Welcome to Flowery Prose! Growing words about gardening, writing, and outdoor pursuits in Alberta, Canada.
Just popping in to say IT’S PUBLICATION DAY! The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Seeds and The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Small Spaces are now out and about in the world!
The books are available nationwide at Chapters-Indigo locations (online and in-store), McNally Robinson, Amazon, and in independent bookstores and garden centres across the prairies!
More seedlings are popping up in my indoor garden! Can you guess what this little one is? (Hint: you can eat it. Edited to add: I’ve made this too difficult! Here are a couple more clues: It’s a common culinary herb. And I mention it in a post I made on December 27, 2020. I hope this helps!) 🙂
Share some of the happenings in your garden (indoors or out!) What plants are you growing right now?
More lettuce is happening in my kitchen! This heirloom variety is ‘Red Deer Tongue’.
The social media anxiety about seed shortages prompted me to order my seed potatoes yesterday from a local grower. It appears that the shortages are not completely unfounded; the supplier was already out of several cultivars. When you think that we don’t typically plant potatoes until May in this area, it’s incredible to see that many “sold out” labels this early in the year. The suppliers must be absolutely thrilled that their products are so high in demand. It’s truly exciting to see this surge in interest in gardening.
Have you placed any seed orders for spring planting? Or are you able to save most of your seed from your own garden?
Yesterday’s post about sowing seeds in a small space (indoor) garden is an excellent lead-in to my post today … in which I reveal the covers of the two latest books in The Guides for the Prairie Gardener series! (It’s almost as if I had planned it!) 😉 Janet Melrose and I spent the bulk of this year working hard on these two titles, which we are thrilled to add to the lineup consisting of The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Vegetables and The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Pests and Diseases. Once again, our publisher TouchWood Editions and our incredible editorial team have been crafting these books into something amazing and we’re super proud of the results!
Without further ado, here is The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Seeds!
And The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Small Spaces!
The books are set for release in early March. Of course, we’ll have a lot more details to share with you over the next few months, but we couldn’t wait any longer for you to feast your eyes on the covers! (A massive shout-out to Tree Abraham, our illustrator and designer, for the stellar work on these!). We are giddy with excitement!
My amaryllis started blooming this week … this is Hippeastrum cybister ‘Chico’. Such a wonderful treat! It is grey and gloomy here today and I can’t stop staring at these brilliant flowers.
Do you grow amaryllis? If so, which are your favourite cultivars? Show me photos, if you can – I’d love a bit more colour in my world today!
Book News and Events – November 2020
Exciting news! The next two books in The Guides for the Prairie Gardener series were sent off to the printers last week! A couple of weekends ago, Janet Melrose and I reviewed the final proofs and had our first looks at the full jackets for The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Seeds and The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Small Spaces. Our designer, Tree Abraham, has once again done an incredible job of the cover illustrations and exterior/interior design! We will be revealing the covers very soon – stay tuned!
And … we have some more thrilling news! We will be spending the winter working on books #5 and #6 in the series! They will be published in spring 2022. We will reveal more details over the next few months. In the meantime, we’re over here doing a happy dance!
Request for reviews!
Do you have a copy of either of (or both of!) our books, The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Vegetables and The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Pests and Diseases? If you do, can you please help us out and take a couple of minutes to give us a rating and review on Amazon.ca/Amazon.com? Don’t worry about leaving a lengthy review…two or three words is honestly all Amazon requires. If you’re on GoodReads, leaving a rating over there would be wonderful, as well! Thank you so much! We are so grateful for your support and encouragement and we hope you are finding the books informative, useful, and fun!
And the Winner Is …
In conjunction with our publisher TouchWood Editions, Janet and I recently held a contest in the Alberta Gardening Group on Facebook, with a set of The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Vegetables and The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Pests and Diseases as a prize. Congratulations to Kendra Victoria, who was the lucky winner of the books! Thank you to TouchWood Editions for supplying the prize!
Get Social with Us!
