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Post by blueadzuki on Mar 31, 2011 19:45:22 GMT -5
Tecnically there are at least six kinds of "ginger" and thats only counting the commoner ones there's Ginger, white ginger (technically this is the same thing as ginger, just younger but as it tastes totally different and is sold as it's own product I'll count it as two) galangal, lesser galangal, finger galangal, and myoga (flowering ginger, aka ginger shoot)
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Post by atash on Apr 1, 2011 2:29:27 GMT -5
Blueadzuki, do you think the prospects would be good for crossing Chinese Ginger (Zingiber officionalis) to Japanese Ginger aka Myoga? (Z. myoga)?
Myoga is almost weedy it is so vigorous. Significantly coldhardier than Chinese Ginger too.
I would like something as tough, vigorous, and coldhardy as Myoga, with a harvestable rhizome tasting like Chinese Ginger.
We use huge amounts of Ginger at our house, but it would be a challenge to grow, especially in enough quantity to be worthwhile. Myoga on the other hand stupidly easy to grow.
One challenge would be to get the Chinese Ginger to bloom. Might be possible though with de-virused specimens that I think are obtainable.
Might take some back-crosses, too, to get both fat aromatic rhizomes AND hardiness and vigor.
I wonder if there are any other Zingibers that grow relatively cool like Myoga does.
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Post by atash on Apr 1, 2011 3:00:39 GMT -5
Synergy, I have put considerable thought into which culinary herbs are actually useful. Many that are suggested in modern herb books are poor choices. Some are not really culinary at all, and a few are poisonous!!
The problem is that many modern herb books simply copied information out of old herbals without considering context. In the old days, distinctions between "food" and "medicine" were vague--which is not necessarily a bad thing, for those who understand the context.
Anyway, here are some off the top of my head, that I think are very useful:
Lovage is the traditional herbal broth plant. Tastes like celery but stronger. Use it to make vegetable broth, and also to make a home-made "bouillon" without the nasty MSG, but just a little sea-salt instead. Lovage is EASIER to grow than celery, and it is perennial. Use fresh or dried. If you like Lovage broth you'll want plenty.
Agastache foeniculum is probably the most valuable plant for tisanes ("herbal teas") that I have come across. Smells somewhere between mint and fennel, with overtones of both (ideally--it does vary a bit in smell--look for a good one). Your climate more promising than mine--it rots in my wet winters. Quite coldhardy though as long as winters are dryish. Makes a very pleasant tisane.
Monarda dydima is another one. Be aware M. dydima likes damp soil. Streamside plant. Mix it half-and-half with real tea to make Earl Grey tea (the original was made from Beramot Oranges, but nowadays they spike it with Monarda oil, which is a lot cheaper). People either love it or hate it btw.
Angelica archangelica and/or Myrrhis odorata valuable for adding to tart fruit dishes to cut sugar use. They are both naturally sweet. Angelica used to be used in "fruit cakes", along with raisins and other dried fruits, before people started using candied unripe fruit and fruit-peels (dyed lurid colors no less...). Angelica is a gigantic extremely coldhardy biennial; Myrrhis is a fairly coldhardy perennial. Both quite attractive foliage plants.
One single Fennel Plant is all you need. Fennel seed useful in breads, pastries, and oddly enough tomato sauce. Leaves especially young ones can be used too, or the "bulbs" of the Azores Islands type (I have no idea how hardy that one is), in which case you'd want several and then it's actually a vegetable and a spice not really much of an herb. Here is something I use it for: make Swedish style rolls, brush with some egg and/or milk about 5 minutes before they are quite browned, then sprinkle with lots of fennel seed and a small amount of pearl sugar, INSTEAD OF frosting them. The pearl sugar and fennel seed makes them mildly and pleasantly sweet, nice for a snack when you don't want lots of sugar.
Your climate might be a tad cold for Rosemary. Too bad that is a useful one. Some of the coldhardiest varieties might make it--I dunno, a bit risky. Some varieties of Rosemary hardier than average due to having been selected from survivors of hard winters.
Culinary thymes very useful. I am particularly fond of "Orange Balsam". Add culinary thymes to mixes of herbs for everyday seasoning of vegetable or meat dishes.
It's impossible for me to ever have enough Dill. I like both "weed" and seed. I add them to a lot of different dishes, salads, sauces...
I'll think of others by-and-by. Unfortunately your climate too cold for 2 of my favorites: Pineapple Sage (Salvia elegans) and Lemon Verbena.
