Northern Gardening; Rosalind Creasy

Welcome to a beautiful Friday morning here on the northern gardening program. If you're listening on Friday you can give us a call 3 8 7 10 7 D or 1 800 4 7 3 9 8 4 7 with your gardening question listening on Thursday you're still welcome to call in but this will be a rebroadcast of the program that was aired on Friday. So bored in northern gardening comes from books hardware offering a full selection of gardening supplies organic options and whether hardy annuals and perennials and support also comes from Edwin A Thorson incorporated contractors working to fill landscaping needs in the northland celebrating 60 years of serving Cook County 3 8 7 1 6 4. For well I'm quite pleased today to be able to introduce Rosalind Creasy she is a garden and food writer photographer landscape designer with a passion for beautiful vegetables and ecologically sensitive gardening and she's in 1902 she published her first book The Complete Book of edible landscaping which won several awards and she's published many books since then. And her

latest project actually is updating the complete book of Edible Landscaping and Rosalind thank you so very much for joining us by phone from Los Altos California. Thank you. Wonderful to be here and voice for our listeners who have complained about getting up at 7. Rosalyn had to be up at 5 to do this interview so special kudos for doing this. So Rosalind talk about edible landscaping I've had a lot of. People ask me So what does that necessarily mean. What prompted you to do that first project. All right. Well I think probably my father planted the seed as we should say because I grew up in Boston in the Boston area. And so basically he gave me my own vegetable garden when I was five. And I do think that that is a wonderful thing to do with children. And he was particularly good at it because we didn't have any rules like that. There were rules for a lot of things in life but not for my garden. So he would give me extra

strawberry plants or tomato plants an extra being seeds and so forth but what he didn't say was more important than what he did say. You didn't say you can't move them around for some reason I thought it was like my dollhouse. So I would replant. I was going to be a landscape designer much. But there is nothing I don't ever remember harvesting a thing but I remember having a wonderful time out in the garden making mud pies and moving things around. His company just a few feet away. You know it's a very fond memory but I think all this. Not until many years later we moved to California and I became very interested in environmental issues. This was in the 70s and my eye was very fortuitous. My husband oversaw a project for the IBM Corporation all over the world and so I was able to go along. And one of these days we were going out

to a kibbutz in Israel California. We have gorgeous grasslands absolutely fabulous soil as you probably know. And I was trying to save some of that soil in the Santa Clara Valley which is now called the Silicon Valley. And as an environmentalist we could just see this 20 foot thick soil in the great growing climate risk being covered by asphalt. So for all I was concerned we got our way out to the car but the guy stopped in the middle of a desert with even a camel with the fam do and he said we used to have land similar to California. Beautiful soil grasslands the hills were covered with trees. But we over logged it and we over farmed it. We overgrazed that and now all we have left is the desert. I got out to the Kimball and they were making soil and they said it took five to seven years to make one acre of soil from using the refuse from the

city. And that just made a huge impression on me and I had considered studying landscape design and at the time I thought oh there's the after we can start putting edible plants into people's yards. We don't have the soil. How logical and I got back to one of the first people I talked to in the landscaping department and I said you know I have this wonderful idea and I said you can't do that it's a siddur tacky bestseller. Oh gardening because I guess my husband read test of the fact that I'm a stubborn person and I thought OK I'll show you. So that's what I've been doing ever them. Well it is interesting that people just assume you're talking about. Lettuce and tomatoes which I think are beautiful plants yes they are but I'm not. Now I'm talking about looking at your yard. Saying Oh I think I'd like a small tree there. And instead of putting in a standard but still in the blanks you go to the nursery and so forth.

Lots of them a flowering crab or all that sort of thing. Why wouldn't you put an irregular apple tree. Yeah and think about that why have we been doing. And then I put in first if it were for well why wouldn't you put in a blueberry. Yeah actually much prettier all through the year. Gorgeous red foliage. So far you know. Now say well why don't we do that. Well the reason we don't do that is just plain tradition. It's just like why do we wear the clothes we wear now. So for this just fashion it's a tradition and it started and Europe and 17:00 the very point of a landscape done for royalty to show that you have so much money you didn't have to grow your own fruit. So yes Jews aren't around and the only people who put in landscape were landscape architects working for royalty and very very wealthy people. And that was the point. So that you could

bring people out the guard and say you know instead of look at my wonderful depression of yours and think Oh just see I don't have any tomatoes but I've made it. You have to go buy them from the store and do you don't know who grew them correct or where it came from or what's on it. Yeah right. Interesting. Well have you got a list per se of potential zone 3 and 4 because I suspect that you can grow in Los Altos California different than what we can go here maybe not. What is your zone there. I'm I'm still not on how lucky you. Yes well now I don't have it's own envy. It's OK there are lots of things I can't grow. Yeah you know that you can grow I grew up with beautiful lilac hedge. You think I can grow one lilac. Yeah because people and in cold climates they have their own Embrey about the warmth of people in warm climates have their own angry about the cold but you know there are lots of things. Must have cold lily of the valley of the child. Remember