Sheryl:
Janet:
Facebook: calgaryscottagegardener
Instagram: calgaryscottagegardener
(Image of fountain pen courtesy Pexels Free Photos)
At this point, I’m thinking this series of posts should perhaps be “Botany Word of Whenever I Get Around to It.” Sigh …
Anyway, this is a fun one! Thigmotropism is a plant’s growth response to touch. If you have a vining plant with tendrils, you may have watched, fascinated, as the tendrils wrap around a support. Epidermal cells in the tendril (which, in some plants, can be ten times as sensitive to touch as human skin!) cause it to reach and latch on when it contacts a solid object.
The tendrils use differential growth to wrap themselves around objects such as another plant, trellis, or wall. The side of the tendril that is opposite to the side that is in contact with the object grows faster due to the production of the growth hormone auxin by the side that is closest to the object. This causes the side that is touching the object to compress at the same time the other side elongates. The tendril then curves towards the object in a positive response.
Typically, thigmotropism is a fairly slow response, but in some plants, it occurs quickly. This is called rapid contact coiling, which occurs due to turgor pressure. (Turgor pressure is the pressure exerted by water that pushes plant cell membranes against cell walls. It maintains the rigidity of the cell walls and helps support the plant.)
Roots also exhibit thigmotropism (in addition to gravitropism, which is a term for another day, perhaps!). Unlike tendrils, however, roots react in a negative way to encountering a solid object such as a stone in the soil – that is, they move away from it, rather than towards it. This makes sense, as roots want unencumbered access through the soil, to facilitate the uptake of nutrients and water.
And, on a side note, you may be thinking that sensitive plants (Mimosa pudica) also display thigmotropism, but their response to touch is actually non-directional; that is, they don’t move towards or away from a stimulus. Instead, they experience what is called a nastic movement.
Why is thigmotropism important? It allows some climbing plants the opportunity to reach for more sunlight … which means more efficient photosynthesis can occur.
References:
Sweet peas are an example of a common plant that exhibits thigmotropism. (This cultivar is ‘America’.)
Gotta love October in Calgary! It’s been snowing on and off all week and we’re currently under a snowfall warning (to see what Environment Canada defines as a “snowfall warning,” click here)…and this morning around six, we hit a low temperature of minus 15.5 degrees Celsius (that’s 4.1 degrees Fahrenheit). To put that in perspective, our average daytime high temperature for October hovers around plus 13 degrees Celsius (55.4 degrees Fahrenheit).
Oh well. It’s still rather pretty. (I’m just saying that because I went out and planted and mulched my garlic five minutes before the snow started late last week. Totally squeaked it in on my lunch break from work. While wearing my dress clothes and shoes.) 😉
Welcome to the fifth issue of The Guides for the Prairie Gardener Newsletter! Janet Melrose and I are keeping you up-to-date on everything related to our book series Guides for the Prairie Gardener, letting you know about what other Prairie gardening-related projects we’re working on, and throwing in some gardening trivia and newsy tidbits, just for fun! If you like what you see, please follow us on our social media and hit the subscribe button on Flowery Prose.
Book News and Events
Janet’s chat on CBC Radio’s Daybreak
On August 15, Janet did an amazing interview with Russell Bowers on CBC Radio’s Daybreak programme, talking about our books in the Guides for the Prairie Gardener series and what to watch out for in the garden in late summer! Take a listen to the interview here!
Request for reviews!
Do you have a copy of either of (or both of!) our books, The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Vegetables and The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Pests and Diseases? If you do, can you please help us out and take a couple of minutes to give us a rating and review on Amazon.ca/Amazon.com? Don’t worry about leaving a lengthy review…two or three words is honestly all Amazon requires. If you’re on GoodReads, leaving a rating over there would be wonderful, as well! Thank you so much! We are so grateful for your support and encouragement and we hope you are finding the books informative, useful, and fun!
