 Photo and article by Donna Iverson January has arrived along with snow, cold, and seed catalogs. The first to arrive in my mailbox this new year was from Seed Savers Exchange located in Decorah, Iowa. Their 2021 catalog offers untreated, organic, non-hybrid, non-GMO seeds. When gardening seems a distant dream, seed catalogs like Seed Savers Exchange, offer a tangible promise of garden beds filled with veggies, scented herbs and colorful flowers. In addition to the many pages of seed offerings, especially enjoyable were the inspiring stories of gardeners who shared insights into their favorite growing experiences. For example, Kirsten Shockley of Oregon wrote of growing peppers from rare seeds like Jimmy Nardello’s and Carmen. “I am always surprised how mostly the same species can produce such variants in beauty, flavor and color,” she wrote. After reading the many gardening stories, I found myself impatient for spring and longing for something green growing in the winter months. So the next day, when walking by my local yoga studio, I notice potted aloe plants sitting on the window ledge. And they were for sale. The inspiration lightbulb went off in my head. They would make for a perfect windowsill garden, checking off a lot of my favorite gardening boxes: aesthetic, herbal, medicinal, cat proof, and low maintenance. Researching the internet, I find that aloe is also edible but that’s a reach too far for me. Aloe Vera has an otherworldly quality, a spare beauty that speaks of desert sand and hot days under a blazing sun. Yet it seems perfectly happy in a sunny window with snow piling up outside. As experts say that most of us now spend 80 to 90 percent of our time indoors, plants like aloe offer an opportunity to bring nature inside. The point is that your windowsills offer many gardening opportunities. Whether it’s planting seeds in early spring to transport to the outside garden, or growing culinary herbs for flavoring your favorite dishes, or maybe some germanium plants to lift your spirits. You can start with plants purchased from local garden shops, or buy seeds from your favorite gardening catalog, arriving now. If you do decide to go the catalog route, order early as last year many seeds sold out as people found gardening both a way to relax and grow food during a pandemic. The same is expected to happen this year. Add to that predictions that the seed catalog may soon become a thing of the past, as more and more customers are ordering online. There is no time to delay. Seed catalogs being a ray of sunshine in January. Provide inspiration and news from fellow gardeners. And can be saved and used almost like a gardening encyclopedia the whole year around. And the stunning photography makes even the most unlikable vegetable look delicious. 
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 Photo and article by Donna Iverson
I am what the French call a flaneur, someone who indulges in the art of strolling. I enjoy walking the neighborhood streets checking out people’s yards, gardens, window boxes, and potted plants. Occasionally, I encounter a real person and indulge in a short chat, at a safe social distance, of course. This fall and into the winter, my curiosity was drawn to what looked like colorful cabbages in flower pots along a city sidewalk. The snow was falling but these bright pink centered orbs seemed oblivious to the cold. On doing a little research, I found out that they were not cabbages at all but flowering kale. Although the difference between flowering kale and ornamental cabbage is only detectable by the shape of the outer leaves..... kale being curly and cabbage smooth. While the other flowers sharing the pots were withering and looking frozen, the flowering kale was thriving in December, in Michigan. And not only thriving but looking down right defiant. A member of the plant family Brassica, flowering kale is indigenous to Europe and is not a North American native. But doubt we have to worry about it becoming invasive. Seeds of flowering kale were first offered for sale in seed catalogs in 1936. It is best grown, by buying plants at your local garden store or nursery. It is hardy to zone 2, tolerating winter temperatures down to 5 degrees. While it thrives in containers, it is also a good edging plant in your landscape or along the borders of gardens. It grows to be about 12 to 18 inches tall and looks more like a flower then a vegetable. And although you can eat it, it is bitter compared to its culinary cousins, regular kale and cabbage. Flowering kale comes in a variety of shades, including red, pink and purple. Unfortunately, both deer and rabbits love it. It likes a lot of sun and is not fussy about soil type. A biennial, decorative kale flowers the second year so most people grow it as a summer annual.  Photo and article by Donna Iverson Before the end of the year, 35 million poinsettia will be sold for holiday decorations in this country, As the Christmas season approaches, poinsettias will grace home tables, porches, hospital rooms, nursing homes, TV sets and church altars. Indigenous to Central America, its bright red flowers are easily recognizable from a distance as they seem to shout out for your attention. But in our great grandparents' day, it wasn’t the poinsettia that was cherished as a Christmas flower. It was the small diminutive lily of the valley with its dainty bell-like white flowers and sweet scent. Back around the turn of the last century, white flowers were favored during the winter holidays. In addition to lilies of the valley, there were cyclamens, white chrysanthemums, and violets. These plants contrasted nicely with red-berried holly branches. A woodland flowering plant indigenous to Northern Europe, lily of the valley found its way first to New England and then to the Midwest. There