rhubarb doesn't grow worth a darn because it's not cold enough. So I can't grow cranberries Lingonberries current. Yeah. But also I think. Why don't I why don't I go through a quick list and I know it's early in the morning for people and so forth but you know it may just trigger something in your head and say oh I didn't know I could grow that or that that that idea. And I'm going to go through it out of the medically have that that's a good idea. Of course Apple in don't for I think there are a few varieties that will grow in three. And and I do want to mention before we get done with the hour about Santorum's nursery and Fred code a few others have so many of these trees and wonderful plants for Zone 3 and 4. So when you talk about that later but anyway so we start with Apple asparagus makes a beautiful head. It backs up a flower garden and looks like this beautiful light fern. They actually you can

buy asparagus fern in the florist shop. So it just gives that film a background and for instance you might have a compost pile and want to hide it that would hide it beautifully. And one of the things we also need to talk about is that people have never had asparagus from a home garden and they've only had it from the store they don't realize that for the first 24 hours it's very sweet. And a lot of the thing that most people have never tasted because they've only bought them they don't realize that you're getting short changed with a lot of the flavor. And just like corn just like corn. Exactly. Just like tomato you think about it all these thing. Yeah. All right how about blueberries that a beautiful hedge or the low ones that you can have as a ground cover put steppingstone through it. Put a bird bath in the middle take out some of that lawn that's not giving you anything back but just taking your time and money. You don't think I have a prejudice now.

No. If you're an empire medalist in your lives on California lawn is one of the enemies that like a gas guzzler in the driveway. Yeah you have to water it fertilizer to live it and I'm literally him based on the pesticides the nervous. Yeah it is and I'm sorry go ahead. No I was going to keep going through the list for him. Well I wanted to mention about the blueberries some of the advantages of the foliage color in particular in the fall. Gorgeous. And there are a number of varieties with red stems so all winter long they look in the snow. Yeah that was in the US. But the thing is if you look through magazines or books and you think that edible plants don't even exist unless you buy a book on fruit or a book on vegetables and I have told people I am not going to rest until the burpee catalog has a vegetable in the front.

So what's more important your fruit and your taste and your nutrition. You know or just decorating a little bit with some flowers. Darn it. You go to the nursery where the fruit tree and I'm right in the back. It's it's psychological. And so most of the magazines that have to do with ornamental gardening don't have anything to do with edible because it's a blue collar white collar. Thank goodness none so you have the Aggie school and they grow those vegetables fruit and then we have the architectural school the landscape architect. They don't even worry about plants that you know that and most architectural landscape architecture programs they don't learn one plant material. Oh dear are you kidding. No that that they do happen. Well that's what we ask. They just plonk them in a walk away. Perhaps they do but they know an awful lot about the hard scaping and the drainage and the legal are parts of it and so forth but they don't know why the pot plant the hostility

and the raspberry. Don't friend for the end zone for you can grow the economy the low growing Kalam ale that the wonderful groundcover again Katrine stepping down. Try cranberries lingonberry current gooseberry elderberry great big headed of elderberry that of all your black filberts growing zone four but not three hops grow everywhere and people think well hop them carrying like beer. The shoots of hops are a national dish in Belgium and they eat them like that asparagus and a gorgeous vine. Yeah I have to be careful where you put it sometimes because it can get rampant. Yeah yeah I've seen what the Latin name is humility rapaciously ha ha ha.

But he worries that the Arctic beauties that have a variegated Lee and Hardy QE don't for war on men known for parsley growth just about everywhere. The lovely edger and probably one of the most nutritious things you've been growing your garden quinces group are a time walnut and wheat and I say wheat and people go weak and I grow about 100 square feet of wheat most years so that the neighborhood children could come over and harvest it on the Fourth of July. Fine we put it on the driveway on top of the sheet. All the little heads they take their kitchen scissors and cut the heads off and dump it on the driveway we do the tennis shoe twist it so they can move the grains from the sap. We put it in a wheelbarrow we put the leaf blower on reverse to get all the chaff out of there we take it in the house and grind it up in my grain grinder we make bread and we bring it to the block party and we all break bread together.

