I cut it back, I can never resist replanting the stems. And it's such an easy plant to grow that they come up every time. Just stick them in some potting compost, like these which went in last year ...

... or grow them in water. Pop them into a flower vase, top the water up once a week and forget about them. They'll put out roots and be perfectly happy.


I usually let my scindapsus trail. That way it looks good on the balcony in the summer, and obscures some boring files from view in the winter. In the garden centres you usually find them trained up mossy poles - I find this a drag as they grow so quickly that you're always trimming and they quickly start to look untidy. I prefer the natural chaos of the cascade effect.

Scindapsus comes from S. East Asia where it grows among the trees in the tropical rainforest - hence it's liking for heat and humidity. Ideally you should keep them at between 18°C (65°F)and 29°C (85°F). Mine tend to stay out until about October, when temperatures may be down to about 7-10°C (45-50°F), but then it's time to bring it in. Mist regularly to provide humidity.

But if it's fussy about temperature, it's very easy-going when it comes to soil and fertiliser. It grows happily in the ordinary potting compost I get from the supermarket, and doesn't seem to care whether I fertilise or not. It gets fertiliser when I'm watering all the plants together and there's some in the watering can - but I've also let it go without for long periods with no apparent ill-effects. It's fairly happy-go-lucky about watering too - most sources advise you to water moderately and let it dry out between waterings, especially in winter. But it's been "drowned" by my plant sitters occasionally, and has always bounced back.

It's a very, very easy houseplant to grow and to look after. And also good to have around the house as it absorbs indoor pollutants such as formaldehyde (which may be released from new furniture, carpeting and other products), and benzene (plastics, detergents, synthetic fibers and more). Scindapsus is poisonous if eaten however - don't add it to your salads and keep it away from kids and pets like rabbits (or hamsters), which might be tempted to have a nibble.

Oh - and though I've never tried, they say that by controlling the light conditions, you can also control the colour. In shade, green will predominate; give it more sun and the yellow variegation will be stronger. Most sources say to avoid direct sunlight - but mine gets it for about two hours a day all summer, and there are no problems.

Just don't leave it in the dark.

It's happening again ...

January. It's the time of year when I get itchy. Yes, I know it's too early. It's -4°C out there for goodness sake. But there they all are, sitting in their little paper packets saying Put us in, oh please put us in.

Rubbish. We're not saying anything of the sort. We're not ready. It's too cold and too dark. We won't do anything. Wait till March ...

I rake the blogs for posts about winter sowing. Ellen of How I Love to Garden is encouraging and points me to a couple of other good websites. But are the seeds I've got suitable?

I pore over the instructions - at some length and with a dictionary, because they're in German, fruit of a trip to the local garden centre while I was in Aachen over Christmas. It was January 2nd and it had snowed hard overnight. I was one of two customers in the whole place, and the other one was buying houseplants. The staff clearly thought I was stark raving mad to have turned out that particular day to buy a summer's worth of seeds.

April, sow direct. No good. March, under glass. March, under glass. Hmm, that's promising. As we're in Italy, maybe I could get away with it now. It's warmer here. ..

I grab one of my Italian gardening books and check the sowing times. March, under glass. Rats.

And then things start to look up. Cowslips (which incidentally in German have the wonderful name of Keys of Heaven) Sow in the winter months. Rucola, all year round. OK, now you're talking. Surfinia, Ivy-leaved Pelargoniums, Heliotrope : In the house or greenhouse 18°-22°, January to March. Yes! That's what I've been looking for ...

In the house or greenhouse. Heated greenhouse obviously. Don't have one of those on the balcony - it'll have to be the house. Time to clear the books off my bedside trolley table again, and push it up to the window. Ignore those Oh not again looks from the rest of the family as what they believed to be their home is turned into a nursery. They'll thank me later when the balcony's looking wonderful and I don't have to spend money on garden centre plants.

So we're off once more. Despite the fact that it's the coldest month of the year and light evenings are still a far-off dream, it's time to start. Spring may not quite be just round the corner, but it's coming. I promise.

Death of a Tree

It started with the sound of a chainsaw. Tuesday is a day when I don't have to work early, but a high, whiny buzz coming from the front garden woke me at 8am. What was going on? Were they lopping the trees in the garden? They come and do it about every three years, but it shouldn't have been this year.

I peer over the balcony wrapped against the -3° temperature in an old dressing gown inherited from my mother - I am too ashamed to say how long ago. And looking undoubtedly like the mad woman of Milan. And see two men attacking the laurel tree in front of the appartment. Whaaat? It's perfectly healthy, and at only about 15 ft created no problems. So why?

I wake up husband and pounce - he's one of the tenant representatives for the condominium and is supposed to know what's going on. Why are they killing my tree?

One groggy eye opens and says (I've deleted the expletives) I've been in bed with the 'flu for a week, don't know and the way I'm feeling don't care, go ask the caretaker.