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Post by steev on Apr 1, 2011 11:45:12 GMT -5
Fennel seed in tomato sauce is no surprise; it's basic in sweet Italian sausage; yum.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 1, 2011 20:02:15 GMT -5
Fennel seed in tomato sauce is no surprise; it's basic in sweet Italian sausage; yum. That reminds me of a funny story. Back when I was in college. I saw a curios site, numerous fennel plants growning out of the cracks in a very urban part of town, far, far from any garden. I wondered how they had got there, till I turned and saw the building they were growing next to......a pizza parlor! Evidently they had throw out some raw sausage, or less likely someone had dropped a slice (this would be more likely as and act, but since any sausage on an actual pizza slice would have gone through the oven it would be less likey it would have survived) and it had become a little seed pellet. It also spoke well for the Parlor in that they were using fresh slice sausage as opposed to most of thr places in the area that tended to use those little sausage pellets (aka "rabbit doots")
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Post by synergy on Apr 1, 2011 20:17:07 GMT -5
Hmm, is my climate that much colder than yours? We are in Langley BC , just 5 minutes off the ocean so about 3 hours north . I nursed along a rosemary for 14 years , it was about 4 feet wide and 3 feet high and I had unlimited harvest until a few winters back that killed it : (
I enjoyed that story Blueadzuki, one seed is all it takes and that fennel is tenacious reseeding alright. I have lots of fennel and I eat the seeds like candy just as seeds. I am with you Atash on the dill too, love it but have yet to be good at growing it , any tips ? Thank you so much on the other ideas as I don't even know what some of them are , but worth finding out.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 2, 2011 6:24:35 GMT -5
I enjoyed that story Blueadzuki, one seed is all it takes and that fennel is tenacious reseeding alright. I have lots of fennel and I eat the seeds like candy just as seeds. . Fennel can stand up to anything.................except swallowtail caterpillars.
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Post by steev on Apr 2, 2011 10:36:36 GMT -5
Fennel and swallowtails, no loss to either, net gain for us. Kids love that when disturbed, the caterpillers turn toward the annoyance and evert their odorous structures: Stinkhorns!
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 2, 2011 13:11:10 GMT -5
Fennel and swallowtails, no loss to either, net gain for us. Kids love that when disturbed, the caterpillers turn toward the annoyance and evert their odorous structures: Stinkhorns! The official word for those horns is "osmeterium". And I agree the Swallowtails are well worth the fennel they eat, so long as you don't have too many and you start running out of fennel, and carrots, and parsley, and anise and......(they'll basically eat any carrot family member (except cilantro and they really don't love lovage) we used to have a lot of them when I was a kid, until I was about twelve, I actually believed that those were monarch caterpillars (when theyre one molt away from maturity and have gone black white and yellow they do look vaugely similar to a kid who doesnt know enough to look for the antennae. and then the crysilides and the giant black butterflies (or yellow ones if you are on the west coast). Though of course the young kids responded even better the one and only time I found and raised a spicebrush swallowtail caterpillar (who doesn't love something that looks like a cartoon snake?)
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Post by atash on Apr 3, 2011 22:45:29 GMT -5
Synergy, how much rainfall do you get?
As for hardy Rosemaries, try either Arp or 'Madelene Hill" aka "Hill Hardy". Arp is a cultivar that survived a hard winter in Arp, Texas, that killed off other varieties. I dunno the story behind Madelene Hill. Stay away from prostate types; I think living too close to the ground makes them rot in cold wet winters.
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Post by synergy on Apr 4, 2011 0:42:56 GMT -5
Climate Situated in a coastal temperate rainforest zone, Langley enjoys a mild climate similar to Vancouver's. Favourable microclimates enable the growing of grapes at local wineries. Summer daytime temperatures sit at about 20°C/70°F, and winter temperatures average closer to 2°C/35.6°F. There are close to 200 frost-free days each year. Langley gets about 1,800 hours of sunshine annually, and the average annual rainfall is 140cm/55in. We are 5 minutes off the ocean and right on the US border , honestly I think in an average year we get way more frost free days than the above reports but maybe this is mild year. We also seem to get a lot more rain than the above and we are located on a hilltop with a southern exposure by a commercial vineyard with clay soils I ammend as i can with rotted horse manure. When my rosemary dies it is from freezing so maybe I will need a greenhouse to grow it through the worst of winter? I dearly do love rosemary ...
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Post by grunt on Apr 4, 2011 1:28:58 GMT -5
try banking mulch of some type over things you want to overwinter. I found some Green Gazed Collards yesterday that are going into their third year now. They had a little mulch accidentally piled on a couple of the branches after I collected seed last fall (their second year), and they are already trying to put out new growth. Perennial Colards = who knew?
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Post by happyskunk on Apr 4, 2011 2:06:31 GMT -5
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Post by ottawagardener on Apr 4, 2011 6:59:42 GMT -5
They grow rosemary in hedges around Madrid, Spain and I grew it in Nottingham, UK all winter: both places had frost, even hard frost. Along with maybe finding a hardier variety, I wonder if they are in a frost pocket or heavy soil? I bring my rosemary in all winter with success. Beyond the fact that it would die outside here, it also means that it is available to eat all winter as most of my herbs are under many feet of snow.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 4, 2011 11:41:49 GMT -5
Rosemary grows wild in Mallorca. A long leaf variety. Speaking of which, one of my plants, growing where it is shaded in the morning and full sun in the afternoon, is LOADED with blossoms!
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