it was sometimes called May bells, because that is when it bloomed. Today however, it sometimes blooms as early as March during mild winters. Once established, it spreads readily by rhizomes, and will grow under trees and in the shade. As a child, I loved its intoxicating scent whenever I visited my grandmother who had planted it along the side of her house leading to the back door. Christian Dior also valued the scent turning it into one of his best selling perfumes, introduced in 1956. A long lived cut flower, lily of the valley was often used in sweet-smelling bridal bouquets. Reportedly, it was also woven into wreaths and wrapped around the necks of passengers boarding the Titanic. Mentioned in the Bible many times, lily of the valley pops up in folklore where it is often associated with bad luck and death. And in fact, it’s red berries are highly toxic to humans and animals. A member of the asparagus family, lily of the valley kits are sold today in many holiday catalogs. There you can purchase kits to force lily of the valley plants to grow inside your home. The kit usually comes with a pot, soil medium and pips, which are planted, watered and placed on the window sill. It takes about four weeks for them to sprout and blossom. It is a real floral treat in the middle of a long Michigan winter. In the spring the plant can be transplanted outdoors where it will grow in your garden. Of course if you already have lily of the valley in your yard, you can dig up some pips, plant them in a pot and place on your window sill and accomplish the same thing for free.  Photo and article by Donna Iverson The Mac is a lot of people’s favorite apple, including mine. In Michigan, it is the number one best seller. It is also one of the top ten selling apples in the country. But it has a lot of competition: Honeycrisp, Fuji, Jonagold, Northern Spy, Cortland, Gala and Jonathons to name a few. Apples are, in fact, Michigan’s largest and most valuable fruit crop with 900 million pounds being grown yearly. In fact, Michigan is the third largest producer of apples in the USA. Michiganders definitely love their apples. Macs are a heritage apple but not a native fruit, even though they have been growing in Canada for centuries. The Mac was more or less discovered around 1800, when a Scottish farmer from New York moved to northern Canada. There he found wild apple trees and replanted them in his garden. His name was John McIntosh and the Mac is named after him. By 1835, he was selling these wild apples and by 1870, they were being grown commercially. Today, you can find Macs growing throughout Michigan orchards and being sold at many a local farmers markets in the late fall. The Mac tree is hardy surviving in temperatures down to -34 degrees, although a frost will kill the buds when they are blooming. The Mac is a small to medium size apple with a tart taste. It is good for eating, baking and making into apple cider. Breeders have cloned the Mac and it is the parent of several popular apple varieties including Macoon, Cortland, and Empire. It is also parent to the Macintosh commuter, developed by Steve Jobs of Apple, Inc. According to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, Jobs had become a fruitarian and was visiting an apple orchard when he encountered the Mcintosh apple and saw it and his new computer design as “fun, spirited and not intimidating.” In marketing the product, the designers misspelled the name and the iconic computer became the Macintosh. If you are fascinated by Michigan’s native apples, check out a group called The Lost Apple Project on Facebook. An online article on finding Michigan lost apples is featured at https://gandernewsroom.com/2020/05/26/lost-apple-project-midwest/  Photo and article by Donna Iverson Orange, yellow, green, purple, cream.. ..these are the colors of cauliflower that you can now find at your farmers’ market and in some West Michigan gardens. These colorful cauliflower are not genetically modified (GMO) or chemically altered. They have been found naturally in various areas of the world, and in some cases crossed with the traditional white cauliflower creating a hybrid. The orange cauliflower, for example, was found in Canada around 1970. It’s orange color is due to the extra beta- carotene, up to 25% more than the traditional white cauliflower you may be most familiar with. Similarly, the purple cauliflower is high in anthocyanins, an antioxidant found in red wine. The origin of the purple cauliflower is not known, although it is found in Italian recipe books in the 1940s. In Italy, the purple cauliflower goes by fanciful names like Sicilian Violet and Violet Queen. All the colorful cauliflower heads are higher in nutritional value than their plain cousin, the white cauliflower. Maybe because of the multi-colored attraction, sales of locally grown cauliflowers have increased by 70 percent in recent years. As for growing it yourself, the seeds are available from heirloom seed catalogs, like Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company in Missouri. But be forewarned, cauliflower has a long growing season, almost four months, and it requires rich soil, abundant moisture and cool weather. If you're lucky, you might find seedlings for transplant at your neighborhood nursery in the spring. Personally, I was never a fan of cauliflower until it began selling as a substitute for potatoes and rice. Once I found cauliflower hash browns in the freezer section of my local grocery store, I was hooked. From there I graduated to making my own hash browns from the multitude of colorful cauliflower heads available. And next summer, I plan to buy some purple colored cauliflower seeds and give it a try in the garden. And for you math nerds out there, cauliflower heads are a study in fractals. The green headed cauliflower, for example, exhibits the logarithmic Fibonacci spiral. And if any of you know what that means, I would appreciate a layman’s explanation.  