Yeah that's a beautiful plant the beautiful plant that tracks beneficial insects. I'm sure you can grow it very well up. Yeah yeah all right. So I've overwhelmed you are now what. Well you think about it I mean you give some hints as far as how to design like using the asparagus as a hedge but but how do you hope people think about it differently. That's the single hardest thing to do. But I think it's finally happening. I've been doing this for 25 years. At the beginning I was considered to be the crazy lady from California you know the one that wants to put edibles everywhere and you know a whole bunch of people bought my book because it made sense. They were you know really grounded and they didn't have to be in. And that was very good and it went on and on and then the environmental issues started creeping up again in the last four or five years. People are worried about global warming but they're

also looking at their pocketbooks and by and large what am I paying for fruit here when I could be growing some of it. My phone's been ringing off the hook for you know what you folks call me How did you find it. For the last year because now people say oh good lord this makes so much them. So I think some of this is being done for me I don't even have to camp incher when you go to the grocery store you're kind of thinking about it. Well it is interesting your emphasis on growing something that's exotic or the temptation still is with the fruit to look for something that's a little out of the ordinary so that you can say oh I have this particular plant in my yard. That's correct. And it would be nice if you saw things you can eat it. OK. Well that phenomenon came from the late 18th Condor that's very Elizabethan when people started bringing in things from all over the world. That too is a status symbol. Just that this came from China. The fact that we don't know how to grow it we're going to

kill it. We have a client doing that so we have brought in the terrible bugs that we don't know about that. So the big issue is to grow something nobody else have that has been a large part of what how gardening has been presented to this country for the last hundred years. And we don't step back and say why do we think what we think we're all the same you know and we think other people think the same way. But throughout history and for thousands and thousands of years everybody just grew their own food. We wouldn't be there. That's a good point. Well I also wonder to whether it's the maintenance piece of it is what gets kind of triggers most people that maybe they're not you know avid gardeners or really don't even consider themselves gardeners at all but they still want to have landscape plants around their home so they don't even consider putting in something edible maybe because they regard that as taking more work

and you know I just love it when they say it work. People will stop me and that is so much work and I they were do you play tennis. Yes. Isn't that a lot of work. You know you're running across the field back in Fort Bragg I mean across not that hot concrete hard on your feet and everything why would you do that you know my daughter and I have a horse that a lot of work. You know I think that's been that's been the bad rap. Again you know edibles we're just been beat up for years. You know sure there are animals that take a lot of work. Particular if you're trying to stretch but you know the week you put it in you know we did it for the first couple of weeks because I'm going to have to compete with some waves and then it just takes care of itself until you go and harvest it. But people do. And even think about it with a lawn. How many people who are listening now go on Saturday I've got to go out there and do the lawn I let it go too wrong or the boy next

door. He's taking off for college and I gotta find someone else to or I gotta pay that you know the landscapers this weekend and now he's moving on whatever so you know the lawn takes a lot of work it takes more work than anything else on the landscape. But people it comes with the territory so you don't even think about it. Also if you put in a hedge a lot of you know a non-edible hedge you still have to trim it you stuff to do things with it. Yeah so I guess it's a mind shift of thinking well it's just you still have to do things with it maybe they're different things. They are different things and anything you don't know how to do seems to be more imposing than something that you just routinely do I know I'll pick the heads clear person and go out and do that or I won't have a hedge fund you know a lot of things that are worth doing. Take a little effort and you know rhubarb you can plant it next to the garage and go out and. Chop it

down with your lawn bar want the air if you want to the darn thing will keep coming back anyway. But you can also go out and harvest it and you don't have to get in the car. Spend your ghastly go down and have it sit in the refrigerator for seven days because you haven't gotten around to it and then maybe even have end up having to put it in the compost pile because of it went over the edge. If it's growing in the garden you have a window of you know a month or six weeks and maybe in that period of time you can go out with a knife and maybe bring your you know 7 year old out and say hey let's harvest some rhubarb and a cup of tea on the side and have a good time. So you know it's it's a perception. What about space. Folks say oh my art is way too small. What's your response to that. What my response my response to them lately is to grow a trial bed of 100 square feet at 20 feet long and five feet wide. And there aren't going to be people who have a yard who don't have that much area

but it has a grandson and I have very good soil I've been working on it for 20 years. So in a lot of the compost. But I just as we were talking I got out my trial. I have all these Excel sheets of my gardeners and I have been putting in you know tissue and she said she is the gardener. I do I travel and I change my garden. About twice a year in the last 25 years I've had nearly 50 gardens so you still have the tendency to move things around. I still have a terrible time for the things there. But anyway so because I change things all the time and if you don't live in an arid climate you don't think about it but I have to change the drip irrigation every year twice a year. Oh better that's a major. Now they have to work right anyway so I have help. I don't do it all by myself though for years like.