But first I grab my camera to record the crime. And go to the end of the balcony where I have a clearer view. And see the tree is down ...

Not cut down. Fallen down. Brought down by the weight of the snow heaped on the broad, flat leaves. Remember the last post and the photo of the tree covered in snow and forming a white hump outside the balcony? That was the laurel.

But the weight was too much. And the tree had simply toppled over, uprooting itself. I hadn't noticed the first time I looked, because the view from that end of the balcony is obscured by the hedge. And the tree had fallen against a lamp-post, propping itself up as if nothing was the matter.

The men worked for about half an hour. At the end, they loaded up the branches on a lorry and left. My lovely laurel is gone. Killed by the snow.

Heat zones and hardiness zones

This was the week that temperatures on the balcony dropped to -3°C (26°F) and we had 40 cms (about 16 inches) of snow within 36 hours. That's more than I've seen in Milan for about 20 years - and the first time I've ever seen snow heaped up on the balcony. It is however well within the limits of our hardiness zone.

It seems that every US gardener knows what hardiness zone they're in. Yet the idea is much less common in Europe. It is possible to find out though, and backyardgardener.com links to maps showing not only the US, but also Europe ( this one from gardenweb.com is particularly good - click on the different countries to get an enlarged view of wherever you are in Europe, Australia, China and the States.

Knowing your hardiness zone isn't always much help though. First of all, because the categories seem to me to be extremely wide. We're in zone 8, which means that temperatures might go as low as -12°C. Well, yes I suppose they might. But they almost never do. If we have a week below freezing with a couple of days at -5 or -6, that's an exceptionally cold winter. Most years we never see temperatures drop far below freezing at all. Even this week we've mostly been around 0-2°.

One reason for that however is that we're in the middle of a city - where temperatures are always 2-3°C higher than the surrounding countryside. And that's another problem with hardiness zones - you need to take into account the individual factors of your garden : how exposed is it? If you're south facing, if you have nice sheltering walls, or if like me you garden on a balcony that receives warmth from the house, the official temperatures and those which your plants experience may be quite different. I've said before that I can get so-called annuals like petunias to survive the winter on the balcony just by covering them and placing them against the walls of the house. The conditions in the micro-climate of your own garden may be quite different from the "official" conditions of your zone.

However, the other problem is that hardiness zones only take into consideration the low, winter temperatures. I've said we're in zone 8 here - but so is much of Britain, and the type of plants that grow well here and in Britain are often quite different. We may have similar winter conditions, but the summer heat is another story.

In the US, it's also possible to find out your heat zone. The zones are based on how many days the temperature rises above 30°C / 86°F, and you can see how the zones are labelled at the site of the American Horticultural Society. But I can find nothing for any other part of the world. And as I lose far more plants to heat than cold, I'd like to know.

But for now, we're still coping with the snow.

Another Year Over ....

OK, so I´ve missed another deadline. 2008 was supposed to end with a review of the year posted on December 31st. And here we are, twelve hours into 2009 and I´m only just getting around to it. And one of my New Year resolutions is to try and manage my time better ...

The year started as it finished, with us here in Germany. While we were here last year, I noticed two large crassula ovata in flower, and the post I wrote on them turned out to be my most popular post ever - goodness knows why. But the search engines seem to like it and it still tops my list of most visited pages. This year they´re still there, but there´s no sign of flowers. Could it be a plant which only flowers occasionally, I wonder. Back home my own still shows no sign of blooms at all.

My own favourite January post though was the one I wrote On the naming of plants ... - something that sems to get less logical the more they try and clean it up.

In February my primula were in full flower and I was itching to get on with seed sowing. While I waited though, I asked What Kind of a Garden Blogger are you? - bifurcated, a butterfly, a scribbler or ...??

March was a good month both for gardening and blogging. The tulips were out, and the primula continued to surprise - as I wrote in The Curious Incident of the Primrose that Wanted to be a Polyanthus. I also posted, a bit late, on Where in the world is the Balcony Garden? for Jodi at Bloomingwriter´s Garden Blogger´s Geography Project describing living and gardening in Milan.

In April I wrote about my little Hamster Helper : The Only Garden Tool You´ll Ever Need. Benji sadly died later in the year - she was by that time an old lady, but refused to accept that she could no longer climb and jump around as she used to. And fell and broke her back. We miss her.

Milan was featured again in April in the GBD post where I talked about how every balcony in the city seems to turn yellow when the sedum blooms. Even people who have no other plants on their balconies seem to have sedum - and I can´t claim to be an exception. I also talked about how many plants which are usually sold as annuals in fact are far hardier than they seem, and do well as perennials - something I´ve picked up on again recently.