In Our Gardens
Sheryl:
Well, the first frost has already happened here in Calgary and so I’ve been watching the forecast like a hawk and covering the tomatoes as required. I swear, my tomatoes have been covered nearly the whole growing season – first, to protect them against the threat of multiple hailstorms, and now this! I have already harvested a pleasantly sizeable yield of ripe and ready currant tomatoes and my husband and I have been enjoying them in salads and I’ve been taking them to work just to snack on. I’m still waiting on my precious ‘Black Krim’ tomatoes, though…they are still green and I’m waiting on a bit of a blush to happen. If you pick them when they are TOO green, they won’t ripen indoors…you have to reach that special threshold.
I have picked quite a few lovely zucchinis over the past several weeks and they’ve been cooked up in various ways in my kitchen. Did you know that you can shred zucchini, drain the excess water from it, then pack it into bags and freeze it for later use? It’s a good solution if you’re swimming in summer squash! I saw a great tip in the Alberta Gardening group on Facebook last week from a gardener who goes one step further and freezes the shredded zucchini after packing it into the cups of a muffin tin. When it’s ready, she just snaps out the iced zuke pops, bags them individually, and puts them back in the freezer. Nice and tidy and ready for that chocolate zucchini cake at a moment’s notice!
And I’ve been saving seeds…calendula, dill, nasturtiums, beans, and sweet peas so far. I can’t stress enough the importance of labelling the plants that you want to save seed from so that you can easily locate them later on when they’ve stopped blooming. This year, I just tucked in some old wooden skewers I had kicking around and fashioned a tag with a piece of coloured tape. I wrote the colour of the flowers on the tape – for example: a calendula with DBL (double flowers) with BRN CENT (brown centres). I planted several types of calendula this year and wanted to differentiate the doubles from the singles, and identify the colours. I also had several colours of nasturtiums, so I tagged them to remind myself where the red ones were in the sea of cream-coloured ones. You’ll be sure to come up with a labelling system of your own – just remember to do it in advance, as it makes seed saving much easier. I always think I am going to remember the exact location of everything but I never do….
If you’re planning to save seed from your sweet peas, I’ve done up a little video with some tips – check it out:
And I’m talking about saving dill seed here:
Floral Miscellany
Sheryl:
Did you know…that hawthorn berries are not really berries at all? They are pomes. (Apples and pears are pomes, too). Hawthorn berries are commonly called “haws”; rather reminiscent of the ‘’hips” from roses. (And, in fact, hawthorns are related to both apples and roses – they’re in the same family). Right now, you’ll be seeing the bright red fruit on hawthorn trees growing on the prairies – they look a bit like tiny ornamental crabapples or indeed, like oversized rose hips. I’ve been experimenting with making jelly from hawthorn berries…stay tuned for a blog post containing the recipe!
Get Social with Us!
Sheryl:
Janet:
Facebook: calgaryscottagegardener
Instagram: calgaryscottagegardener
‘Til later! ♥Sheryl and Janet
Nasturtiums are always tucked into my vegetable garden. They are bountiful seed producers, and although I give away plenty, I still always have huge envelopes stuffed with seeds…so I’m a bit free with the sowing. I love how they bloom abundantly and beautifully right up until frost takes them.
You can eat the green seeds, if you’re so inclined – they are fabulous pickled if you’re into their unique peppery taste. The flowers have the same flavour, albeit milder, and are often used in green salads. This year, I was keen on making an infused vinegar with them, along the lines of the one I make from chive flowers.
All you need are two ingredients and a clean, sterilized jar with a tightly fitting lid and you’re good to go. Wash the nasturtium blossoms to get rid of all the insects and soil and other assorted things we don’t want to eat, then pack them tightly into a mason jar. Add white wine vinegar (my recommendation) or plain white vinegar and seal the jar. Place it in a cool, dark cupboard for about two weeks, then strain the flowers from the vinegar and discard them. Label the vinegar and keep it in the fridge. Aim to use it up within two to three months.
Do you grow nasturtiums in your garden? Do you eat them?