But as I get my notebook out here and I look zucchini the producer of all time since May 29 I have gotten fifty two pounds of Teenie out of two plant. Wow. And that if I go down to the store on sale organic because I grow everything organic organic zucchini is a dollar twenty nine a pound. So I am 70 pounds to the good hair more or less. Yeah and it's still progress. And you can say well who won £50 But the fact of the matter is I do give a lot of it away. But you know I ALSO TRADE. I have I have neighbors with the first of the pairs the Bartlett pair. So we traded for that. I put bikini bread away. I make pickle so forth. But anyway so that's the teeny I've gotten I figure I get about nine

pounds of tomatoes a week. My better boy and I just started getting so I will get those for two months. Let's see what our tomato is now in the store organic. Lard scored just fine ripened tomatoes have been locked in thinking in the garden but I bet there's two fifty three dollars a pound. There are a lot so you know I can count the week that $30 for the tomatoes for one plant goes to 99. Anyway so in this trial but I have six bell peppers and I haven't got many bright ones yet I grow them for the right plants because they're the most expensive and I like them that and I have some bays looking you know folks grow basal formula some years it works better than others. This year has been kind of a washout because it's been cold and wet and I'm going to like that you know if you've got a new policy or something like that protecting it then it was ok then. So at this point I've been making pesto and I put that in the freezer and I put it in ice

cube tray. Yeah that's a great trick. Yeah and then you make soup in the summertime and you just pop in an ice cube at the end of flavor by sort of that yeah. And it just comes alive and bring your summer back anyway. So saving money knowing where the chemicals you know what chemicals are in your food. Maybe it doesn't have famine all of that came in from another country. Yeah it's nice to know you can safely eat your tomatoes or the lettuce or spinach right. We are having a lot of scares about it. Yeah you started touching on you know as far as extending that that produce by popping it in the freezer I've found a wonderful thing with a zucchini in the past I've frozen it by just grading it and putting it in the freezer and using it in soup or stew or something good. Oh it gets pretty gross. That's why you put it in those other things that maybe stew that I hadn't.

But for the fun of it I just tried cubing it up into chunks you know corduroy lengthwise and just you know pretty good size one by one chunks. Very lightly steamed it and popped it in freezer bags and it was fantastic all winter long. No I was a maid throwin with broccoli and peas and whatever else and it you don't cook it very long maybe two minutes and it was just almost almost as good as if I just picked it out of the garden. I was asked you know I was afraid is going to turn to mush and I thought well that's wrong it's a good experiment to give it a try in the big key was to just steam it lightly and and have big chunks made my day. Lotsa zucchini. Don't kill me. Yes I drew that I know what I can do with it cause I'm getting a little sick of it. Yeah that's kind of the thing at the end of the year you start getting sick of these vegetables but I used to think about it. Lead on you through the winter. Well I never get sick of the tomatoes you know. No those aren't always you know never I don't get ever get sick of blueberries. Yeah and our blueberries appear are just ripening and so they're pretty

amazing as well. So I remember my grandmother taking me picking wild blueberries I'm as good as some of the domesticated berries that we grow Are they don't and I'm sorry they don't come or they don't care now. And the commercial ones are even worse. I call them berries stuffed with cotton batting caps down them very good and they're all different varieties them and extend the season and have blueberries you know over a six week two month period and of course they freeze beautifully. Yeah yeah. I sure do. I put them on a cookie tray and just lay them out there heart of Little Bieb you put them in the freezer bags. I am flat one on top of the other. Yeah I do that with raspberry. Yeah right. You can derive vary from in all different colors. Have them for months. Correct.

Oh yeah although some of the colors don't do as well here the things that they say are zoned for touch and go sometimes in our zone fours. Pretty close to Lake Superior and then the farther you get from the lake the more likely you're going to have some pretty chilly nights and actually it's the spring and fall where we get hard frost late hard frosts or early hard frosts and that's kind of what does I'm in I think. OK and those are probably the yellow one bright yellow ones even the black some of the blackberries are at least black raspberries I think would be more appropriate Blackberries or 5. So yeah right. So when you're living in zone four you know exactly where it can grow there do you know. I've got lavender that I've arrived. You know I just cover it well and you know like everybody else I push through zones. We do true part of gardening. That's right. Absolutely. Don't tell me. Exactly. We're speaking with Rosalind today she's calling us

we've called her from Los Altos California. We're talking about edible landscaping and to take a quick musical break we'll be back in just a moment. Listening to northern North Shore radio supporting northern gardening comes from superior

lumber and sports a full sized lumber and hardware store located one mile east of Grand. Lumber and sports is locally owned and offers a wide range of garden supplies patio furniture and outdoor cooking. More information available at 3 8 7 1 7 7 1 in support also comes from Evergreen originals green house located at. 16 Portland grand Marie evergreen originals greenhouse specializes in and for a northern climate also offering veggies herbs a wide selection of hanging baskets tubs and planters information available in person 3 8 7 2 8 6 2. And joining us on the phone is Rosalind Creasy. She's from Los Altos California but she is familiar with what we can grow up here in our zone 4. And she's most noted for her book that she wrote almost 20 years ago the complete book of edible landscaping which is in the process of revision at the moment she's written several other many other books. We've seen her on TV and lots of newspaper and magazine articles and we're just delighted to have her on the phone with us today.