In May the balcony was at its best. It was also the month when I had a weekend in Barcelona, where I admired the way Gaudi´s architecture blended so well with the naturalfeatures of the Park Guell. It was also the month I wrote about the Wollemi Pine, one of the Earth´s oldest living plants. It´s been around for 200 million years, but the living version was only recently discovered in Australia.

June saw me spending quite a lot of time in a local park, where I not only saw the lavender in bloom but also came across some dinosaur eggs. But perhaps the most interesting post was An Interview with Stuart of Blotanical, where he talked about setting up the site and his plans for the future.



July saw the end of the great Bill and Ben experiment, with the sad demise of Bill. And we were looking at Milan again with the post Guerilla Gardening in Milan.

In August we were on holiday at the sea. But apart from a few posts from there, I also wrote about Ten Reasons Why I Wouldn´t Be Without My Scissors And for the umpteenth time I wrote about the plants I´d lost to red spider mite. They hit late this year due to the cold, rainy spring, but made up for it with a vengeance when they did finally arrive.

September saw another interview - this time with Carol of May Dreams Gardens.

And I also inadvertently stirred up a hornet´s nest with the post Balcony Gardening - or Just Exterior Decorating. It gave me a chance though to write a follow up post which I´d been thinking about for a while : Form and Colour, Colour and Form


October had the Virginia Creeper on the canal showing off its glorious colours ...



But apart from that the autumn was a bit miserable, leaving me overworked, burnt out and in November with a bad back that had me writing about how not to shift containers around on the balcony.

I perked up a bit in December though, with the closest I think I´ll ever get to a rant about the way the EU has watered down its plans to combat CO2 emissions and therefore climate change. And of course there was the usual Christmas Quiz to finish the year.



And there goes 2008. What will 2009 bring? Who knows. But I do have plans. I never make New Year resolutions, but this year I have set some goals - some of them to do with the blog. So watch this space. I´ll be back soon.

But till then, to all of you ..

May 2009 see your seeds germinate, the flowers bloom copiously and your vegetable garden make you self sufficient. May the butterflies come to sip the nectar but lay their eggs elsewhere, and may the red spider mite just go away. A long, long way away.




Happy New Year !

So You Think You Know Your Christmas Plants - The 2008 Christmas Quiz

Three days to go, and just like every year I´ve still got everything to do for Christmas. So before I get too tied up with making the mince pies and wrapping the parcels, here´s this year´s Christmas quiz. You´ll find the answer at the bottom - no cheating please or Father Christmas won´t come ...

1. Two of the gifts brought by the wise men were Frankincense and myrrh, which come from trees of the genera Boswellia and Commiphora respectively. But what are they exactly?

a) a resin which oozes from the bark

b) an oilpaste made by pressing the berry-like fruits

c) a tincture made by soaking the leaves in alcohol

2. Ivy was traditionally hung over the entrance to the house at Christmas time because it was thought it would...

a) bring good luck in the coming year

b) frighten away goblins

c) protect from the plague

3. Something else you may have in the house this Christmas is Euphorbia pulcherrima. What is it?

a) mistletoe

b) holly

c) poinsettia

4. The most well-known Christmas tree in Britain is the one which goes up in Trafalgar Square in London each year. It´s a gift from the people of another European capital. Which one?

a) Oslo (Norway)

b) Stockholm (Sweden)

c) Helsinki (Finland)

5. How do you get your Christmas Cactus to bloom at Christmas?

a) Keep it in low humidity and stop watering around about the beginning of November.

b) Make sure it has 13 or more hours of continuous darkness per day starting around the beginning of October with temperatures between 50 and 55 degrees Fahrenheit.

c) Keep it on a windowsill and turn it three times a day to ensure it receives light on all sides.

6. Christmas pudding was traditionally called plum pudding. But why, when there are no plums in it?

a) In the 16th century plum was a generic term which referred to any type of dried fruit - including raisins, which are a basic ingredient of the dish.

b) In the 17th century, plum was used as an adjective meaning delicious.

c) In the 13th century it was actually called plumb pudding. Plumb comes from the Latin word for lead, and it was a reference to how your stomach felt after eating it...

To see how you did just scroll down. And if you weren´t around in 2007 or 2006 and want to check out the quizzes for those years too, just click on the links.

OK here are the answers : 1.a; 2.b; 3.c; 4.a; 5.b ; 6.a

What ? 6/6 ? You´re too good for me. I can see I´m going to have to make them more difficult next year.

But till then, have a lovely Christmas - and don´t bother looking for the plums in your plum pudding ...

Gardeners' Bloom Day : Antirrhinums

It's Gardeners' Bloom Day again, and what have I got on the balcony? Bloomin' antirrhinums. Well, what else were you expecting in December?

I've written before about how, though usually considered as annuals, antirrhinums are actually perennials and will put up with a lot. This plant is about four years old by now, and has been snowed on regularly. The microclimate on the balcony protects it from long periods below freezing, but they're tougher than the gardening books sometimes make out. They're usually classed as "half-hardy", but in my experience it's nearer three-quarters.

