Organic Granny

Growing stuff from your lunch fruit and veggies is a great idea! That lettuce and tomato sandwich you are planning for lunch could potentially give you back several times more lettuce leaves and tomato slices than you started with. And showing a friend or grandchild how you grew your tomato from seeds that you gently removed before you made a sandwich, well, wouldn't that be fun? Before you get going with the growing, here are a few tips: Choose a nice ripe heirloom variety of tomato to purchase ... the riper, the better, and if it is a heirloom (very old strain of seed that hasn't been tampered with, we're assuming) the seeds will more likely germinate, and grow into a "true" fruit-- something you will recognize as being like the tomato you had on your sandwich.  You may have to pay a little more, but you will enjoy the tomato on your sandwich, plus you will be assured of its 'coming back'.  If you buy it in tomato harvest season from a farm gate (t

Most of us avocado-lovers have at least tried to grow an avocado plant from a pit with 4 toothpicks resting along the rim of a jar of water .  As below: Courtesy of Wikipedia Some of us have had luck in that the pit sprouted within about six weeks and we were able to transfer the sprouted pit to a pot of soil and have a "tree" grow in the container.  Some of us faithfully kept the tepid water going and never saw a sprout, ever, until we finally faced the music and threw the fruitless pit away! The avocado plant was a big hit in the 70s when I was at University.  As I recall, avocados had only fairly recently been introduced as edible fare into our Vancouver mindsets, and we were thrilled and excited by any sort of potted plants that would grow in our cozy apartment windows.  The exotic pit of the avocado suspended over tepid water, broad end down, brought up all kinds of fantasies of producing our own prolific avocado trees, in a container in said cozy apartment.  T

  Growing an apple tree from seeds seems like a no-brainer way to grow an apple orchard- - or at least one great gnarly tree you could sling up a swing on for the future grandkids. Didn't that dude Johnny Appleseed just go about the USA flinging his seeds into the breeze, and aren't like 75% of all apple trees growing today a result of that expedition?  Well... no. No. Growing an actual APPLE-BEARING apple tree from the seeds you just popped from your coffee-break fruit into a hanky is a lot rarer an experience than you might think. BUT you can grow a tiny tree with shiny green leaves , and if you want to do a little more work and study, you can use this small tree as "root stock" for growing an apple tree that will possible produce edible apples (suggested: a dwarf apple tree). BUT in the meantime, why not go ahead and root those apple seeds just for the fun of seeing the little thing grow in a pot on your windowsill or deck? And maybe you will prove m

So, you want to grow a garden using food scraps -- the parts of fruits and veggies that get tossed after the good bits have made it into the stew or the salad. It makes so much sense, doesn't it? You don't have much room, in fact you don't have a yard. You don't have much spare money, but you do have all these leftovers from your last shop at Wholefoods, some have gone hairy in the fridge, some never did make the grade for the school lunch.  Or maybe you do have a yard and you would like it to contain an orchard of your favorite apples or a luscious cherry tree dripping fruits onto the table on your deck.  Well... let's take a look at 15 (at least) veggies and fruits that it is possible for you to propagate from scraps (the parts of the fresh fruits and veggies that you are not using when you cook or snack on them) or through cuttings from generous neighbours and various other fun and free sources ... Just click below on the fruits and vegetables you are in

Recently a Facebook friend posted a picture of her supper: a spaghetti squash enchilada just oozing cheese from all angles... she apologized that it wasn't a fancy presentation. It looked so comfort-food yummy that I knew that it would be my next planned meal. I have made quite a few 'adaptations' to the ingredients, and you can too. Just know that it turns out absolutely delicious with very little effort!  I went shopping and found Amy's brand canned chili (vegan)(organic) on sale at my local wholefood store ( Edible Island in Courtenay, BC) You could make your own chili-- maybe you even have some in the fridge?  Amy's Medium Hot Chili made with tofu has all the spices and ingredients that I was looking for, so I liked the convenience of opening the can this one meal. Ingredients: Squash (I used an Acorn Squash) Red Bell Pepper 14 oz can Amy's brand Organic Medium Hot Chili with Tofu 1 C. Frozen Corn Niblets Daiya Cheese shreds (I used Mozzarella

Yes, Fig-Quince-Ginger Jam sounds pretty darned exotic from the blog of a granny living on the currently rainy Vancouver Island off the West Coast of Canada.    Especially exotic when you realize that I didn't even know that I was growing a quince tree in our backyard! We thought we had planted a PEAR tree.  This is the first year that these hard, furry, bulbous fruits produced more than a couple of little fall-offs.  And I still thought they were pears until I saw a friend's show piece on quinces that she harvested. A second crop of Green Figs Katsikopoulos Dimitris So, this is brand new territory!  I also have a fig tree , as you will know from blogs past, so I went looking for fig-quince jam recipes.  We have a second crop of these little green figs.  My husband is a real "fig pig" but I'm kind of 'meh' about them.  Jam is always good though. If you don't have a quince source and just want to make some Fig Ginger Jam

Today we have teeny yellow (and red) tomatoes coming out our yin-yan. I am joyful with such abundance during a year of drought, and grateful for the friends who passed the wonderful little yellow tomato starter plants on to us (when we had opted not to grow tomatoes this year after a couple of bleak harvests). These tomatoes were labeled "Tumblers".  My gardener-daughter-in-law was here earlier in the summer and exclaimed several times over how sweet and tasty the tiny yellow tomatoes were.. like candy.  Could she have some of the seed? Soooo.... I am saving seeds... and with a method that will work for any other tiny tomato (grape, cherry, etc.). HARVEST: For the best possible seed production, let your fruit ripen on the vine if at all possible (and you know that it happens quickly with these little tomatoes).   If you want to ripen the little guys you save from the first frost, they WILL ripen, but slowly, and in a cool, dry location. Seeds will always b