As we're talking about growing various different food what. What other things can you do with it and what kind of talking about nontraditional things to grow what nontraditional things can we do with the food. My goodness like apples for instance apples for them. Well people think of just eating apples. I think it's been years for me to just figure out that I and our whole culture have been limited by what we see in the grocery store and it's such a visual feast when you walk into the grocery store all the colors you know they bring in aren't just from exotic lands and all sorts of different red bell peppers that are grown in greenhouses someplace in Holland and so far so we think we are just these things. Well of course certainly compared to our ancestors who ate an awful lot of the same food day after day we are. But there are literally thousands and thousands of Friday's approachable fruits that you

have never ever seen that are available. Fortunately the Seed Savers Exchange you have your goods if they realized that. I'm now on the board. I just came back from a board meeting and they are thrilled because so many people are getting interested in edible plants again and a lot of the old heirloom tomatoes their fruits are becoming you know more known so. Anyway there are a lot of them up of these old heirloom. Unusual things we can grow so if we have apples for instance I have apples growing in my yard that have our red inside. I've never seen an apple this thread and I've heard about that. Yeah they're gorgeous and they make pink Apple lovely and they make an apple tart. You make a French charge and you lay out these apple slices and they're red on the top. Or you can bake them and they they stay pink. They read and it's gorgeous and then you probable current jelly on and make it look like stained glass and

people go wow. But it's also this country we've to all make our own apple juice inciter. And out you know the health department has said well we can't sell lighter unless it's been passed and you know that's good because a few people got sick. But the fact of the matter is our ancestors never had a pasteurized and it has a lot more flavor you don't pasteurized it and if you bring it on and make your own it's great for a day or two. Yeah that's a wonderful thing to do with it or you can make cards lighter that doesn't need to be prized for huh. No pair. B please make pear juice. The day also there are going to back up on apples so you can grow all these different kinds of cider apples that are have been completely out of favor because they aren't but tasty they can be a little sour they could be a little hard in texture before they just happen to make

fabulous lighter and that's what our ancestors used Johnny Appleseed didn't go around spreading Fuji apples red delicious apple. Thank goodness thank goodness for what he did was to just plant seeds and they got all different kinds of Apple. But he knew that the majority of people who were going to come back and use those apples were going to make cider. So you wanted a range of flavors on your side or we have very flat modern lighter. It's just black. If you start getting into some of these old ways of cooking and the slow food movement is taking you know I'm sure you've probably heard of that and we're now looking back and going my goodness we have been cutting our flavor but off at the MEs you know has that mixed metaphor. Anyway so what we need to do is come back and get all these labor dimensions back in our food and it's just like we were were talking about you know

growing your asparagus and then you eat it and all of those sugars that are in it when you just harvest that or the blueberries that now have very little flavor. Well we've been robbed of flavor all for convenience so we can have things out of season so we can have it brought in cheaply. But a lot of what's dropped by the wayside are the flavors and the complexity of flavor and the range of flavors. It's all been squashed down to this you know really kind of it's sweet and we recognize that it's pretty good. The beautiful apple so forth but all the different flavors of Apple. Look at it. Just like we have now heirloom tomatoes most everybody around the country heard of heirloom tomatoes and fortunately tomatoes are so in the American consciousness and we grew up with them that we knew something was missing out tomato. And if you had a modern peach you know something's missing there. If you had peaches 25 years ago so we need to go back now it's more about the

quality of flavor and what goes with it. And people don't like that. Mostly by or aware of it is that these old fashioned varieties of thing and the fresh from the garden have a lot more nutrients. So we run around and we eat the same you know five vegetables and fruit the day of a very good that we just recommended but they're now saying with the modern variety that a lot of these things and the fact they've been in storage sometimes for four five six months where now you have to eat seven goodness yeah you're going to be eating fruits and vegetables all day long to make up. Because now they have packed a lot of cellulose which doesn't have much nutrition into your apple. Not typically Apple they have a lot of anyway but you know into your tomato so you can ship that tomato and bounce it on the conveyor belt and bounce it in the truck for 3000 miles you had to put cellular. Then it wouldn't squish your take your homegrown tomato in your bring and put it in the truck.

Put another one on top of it what happens to you know it all that split. Yeah. So we can go back and rock what people ate. We can look around the world now. When I lecture I love to bring precut peppers. I grind them up and I pass around a little jar that I'm just ground up and I can watch that jar go for 500 people around the room and I can see exactly where it is because people can't help themselves. They either their eyes pop up and they have to say something to the neighbor or they have to say something you know are like wow look at this. You know because I'm I'm sending around something with intense aroma and flavor. And that's what it's supposed to be. And then I direct them and I think that would you please go home and throw that Brown can of brown dust away. That's not pretty.