What I didn't mention before though was the fact not only will it survive the winter, but you'll also get flowers. It's a bit like with winter flowering pansies - although their "real" flowering period is the spring, they'll also put out a few blooms around Christmas. Well, mine do anyway. Last year I thought it was just a freak occurrence, but now it's happening again with the same plant. It's got four or five flower spikes in bud at the moment.

OK, it's nothing compared to May. But at this time of year I reckon you have to be grateful for what you can get. So thank you little plant, and may you bloom on happily all through the cold months to come.

Well, the north wind did blow, and then we had snow ..

And when the north wind blows, we know about it. It sweeps down from Siberia, picks up the cold air of the Alps and then blasts down on us, usually bringing snow.

So we woke up on Wednesday morning to this, the second time this year.

It didn't last long - by mid morning it had turned to rain, and then it just teemed down for the rest of the week. A nuisance, but we escaped the problems that other areas have had. In the mountains people have been blocked in ski resorts because roads have been closed for fear of avalanches. Just outside Rome, 75,000 acres of farmland has been flooded while in the city the Tiber was at record levels and very close to bursting its banks - click on the link for a photo.

It's not unknown for the Tiber to flood - one article I read estimates that it happens every 50-100 years. But it's ironic that it happened just as EU leaders were meeting in Brussels to discuss measures aimed at reducing climate change.

Was it a success? It depends who you read. Yes, in the sense that it retained the threatened 20/20/20 policy : countries still agree to a target of cutting CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020, to reaching 20% use of renewable energy, and to a 20% improvement in energy efficiency. No, because of the concessions made to some of the countries with the biggest pollution problems.

With the economic crisis biting hard, industry is clearly lobbying harder than ever to protect itself against any measures which are going to cost it money. Under the original plan, all power plants were going to have to start buying "carbon allowances" from 2013, thus encouraging energy saving and a turn to cleaner sources. But for many plants this has now been reduced to paying for only 30% of their allowances at the beginning, the 100% target not being reached until 2020.

This mostly affects the poorer countries from the ex-"eastern bloc", many of which are still heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Yet these are exactly the countries which are the worst polluters.

It wasn't only the poorer countries though. Germany pushed for and obtained concessions, while Italy was at one point threatening to use its veto and block the whole process, objecting to the idea that it should be "only" Europe which was acting, while new economies like China and India continued undermining any effects that the European initiatives might have. Yet if the EU can't even get its own countries to agree to change, it's not clear why they expect others should happily climb on board.

So we have the same targets as before - but much weaker mechanisms for achieving them. That seems like a contradiction in terms to me, rather than the great victory that the Italians were proclaiming. The only attempt I've found at explaining how it might still happen was the BBC's cheery little comment that "CO2 emissions are likely to fall anyway if a prolonged recession brings significant plant closures". Erm ...

At the same time as the EU summit, there was a two-week a UN conference in Poznan in Poland - ironically, one of Europe's worst polluters. At first it seemed more positive. Al Gore was confident that the Obama government will have a far more active policy on preventing climate change than did the Bush government. Well, it certainly won't be less active, but apparently he's not going to think about it until at least the summer. Now, this certainly isn't something to be decided overnight - it's too important. but if you've known for a while that you might end up as president of the US, isn't it something that's important enough that you would already have thought about it? Especially when you know your predeccessor has already been dragging his feet for so long. Gore also pointed to the fact that some of the developing countries - like Brazil, Mexica and China - were coming on board, with pledges on restraining the rise in greenhouse gas emissions already in place.

But what has come out of both meetings is that the developing countries need money - money which the richer nations could provide but are often reluctant to do so. Some progress has been made - for example, Britain is providing £100m to help countries such as Indonesia reduce deforestation (see this article in The Independent). In addition, some funds have been provided to compensate poorer countries which have recently suffered from extreme weather conditions, such as flooding, for the impacts of climate change. But it's not enough - currently no more than $80m. And anyway, it's a different issue. It doesn't solve the problem.

Poznan is the half way stage in a two year process which will end with a conference in Copenhagen next year, and which is intended to be the "next Kyoto". Whether Poznan has been a positive step in this direction depends, again, on who you read. Hopefully, by then the States, unlike in Kyoto, will "on board". But will they be any more willing to go against the business lobby than Europe has been? And without strong commitment from the US and the EU, will the developing countries be interested?

Meanwhile, back to the weather. We had a short truce this morning. The torrential rain finally stopped - thank goodness as my son had a football match (US readers read "soccer") and would have been soaked as well as freezing to death. One is enough. But the forecast is for more heavy rain and snow, starting in the north and spreading south. I think we might just be heading for a white Christmas ...