The Modern Hippy

      It’s been awhile since I’ve done a post just on apartment gardening. I’ve done a lot of it in the last couple of years. Lots of things grew nicely. Lots more things died because I didn’t have the right conditions.

      I was reading over the last and first only post of my apartment gardening posts. Oh the mistakes in it! It’s appalling. Letters missing, grammar sadly lacking, it’s embarrassing. In my defense, I have a horrible time seeing my own mistakes. My super-fast-awesome-reading-skills skim right over them. That’s right , my super-power ability is actually a weakness.

      Anyway, I’m doing a ton of apartment gardening, inside and out. At the moment I have an aloe plant in my kitchen window. There is a garlic experiment right outside the front door. And my porch garden is growing wonderfully, both in quantity of plants and well, the plants actually growing.

      This time around I feel like I have a better hold on apartment gardening. I’m remembering to think long term a little more, considering the elements I have to deal with, and how large said plants will get.

      I’m lucky enough to have a porch that gets close to full sun after about 11 am. It has a divider and a wall of trees that keeps the wind down on stormy days. There is plenty of space out in the open for plants that love or don’t mind rain. It also has a decent amount of room under the eaves for those plants that don’t like their leaves to get wet, such as tomatoes. At my front door I have some room for those plants that don’t need mostly full sun, but just a little morning direct sun and indirect sun the rest of the time. My windows provide much of the same, though, since Milo loves his window sills, I’m trying to figure out what to do to keep those plants that need to be inside in the winter, close enough to light, but safe enough from being knocked over because of kitty frustration. I still have yet to get a grow light. I think that it has become a need, for the plants and for me, because it provide UV light, unless I’m mistaken. And we all need that during the grey winter, sometimes fall,spring and summer months.

My goals for my apartment gardening/porch gardening

      Of course I have to have goals for this fun adventure. Without some planning everything will die and I’ll be left feeling wasteful and selfish.

• Use of organic soils so that which I grow to eat is safest and best to eat
• Grow edible things more than plants just for show, i.e. herbs and tomatoes
• Grow things that will last a few months, even years and produce things I’ll actually use
• Have lots of fun and learn a lot
• Share my extras, I can always use work on sharing
• Practice gardening so I can be better prepared when I have an actual backyard and garden
• Create something of which to take pictures
• Dry or preserve things grown to be used in winter time so I don’t have to spend so much money on herbs for cooking(also a reason I have an herb garden at my parents house)
• Give in to the urge to pretend to be Laura Ingals of Little House on the Prairie more often, I can never be too old for that
• With luck(sunny weather) and practice, take pictures of my apartment porch garden that won’t look washed out.

      We’ll see how many of them I’ll actually achieve. So far I’m doing fairly well on keeping things edible and practical. And yes, I will consider my recent eucalyptus purchases practical. They discourage insects. They just happen to be pretty. Yup, that’s what I’ll keep telling myself. It is partially true.

The Modern Hippy

     Yesterday, after I left Vendor’s Row(was hanging out with Christy, The Coffee Lady) on Western’s campus, I walked by this building. I’m completely enamored with it. Bellingham seems to have a large quantity of awesome stucco buildings, mostly houses. In this case, a small apartment building, which probably was a house. This one is nestled in amongst old craftsman and Victorian type homes overlooking downtown and the bay. What struck me yesterday was the lighting was finally decent and the drapes in a room on the top floor were green, very green. Perhaps the most common color you will find in nature on this side of the mountains, this shade is rarely found hanging in a window in the form of a curtain. Perfect. That’s what I think. Bellingham is awesome.

     This will be our first spring in Bellingham. And since I have my trusty new Memoir phone, 8 pixel camera and all. I’ll be taking pictures like crazy!

     This one, of a blooming cherry tree a couple of blocks from Western, though far from perfect, shows just a small part of Bellingham. The charm of the chosen street side trees, looking vibrant, even on a foggy, overcast spring day. I LOVE Bellingham!

     Rick and I took a walk in Bellingham’s Boulevard Park last week. It was mostly grey with some sun peaking through making the water sparkle. I love this park. Though, it can seem busy, everyone seems to keep to themselves and does their own thing. Here is a place you can be alone in a crowd. It feels great. Even if the weather is questionable, you will probably find a beautiful ocean view.

     I’m a beekeeper’s daughter. The funny thing is I have been terrified of bees most of my life. Only in the last couple of years have I realized that really, they won’t all get me. It’s huge that I’ve been able to get closer to bees than before. They end up in my pictures of flowers all the time, when I don’t even notice.
     Today, I did. This bee that looked distressed, landed on a raspberry leaf and started dancing around. For a moment it looked like she was dying. Then as I watched, she cleaned her bum of the haphazardly smeared pollen and flew away. Bees really are lovely insects, and incredibly important to us. Without bees it would be incredibly hard, or impossible to pollinate all the growing things like fruit trees and plants, so that we would end up with food. Love the bee, because their “little” job is very important to us.

     I’ve mentioned this nifty surprising herb. We got it for my herb garden at my parents. Originally I bought it to feed the bees and as an experiment. A lady at the Mount Vernon Co-op said she had it one year, but didn’t use it very much. She noticed that the bees loved it though. Well, I’m all for feeding those hard working bees.
     My one plant has grown faster and bigger than any of the other herbs. It has to be at least two feet high, and four or five feet across. It’s funny looking, very hairy and gangly looking, with gorgeous, simple blue and pink flowers. It is horribly poky.