My kids taking the spices to me at night because I could identify them with my eyes closed and smell them when they bring me one that didn't have any sense whatsoever I knew. Well shame I mean I don't know. I am betting I will. But now next year and you can order prick a pepper plants online from chili plant dot com and they have seven different kinds of Brega for pre-K is a generic name that means pepper in Hungary and they have all different kinds. Some are spicy some are sweet some are very complex Some are a little high note as they would say in the food tasting world in their low note. And if you lived in Hungary 25 years ago you would know what dishes you're going to use them with but we have to kind of experiment. But anyway so I pass this around MP. And it just amazed how they can easily grow or break up at birth if you can grow a regular pepper. And you just

cut them up. They have them also they dry well if you're in a humid area you'd get a dehydrator and I gave it away as a Christmas present and people were just amazed along with a recipe for proper tosh which is sauteed chicken that you then put sour cream over and paprika onions and mushrooms and then people say oh now I know why proper caution has prink and it flavors the whole dish will not your preparing for the weekend it's going to ruin it so you know kind of buddy. But anyway so there's blue potatoes. I used to pass around blue potatoes 20 years ago I had people coming up to me later and saying why didn't you do the trick die on your potato like you know. That's where I will make lavender vitiates a lot of kind of lavender color are going to absolutely gorgeous and then people go wow

that they know they recognise the flavor but they don't know what it is. I make white tomato sauce put it over green coffee you know and it's clear you can just play with it. Yeah. Anyway it's wonderful to get out of the box because the grocery store is the box. We don't know that the box and it doesn't have to be on it's changing the farmers markets are changing things. I experimented this year by putting some fava beans in and I'd put some in probably 15 years ago or so and and made the mistake of waiting until they were far too large and by the time I cut them up as shelled beans that reminded me too much a lot of beans which I don't care for. Yeah but this year I came across a recipe where it was using the young beans and you steam them first and then toss them into a stir fry. And as a whole being just like you would like a regular green bean and I also grew for the first time some margarine and the combination between the two was so phenomenal I couldn't pull.

It is just exquisite. And those two flavors together. It was a whole brand new flavor thing that's going to be in my garden all the time all the time. Just incredible. Yeah beings are not people of Mediterranean descent evidently can possibly be allergic to them. Men male meals. Oh I don't know. We females don't have to worry about that. Yes all five of them. It's very unusual. But you want to know if you have it. I did. OK well but probably by hang up with it is you get it halfway and then you have to peel it. So if I climb a b and so you take it out of the pot but then you have to peel the being itself. Yeah. Tedious very tedious and I'm not that nice a person I will not do that for you. Yeah. So I have a Chinese neighbor and she showed me oh we don't do that. We serve it.

Think of it like peanuts. So what we do is we stir fry the being with the skin. And garlic oil and maybe a little ginger put salt on that the berry and give people a bowl and a discard Bowl and they're watching for it and so forth this would be very common and parts of China. You you just put it in your mouth and you take the skin off the insides and and then discard the skin is fine. Yeah it's just it's a happening. It's like get a mommy you know it's that same kind of thing you name up the pods and then give it to people. Thoughts will fall and then people can eat their own self ABA beans can be done that way. That's how I've kind of gravitated toward it. But there are now. They're fava beans that have red flowers. Oh really. Now you're going to look.

Well and I love the English rather being well I call him English runner beans because my grandfather always grew them they're actually the scarlet runner beans right. They're just in the course the hummingbirds although I love them. And both the flowers are edible. Oh well of course they're in your regular being flowers I don't know if they're edible but if they are they don't taste good because that's been never on anybody's list of edible flowers and I'm sure they would have put them on if they were. But they runner beans actually came from Mexico and Peru I believe. So we know when you when you go down to Mexico sometimes you go to the market and they will have big bouquets. The runner being flowers Yeah I remember walking into a Mexican market and seeing about 50 bins of being all looking different driving different and them the woman who was with me spoke Spanish and she talked about about and they said oh well these

are the brains that are only a month old and these is for Reef beings because they will mush down quickly and cook quickly. And then days are a year old and babies are for the one that you want to have some more substance to them and you might use them and soup or things like that. I don't know but that's really knowing a lot about being you know this and that's. Well they're beautiful. The beans themselves although they are seeds. Yeah right. When I do photography beans up close are just sculptures. They're gorgeous you get your close up when you get some of the beans have these amazing designs on them. When the Seed Savers started the first part of their collection was from a man name was John with a who is from Maine and he had collected 500 days of dried beans. Well it's gone all over New England as a salesman. And whenever anybody had an unusual being would take it