Photo and article by Donna Iverson As winter approaches, red berries on evergreens catch one’s eye ....especially on yew bushes. However the berries, as enticing as they appear, are highly toxic and it is one of the reasons the yew could be thought of as the perfect Halloween tree. In true Halloween style, the yew has been associated with magic, longevity and the underworld. The leaves, branches and berries are all highly toxic and have earned it the name of Tree of Death. In ancient times, branches were brought to gravesites of newly departed to guide their way to the next world. Yew is one of the oldest of trees, if not the oldest tree on the planet dating back nearly 10,000 years. Yew is also considered a sacred tree often planted in churchyards, graveyards and pagan tree groves. You can still find yew trees in churchyards and old cemeteries, right here in Western Michigan. Today, the yew is valued as a landscape plant and by cabinet makers for its wood. As a landscape plant, yew makes a great hedge that can be box shaped and needs little other attention. Four to six feet tall, yew grows horizontally by the same amount. There are both native and European varieties. The English yew is taxus baccata; the American yew is taxus canadensis. The native yew grows in northern Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and north of the border in Canada. The wood of the yew is prized for use in cabinet making, lutes, and the creation of longbows. In the Paleolithic and Bronze ages, longbows were made primarily of yew, from a single piece of wood. The oldest longbow ever found was discovered in the Alps and dates back to circa 2600 BC. Made completely of yew, it was the bow used by Henry VIII, for both warfare and hunting. Today a yew longbow could cost you well over $1000. Ironically, even though yew is highly toxic, the bark and needles were used by ancient shamans for healing. The theory was that if what didn’t kill you, could heal you. Over the years, yew compounds have been used in the treatment of diphtheria, tapeworms, swollen tonsils (tonsillitis), seizures (epilepsy), muscle and joint pain (rheumatism), urinary tract conditions, liver conditions and even cancer. Still, a major warning ..do not try this at home. As recent as 2014, the yew was celebrated at the Poblet Monastery in Spain at the International Yew Conference. Participants gathered with the purpose of protecting the yew, as like many trees, it’s survival is threatened. Local nurseries carry yew bushes for purchase although finding the native yew species may require an online search.  Photo and article by Donna Iverson
Zinnias will grow in poor soil and need little watering. The seeds sprout quickly and reliably to produce beautiful colorful flowers that bloom into fall. And they will grow in a weightless environment. That’s right. They are grown on the international space station. And whether you are a beginning or experienced gardener, you can depend on zinnias to beautify your garden or yard with every color in the rainbow except blue. A member of the Aster family, zinnias are native to the southwestern United States. In its native form, the zinnia is a small yellow or orange perennial flower with single petals. Because of that, the zinnia was never popular with American gardeners until as late as the 1920s. It was then that a horticulturist John Bodger hybridized the zinnia producing zinnias that were oversized and double-petaled. These giant zinnias competed in showiness with the rose and dahlias. With that modification, Zinnia seeds sold off the shelf and remain popular today. Plant zinnia seeds in May and they will produce annual flowers throughout the summer until frost. Zinnias also make long-lived cut flowers, lasting in a vase from seven to twelve days. Heat doesn’t bother them and they will flourish in a xeriscape garden. Zinnias also are a great addition to a pollinator garden attracting butterflies, lady bugs and hummingbirds. They deter whiteflies and are not toxic to dogs, cats and horses. As far back as the 1500, the zinnia was grown by the Aztecs, and was brought to Europe around that time by the Spanish. In 1798, the first zinnia seeds were offered for sale to colonists, but never gained popularity for another one hundred years. The zinnia is named after Johann Zinn, a German botanist who first described the plant in scientific literature in the mid-1700s. There are about 20 zinnia species, most of them with the larger double-petals with names like Canary Bird, Cactus Chrysanthemum, and Persian Carpet. The petals are edible and the seeds reportedly can be used to make tea. But caution should be used, as some people may be allergic. If you have children, zinnias are a perfect flower to grow as they quickly result in a bed of flowers that would delight any youngster. Order or buy seeds as soon as they become available in the spring.  Photo and article by Donna Iverson