Cultivation:

     It’s a low maintenance herb, an annual that will reseed itself well. It’s spreads and loves full sun. It’s recommended to plant with strawberries, squash, or tomatoes – it is suppose to improve the flavor of tomatoes and repel tomato hornworm.
     My experience: It’s super easy. I planted a start and it’s been water a few times through the dryer months. It grew very fast and is starting to grow over a couple other herbs so I will have to cut it back. Be sure to leave plenty of space, even if you think it’s too much, it probably isn’t. I’ve read that trimming it will contain it a little. I haven’t done that with it though.

Uses:

*Culinary:
     The leaves and flowers can be used fresh in salad. The leaves can also be steamed, but for a short time because they are so thin they will cook down quickly – or added to stew and soups at the last minute. They both can be used in tea. And have been used in gin drinks. The flowers can be candied and used on cakes. The fresh flowers taste like honey.
     My experience: I’ve used the flowers several times to make tea. It has a very smooth soothing taste, like chamomile, but even softer. I like it. I have tried using the leaves in cooking a couple of times. However, I think I’ve put them in too early. Also, as far as I can see, it should be eaten and not turned into leftovers. It doesn’t keep well.

*Medicinal:
     It’s is considered to be good for PMS and menopause. Used in tea is good for colds, respiratory infections, high cholesterol, constipation, soothing to the digestive tract. It can help to regulate the adrenal glands and is a galactogogue (milk production stimulant), and emollient.

Borage Oil:

     Borage oil is extracted from the seed of the flower. It is showing through studies that it is good for eczema – on the list of things to try for me!

     Cautionary Notes: I’ve read in many places that it is furry, but nowhere did it say how pokey it is. The leaves aren’t as bad, but the larger stocks are prickly enough to be painful so becareful! One site cautioned, and I will reiterate – be careful of bees. The flowers hang down so it may be hard to spot a bee before picking a flower without looking closer.

Resources:
Borage(Borago offincinalis)
What is Borage Oil?

     It’s been about a year and a half since I’ve had to learn to cook everything from scratch. I’m getting very good. I’m also embracing the frugal side of me that lay dormant for many years. I search for deals, though if quality is more expensive then I will take a leap and buy. One thing last year that seemed to cost a fortune was all the herbs I was buying to flavor the food. I went through a ton of coriander, salt, pepper, paprika, rosemary and many, many others. Aside from the cost it bothered me that I had no idea how fresh the herbs were in those nifty little glass bottles. So I decided, after asking my parents if I could have a little plot of land in their garden for my herbs. I didn’t know what I was going to grow, or what would grow wonderfully in this climate, but I knew that I wanted fresh, cheap and quality. When you grow your own that combination is possible.
     Now a few months after spading up the lovely, sweet smelling soil I am starting to see the fruits of my labor. I’m trying to use fresh herbs in my cooking daily. I’ve noticed that fresh herbs taste completely different than dried herbs (except for rosemary, that’s about the same just more potent fresh). Previously I thought sage was boring, but fresh it has wonderful flavor.

Baked chicken breasts with fresh herbs:
One of my first experiments was with chicken of course. To follow my “recipe”, you will need:

• Two or more uncooked chicken breasts – not frozen (freezing meat changes it, makes it less yummy.)
• A baking dish with a lid – the lid will keep the steam in and not let the meat dry out.
• A selection of fresh herbs – I used sage, curry, oregano, marjoram, and basil.
• Salt

Simply place chicken breasts in a baking dish. Tear or mince herbs to smallish size and sprinkle over meat and into bottom of pan. Sprinkle salt. Bake at 350 degrees F, for about 30-40 minutes, or until done. Temperature for poultry is about 160 degrees F. (Chicken is easy to tell though, it will no longer look clear and pink, but solid and more white or brown than pink.)

     I’m a little behind on updating about my lovely herb garden. It is thriving! I have rosemary, sage, margoram, thyme, oregano, lemon verbena, fennel, chives, basil, borage, and two kinds of mint.

     They have now grown enough for me to use them in cooking! I’m so proud of my little herbs – I feel like a mother. Haha.

     Here is my “baby” a couple weeks after planting. It’s so cute!

     The big one in the back is the borage. It is the fastest growing herb I have. The funny thing is I use it the least. At some point I will make a post about it – I use the flowers in tea, it’s good. More experimentation will occur over the rest of the summer. From what I’ve read, it will stick around and spread crazily. I must learn how to use it well. One good thing about it is my dad’s bees love it. So honey for us!

We are holding out for true spring. Last year, after a long windy winter spring never really came. It rained and snowed and blew and then the sun came out and hid behind clouds for a few more weeks and then it was summer. Hopefully, this year will better. A little bit of sunny yellow helps. Though after all the snow I am not complaining about the rain that falls today.

As a devout beach worshiper, I can tell you there is nothing like standing or sitting while winter weather is raging around you. On this beach, you would not believe how alive it is. Winter is not calm and sleepy here, but loud and imposing. Even if the waves are not many feet tall and the sun looks so demure behind clouds, it is still so wild and untamed. A beach is more spiritual than any church.