and he would grow them out and back collection was the first collection that was given to the Seed Savers. So that the almost beans wouldn't be rocked. Yeah because we're losing the gene pool on all of these. Yeah. What are you speaking of that and what are some other varieties you know whether they're heritage seeds or other things that people should think about other plants to grow that and that you know like other like. Well Sesame for instance can you grow that. Yeah. If you can grow basil you'll have years where if your basal is a problem. So if your Sesame sesame I like to go to a. Helpless door of the natural food store and buy in bulk. But I'm am sure that if you just never tried it but I bet you if you were just went to the grocery store and bought a jar of sesame seed that you could take them home and grow them because they are tough and I don't

think they sterilize them or anything but anyway because you have a growth about two feet tall and they have beautiful lush green leaves and they produce white flowers up at the top somewhat similar to Bobby and you know I remember as a child we all heard Open Sesame. Yeah well that's because the sesame pod. All of a sudden playing open and the seeds are expelled. So you have to pick the pods just before they open and put them in a paper bag and then they will pop open in the paper bag. When you bring them in the house if you're lucky if you miss that you know a little later it's merely a trial trail. Yeah but then you can lightly toast them and they'll have a lot more flavor than the ones you buy but are probably five years old. Because I write what I did was to go to the grocery store and say you know if we can eat it let's see if we can grow

it it's a good idea. Well like poppy seeds do. Sure and then I think you're right. I had a seed garden one time. I just put in all the different kinds of mustard poppies which are illegal in some counties because of course the same one that the opium poppy. But it sure is pretty. And here we're grown well inadvertently Yes. Oh I should never ask you that in public. Well it's for the love of the breadbox poppies and you know that's right. That's I thought all that still happen for some time. That's right. But it's politically correct and maybe somebody doesn't know that they can make OPM. Well who would want to go through the hassle and the fun to the seed but a mustard garden you can grow that to be all different kinds and you will not believe the flavor punch you get from your own mustard that you make

and it's very easy you know our ancestors used to do all the things all the time. They didn't go to the local market and they just made it you want mustard. OK I'll bet you're going to get it if you don't grow it. Yeah well even I just remember that English mustard that my mother used to make and it was the taking the seed grinding it and then just mixing it with a little bit of water. That's right and I that's got a huge punch so I guess yeah. And then if you want to thin it out with something to make it not quite so potent let it out a little you know whether you're adding mayonnaise or unique or whatever you had. That's right it doesn't have to. Because it doesn't have to be complicated at all. But because we don't know about it and we don't know the process and we've never seen anybody do it it's just like you know growing wheat back to the matter is not a big deal. But again if you don't know how to do it it's like can you imagine giving someone a digital camera that never taken a picture before what a big deal that is.

Thank you. Yeah you had a child a digital camera they fool around with a few buttons. They get a picture and I go oh this is how it works. Have you grown Parella. Sure yeah that's another one for me this year that was fun and for folks that are familiar with it it's. Well actually if you're going to talk about it. Well you know we need to hear from you. Dog I knew it when I discovered it because it was in a catalog under the Oriental name that she so I guess would be how it's pronounced and it's used in stir fries or salads and I like the description of the flavor was somewhere between mint cinnamon and fennel and I thought well that's kind of interesting combination. And then there's several different kinds when I was growing the dark red variety and it is so beautiful and I decided to put it in among some of the other red plants I got some red kale and I thought well that would be really pretty to grow together and like mixing my garden up with lots of different color sensations and end up with the

flavor of the plant to spend tested and if you were you know as we're talking about the Edible Landscaping it really I mean putting that in instead of a coleus or any of the other than you can eat it and it doesn't you know their mouth that you're eating doesn't hurt the appearance of the plant. Few leaks here and there and right now the bugs will take that if you're going to go you know that's true. There's enough dragons right. I mean people have this. Because. Edibles have this plot but I talked about before that you know they're utilitarian plants they're not beautiful and there are a lot of work. That's the plot. They've been given a five day stay on the vegetables but on the side of the plate you know also we don't quite have to eat them of fur kid but the fact of the matter is if you start looking at them in a different way it doesn't take a lot of effort once you get the concept it's like oh my goodness isn't that logical. And the red Parola is just the star that easily grown

and I don't think it has any pest anywhere in the country to you that they know of and it seems to be doing well I think it likes it when it's warm but even if it's cold wet that we've had it's still done very well and it's still being moderately crowded out by so Michail but it still peeks through its lovely foliage and the Red Rum is used in Japan to color ginger when they pickled ginger you know I mean when you're in your wish you know. Yeah. That the red colors of the red. Now if you buy an expensive pickled ginger they've done they've done artificial red coloring. But the real deal has the solution. And I give the little bit of flavor with it too. Yeah it's just you know round up the flavor of it. Right so you know and there are flower border you could put in red peppers the the cherry peppers of your own. Yes. Yeah and one that I did this year for the first time was some type errors which are

