Grow Nasturtiums for Beauty and Food

Nasturtiums are beautiful flowers, strong and spicey in smell and taste. The flowers, leaves and seeds are all edible. Here are a few tips for growing them in your backyard grocery garden:

• they needs lots of water


• they needs lots of sun


• they DON'T need a rich soil


• plant near zucchini and other squash to repel the dreaded squash bug


• if you plan on consuming any part of the plant, you need to raise it like any other food plant: no pesticides or herbicides


• the flowers can also be used as a wound disinfectant

I can't find any nutritional information on these. Does anyone know if the nasturtium seeds have any protein? I would think they do.

Nasturtiums will make a beautiful addition to your herb garden. Or your salad garden!

NOTE: for recipes on eating nasturtium flowers, leaves and seeds, click here: http://www.survival-cooking.com/2009/06/using-nasturtiums-flowers-and-leaves.html

Hot Banana Pepper Planted

We read that the color yellow in the front yard gives a great sense of calmness to prospective buyers. Our front yard is weird shaped, being on a corner lot, and has three tiers of raised beds in front of the front porch.

On the top row we HAD planted roses last year but my brown thumb killed them. So 2 weeks ago I planted yellow marigolds on the top tier. I'm hoping they will become bushy in the next few weeks - here's hoping!

The middle tier is a little tricky. Sometimes I need to walk on it to get to the top tier. Right now, it has crocuses, tulips and 5-o'clocks growing (from previous owners). They'll be dead/gone soon. So when that happens, probably in a couple of weeks, I'll sow the middle tier with some kind of vining yellow winter squash, like maybe spaghetti or butternut squash. That will make it green there and provide a few dots of yellow color.

In the bottom bed, I planted a hot banana pepper plant. I don't really care for peppers of any kind, and can't stand the heat of hot peppers, but I'm hoping the beautiful colors of the yellow banana peppers will help us sell the house. If no one comes before the peppers are ready, I guess I'm giving them away! Next week, in this tier, I'll also be planting some yellow crookneck (or straightneck?) summer squash to also provide more yellow and to give us yummy squash to eat!

Now if the weather will just cooperate!

Oh, and my Hubby needs to fix our outdoor water faucet since the workmen at a new neighbor's house killed it during the winter. Money money money!