Mother's Day Planting and Edible Violets

Happy Mother's Day!
FEDCO Tree Sale and Edible Flowers

Sweet Violets and Johnny Jump Ups are up! Did you know that both are edible flowers?!

This photo is of some Johnny-Jump-Ups (Viola tricolor) also known as, Heatsease, that are up in my veggie garden. They self sow every year and are early flowers. They are in the viola family. They are the happiest little flowers and they are a wonderful addition to salads. They are edible. Harvest when the flowers are in full bloom. The more you harvest the more beautiful edible blooms will form on your plants. I "dead head" these flowers all summer long. Here the term "dead head" is not a reference to someone who likes the band the Grateful Dead! It means removing the spent or dead flower heads. I pinch them off to keep the plants blooming all summer long.

I have a rule that I use when deciding what flowers to eat. I research them. When I find 3 reliable resources that all say they are edible than I go with it. If I only find one resource that says something is safe to ingest then I do not follow that. But rather, I keep researching. I know I'm only one resource saying that Johnny-Jump-Ups are edible so here are 2 more for you:

http://www.garden.org/ediblelandscaping/?page=edible-month-violets
and
http://www.fitnessandfreebies.com/food/edibleflowers.html

Here is a picture of Sweet Violets (Viola odorata). As you can tell by their botanical name they are also in the viola family. These flowers are also edible. I posted this picture of the violet before but I just played with cropping and am posting a cropped version here. It looks nicer I think.

I went to FEDCO annual tree sale with my friend, Encyeh. I bought asparagus, potatoes, and Quince bushes. Not what I usually buy that is for sure. I usually come home with a bunch of trees and shrubs but things are different this year. I start my new job tomorrow and I'm looking forward to this new challenge. One part of the challenge is working with very young children with special needs and another challenge will be the major cut in pay and benefits. Because of this our use of money will be very different than it has been for the past 15 years. So no buying trees this year. But Encyeh lives on a lake in the woods and gave me some white pines and hemlock from her place for me to plant. Now that's a good friend! And to top it off her husband, Dan, came over this morning and rototilled 2 new garden spots for me. I had covered both spots with black plastic last spring so the grass was good and dead making tilling much easier. Thanks Dan and Encyeh!

Digging a trench for the asparagus was difficult. My Rodale Encylopedia of Organic Gardening says to dig a trench that is 12" deep and 10" wide. Holy! That took some doing! I put tons of compost in the trench and put the asparagus roots in and added more compost on top. The directions say to add compost rich soil slowly over the next two weeks until the trench is completely filled in. I have to admit that I took 6 of the 25 roots and planted them the traditional way. I just want to see if all that work really makes a difference.

I also planted onions, leeks, and shallots. And I transplanted the broccoli and buttercrunch lettuce that I started indoors a month or so ago. I also planted....spearmint! Gosh that smells good! I can't wait to eat and drink in mint juleps.

And the best part... it was cool and breezy so no black flies!

Next week, potatoes, thinning, mulch, and the flower beds.