oh I don't really like sauce. They're spectacular. Yeah they're so pretty. The red cherry peppers I remember growing them years ago because I thought they were cute. And then it's like OK now what do you do with them. They're only you know an inch and a half across. That's tedious to have to cut them up and so forth. After a trip to Italy we've found that they would poach them in red wine Korak poached them in red wine and then that's a man of very famous then a pasta on parts of Italy where they would put a piece of fun kind of cheese. Or a little bit of pressure or rolled up or around an olive for whatever you would just that would be a first course but that there instead of potato chips or something like that that we seem to be locked into our current chip clip. Come Ollie. Yeah they would put a bowl of the dusk pepper and people just pop them. Oh and another call poppers them simply that I was beautiful in the garden.

And are they pretty spicy. You can get them by spirits now don't let those in like they had all their hot cherries on them this week. Yeah. What about the you know we were talking about what people done with landscaping and seeing some of the flowering Kale is that actually edible and yes it is OK so yeah it's completely animal but it's so beautiful again we have that split and I don't care if it's that beautiful I'm sure you can't eat it if you're No. And I remember years ago I couldn't get anybody to tell me whether it was edible or not at that point I didn't know many of the readers. So I just start. I don't recommend I just start eating a little bit. And I felt like you know it takes just like regular kale. Yeah what's the problem. OK so it is gorgeous. The line big fall salad. Yeah. You know those fairly different colors all around the up and when you get young enough you can eat it raw. But other than that you would cook it just like you would a regular game. Yeah. Just saying you know just some other car. But your folks can grow Alpines driver. They are incredible. Yeah it

borders so forth that just hundreds of things you can do. Yeah but I know that too that we were talking about some of the runner beans the scarlet runner beans there used to be in the flower section and so I thought that spoke with didn't know that you could eat them. Well partly I think because of the confusion with sweet peas the yeah the flowering sweet peas which are poisonous. Correct. So yeah there's a reason to be careful but there if there absolutely is and that's when it's easier to learn it from your parents you know as your mothers made their fathers and they say no we don't need that. So forth. But again now we as a culture are so divorced from a lot of this information we have to go seek it out. Yeah. And so what's the progress on the we were talking about that you're new. I do yeah. Tell us about that. That's a word that's been five years. I'm almost done with the manuscript on it. We now have a public

publication date for 2010 which sounds a long way away but it is January 2010 so I have almost all the text done and the photography one which that was the challenge because again people don't photograph garden photographers don't photograph edibles except in close up for catalogues or to show a vegetable garden. Again it's that split. So I had to run around that's why I started becoming a photographer because I couldn't find any sort of a battle being used in a decorative setting in the cooking part I couldn't find any photos of blue potato or orange tomatoes or you know yellow zucchini. So I had to grow them and photograph them. So I have grown out of that before a lot of the gardens. I just every six months I put in a new garden with a new thing. So to show you what you can do with edible.

So at this stage of the game I have enough of the photography from my garden to show you a complete range of what you can do in a salad circle for instance with the spokes of the wheel in the middle and the birdbath and all the different kinds of greens around the outside then and then in the summer you know we were put in different basal than pepper so far. But my biggest problem is I'm from California and I am suspect in your eyes I know that that even though I tell you I grew up in Boston and have gardens in Boston and so far I'm still very suspect I mean that makes you feel a little better I can see the audience kind of relax a little bit. But well it should because I haven't you know gone out there and seen a lot of my apple tree blown over into you know ice storm up close and personal a much broader thing. Well that's not true I remember seeing my father's

garden after a big hail storm. But anyway the fact of the matter is I needed to get photography of edible beautiful edible garden all over the country and that's what I've spent the majority of the last four or five years. So I actually spend more time in other people's gardens and other climate than I do in my own. Still having time to be in your own garden. That's right. Why do I keep coming back. Well we'll have to wrap it up for that. We've been speaking with Rosalind Creasy and she is working on updating the complete book of edible landscaping which is still in print so if you're looking for that it's been in print for 20 years a new publication date 20 10 which does feel like it's right around the corner. And you know it's not a threat anymore. Oh it isn't. OK. Last year. OK well we'll have to look for used Kapisa. Yeah. Meantime we'll look forward to the new one and thank you so very much for joining us AT THIS VERY early our hour in Los Altos California to talk

with us here in Cook County. Well you've just made my day. It will be a lot on that. All right thanks so much. You're quite welcome. And stay tuned now for the calendar show and I'm your host Paula send it with Northern gardening. Thanks so much.