#grevilleas

[kndll-art]

Grevillea banksii

210 x 135 mm / watercolour

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and to send off 2024 i leave you with this fun fact about these plants

[nuytsia]

My front verge garden is 3 years old and starting to mature, these pink poker grevilleas are one of my favourites!

[making-lovefaces]

[ediblegardenspointloma]

In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

Salads like this one are thrown together with garden ingredients most every day during salad season. Currently, a 4x4 foot square of various kinds of lettuce makes for varied and colorful salads.

Here’s the last of an earlier sowing of ‘Sea of Red’ lettuce. Cold weather seems to deepen the red while the contrasting chartreuse remains at the base. It might be my favorite lettuce.

I sent assorted salad materials and several bags of lettuce with my son who craves them as I do.

Baby leaf rainbow chard grown as “cut and come again” adds color to salads and omelets.

The very tiny center of an undersized red cabbage caught my fancy in late afternoon light.

My sister was visiting from Oregon last week, where the garden is a distant memory. I searched and found some beets for dinner.

Sunday’s church bouquet continues the colors of the previous images. Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon’ blooms year-round here at the coast and is a manageable 5x5x2 foot shrub. ‘Moonlight’ grevillea is another worthy, though larger selection.

To see what other gardener bloggers are gathering in, head over to Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres. Happy to have Harvest Monday up and running for 2020. If you want to see what’s been happening in my winter garden see previous Monday posts.

[meklarian]

Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, Ft. Bragg, CA, 2016

[ediblegardenspointloma]

In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

It’s summer salad season and this one brought together lettuce, green beans, tomatoes and herbs from the garden. It’s one of my favorites—Poached Salmon Nicoise from Sunset Magazine. Dinners are determined by a trip to the garden most days.

I try new salads from recipes I’ve gathered in and the occasion for this one was the first cucumber. Garden parsley, red onion and lime juice with canned black beans was a quick fix on a warm day.

Since I only have room for three cucumber plants I always grow ‘Chelsea Prize’ from Renee’s Garden. The catalog describes them perfectly—12-15 inches, thin-skinned, bitter-free, crispy, sweet flesh and few seeds. “The handsome glossy fruits are produced in abundance from every node of the vigorous, self-pollinating vines.” I keep neighbors and family in cukes every summer.

Here’s a sampling of some of the tomatoes harvested this week.

With zucchini coming on strong and lots of tomatoes I had plates of veggies to share with neighbors and friends. I’m also caring for a neighbor’s very productive garden for three weeks and distributing her harvests.

And great tomatoes mean great sandwiches for lunch.

‘Cimarron’ romaine lettuce is my new favorite summer lettuce—slow to bolt and large, colorful leaves. This harvest came from an 8-inch container kept in dappled sun.

‘Robyn Gordon’ grevilleas, Australian in origin seem to like our Mediterranean climate, producing gorgeous blooms most of the year.

See what other garden bloggers harvested from their gardens last week at Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

[ediblegardenspointloma]

In My San Diego Garden & Kitchen 1-14-19

Snow pea blossom Source: Susan Bell from my garden

The lovely snow pea blossoms have produced the first peas; only a handful but a welcome addition to last night’s salad. I began growing ‘Golden Sweet’ snow pea over 20 years ago and have saved the seed each year. The seed is very well-adapted to my coastal San Diego garden. Recently, I shared seed with San Diego Seed Company for trials in their garden.

You can order ‘Golden Sweet’ snow peas from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Use the search option to see other posts featuring the snow peas growing in my garden.

Broccoli season has begun and six of the twelve plants are nearing harvest. ‘Premium Crop’ is my favorite and most reliable variety. The heads are very large, side shoots are abundant and the stalks tender. I traded one head for some neighborly assistance in moving a seven foot tree trunk from our backyard to the driveway. We all thought it a good trade.

During harvests of strawberry guavas in 2018 I did not always have time to process the puree into jam. It freezes well and last week I made three batches of the jam. I have enough puree for another twenty jars or so. Each year I like to have about a hundred jars of guava jam and orange marmalade on hand to give away to neighbors, friends, family and others who come my way. 

I snatched a few off-season strawberry guavas from the tree this week. I like them best warmed by the sun and popped straight into my mouth.

Tangerines, limes, kumquats and an orange

A citrus sampler shows what we continued to harvest this past week. Lots of orange juice, tangerines at lunch and soon there will be kumquat marmalade.

Various lettuces and arugula for a dinner salad. And the winter greens continue.

Grevilleas, paperwhites and nutmeg geraniums for a winter bouquet

See what other garden bloggers are harvesting by heading over to Harvest Monday,  hosted this month by Michelle at From Seed to Table.

[nuytsia]

Loopy Lou