If you saw them, even close up, you might assume they were sunflowers. Even some experts can’t tell the difference. Before frost, the leaves, stems and flowers of sunflowers and Jerusalem artichokes look almost exactly alike. But after the first frost, when you dig up the roots, you would find that unlike sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes have edible tubers. These small tubers look like knotty potatoes but taste more like artichokes. Hence the name. As for the Jerusalem part, it is possible that the Puritans tagged them such in reference to their settlement in the new world which they called the New Jerusalem. The first written reference to Jerusalem artichokes was recorded by Samuel de Champlain in 1605 when he found them growing on Cape Cod. The plant may have in fact originated in the Ohio Valley and eventually became a major food source for the Lewis and Clark expedition as they headed west in 1803. Of course, long before the settlers arrived, the Native Americans were cultivating Jerusalem artichokes alongside beans and corn. As for growing them, not much is required. They thrive in any soil, need very little watering, and are resistant to most harmful insects and plant diseases. Best grown from tubers and not seeds, can find these tubers at your local nursery. Or, order them from the seed catalogs. Treat the tubers like potatoes because like potatoes, they are considered a root vegetable. They can be baked, boiled or added to soups or stews. Be sure to remove the stringy roots from the tubers as they are toxic. Unless you are an expert forager, best to peel the tubers before cooking. Low in the glycemic scale, Jerusalem artichokes are high in iron and other minerals. As a landscape flower, they can provide a wind break or just a lush backdrop to your flower bed. They can become aggressive, and are difficult to eradicate once they become established. They grow to a height of 10 feet. In an emergency or during a food shortage, Jerusalem artichokes could provide a family with a healthy vegetable. The tubers can be left in the ground all winter, and harvested as needed. Personally, I value Jerusalem artichokes more as flower than a food but as I get more and more interested in foraging, that may change.  Photo and article by Donna Iverson
Garlic chives are pretty and edible. Easy to grow. A heritage plant with a long history. And they escape to the wild at every opportunity. My kind of plant. Sometimes called Chinese leaks, as that is where they originated thousands of years ago, garlic chives are a perennial usually grown from seed in the spring. Garlic chives are both a veggie and an ornamental for many types of gardens, including rock gardens, kitchen gardens, white gardens, medicinal gardens or as a container plant. More garlic than chive, they, nevertheless, belong to the onion family, Allium. Unlike regular garlic, these plants have no bulb underground. Come fall, they will self-seed and the next year, the harvest will double. In fact, they can become invasive. They are winter tolerant so you will have a supply year round. Both the flowers and the stems are edible. At the most basic, you can just snip tiny pieces of stem onto a salad or use as a sandwich enhancer. Toss them into soups, stews, stir fries or your scrambled eggs. Add during the end of the cooking process to retain their fresh flavor. Garlic chives are rich in Vitamins A, B6, B12 and C, along with potassium, calcium and Carotene. In Chinese medicine, garlic is one of five healing foods along with onion, lemon, red peppers, and honey. The plant contains antifungal, antiparasitic, and anticarcinogenic agents. It is also an antioxidant and may help reduce blood pressure. In Celtic times, garlic was hung in doorways on Halloween (Samhain) to ward off evil spirits. I suspect garlic chives would work just as well and look a lot better. And if you could care less about garlic chives as either food or medicine, it may appeal to your artistic sensibilities. It did to Vincent Van Gogh who painted Flower Pot with Garlic Chives 1887. The painting hangs in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and can be seen online at https://arthur.io/art/vincent-van-gogh/flowerpot-with-garlic-chives?crtr=1 Seeds of Garlic Chives are available from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, at seeds@rareseeds.com or calling 417.924.8917 in Missouri.  Photo and article by Donna Iverson
Last summer, a vendor was selling slices of watermelon at the Muskegon Farmers Market. I almost always sprung for one because a full size watermelon was too heavy for me to carry. But this fall, several market vendors are selling personal-sized round watermelons that weigh about 5 pounds. I’m hooked and they are delicious. Earlier in the summer, the round watermelons were yellow inside, almost like a large cantaloupe. By August, red flesh ones appeared, and like the yellow ones, they were seedless. Well not really seedless, they contained small white seeds that were edible and hardly noticeable. I was intrigued. Were these a new variety of watermelon?? And why had they suddenly become popular? Turns out, they haven’t suddenly become popular but have been growing in popularity for the last 15 years. My guess is that they fill a need as they are easier to carry and can be consumed by one or two persons at a meal. The trend in watermelons is definitely toward a smaller and smaller size. These small round watermelons are called icebox watermelons and can weigh between 5 and 15 pounds. They fit in your refrigerator and are perfect for a small family. Locally, I’m also seeing more and more small round watermelons growing in neighbors’ gardens. According to growers, they are not that difficult to grow nor does it take a huge garden space. Their best advice is to grow round watermelon from seed and I would recommend an heirloom variety. The basic requirements for growing include warm soil, three months of hot sunny weather, and frequent watering and feeding. More details on growing, watermelon, their pests and harvesting can be found at tropicalpermaculture.com As for the history of the watermelon, amazingly it goes back 5000 years to Africa. There, watermelon grew in the wild, and was originally round. Egyptians breed these wild fruits to increase their sweetness, eventually turning the pale yellow insides to bright red. The redder the melon, the sweeter the taste. They also favored the oblong shape. Interesting watermelon facts:
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