Thank you to everyone who attended the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society Fruit, Flower and Vegetable Show! We were so glad to see you at this event! It is always a great deal of work to put on a show, so we are very pleased when our gardening friends attend and are part of the fun! This has been a challenging year in many ways, but we are happy to share the “best of the garden” with you at the show! Thank you to everyone who brought in entries, to all who brought lunch, to all the people who helped set-up, take-down, and serve lunch to our guests, and everyone who helped in any way!
Congratulations to the Kamsack Horticultural Society for hosting the Saskatchewan Horticultural Association’s 73rd Annual Provincial Show last week. That was a big project and we know everyone had to be involved to make it a success — well done, Kamsack!
You know how you read about certain baby names that not used much anymore because some parents like more “contemporary” names? The old names are still beautiful but often get bypassed. I think it is like that in our gardens; of course we always want to try something new, but sometimes we forget about the great “tried and true” plants.
To me, nasturtiums would fall into this group. When I was on my tour the other day, I stopped to look at our row of nasturtiums, which somehow, suddenly, sprang into great beauty after weeks of hardly being noticed. If you grow nasturtiums, you know how lovely they are: bright, exotic-looking ruffled blooms, and flying-saucer leaves. And could they be any easier to grow?
Time for some homework: nasturtiums originally called South America home, but were taken to Spain around 1569. Even long ago, they were used in salads, because their flavor was like the bitter but tasty cress. The flowers are described as “bisexual and zygomorphic”: “bisexual” meaning that they have both male and female reproductive organs, stamens and ovaries; and “zygomorphic” meaning that the flowers have two halves that are mirror-images of each other.
Some types grow as clumps, some are more rambling, and they are treated like annuals in our climate.
Nasturtiums do well in full sun, poor soil, and dry conditions. I read somewhere that if they are planted in rich soil, we will get a lot of foliage and not that many blooms. I can see this in our garden, because the site of our nasturtiums is where we once had a large compost pile, and the nasturtium foliage is very robust in that rich soil!
Salad lovers will know that nasturtium blooms are edible, as are the leaves and buds. The flavor of nasturtiums is peppery, which is a lovely contract to sweeter and milder lettuces. I read that you can add a delightful flavor to a sandwich by using a nasturtium blossom instead of mustard. Beauty, and great flavor! Not only that, but the leaves are high in vitamin C, and if you make them into a tea, they may be helpful when you have a cold.
I found an interesting recipe for stuffed nasturtium leaves, and a recipe for stuffed nasturtium blossoms — visit our website at www.yorktonhort.ca to check them out.
So if nasturtiums are one of your “garden babies” that you have overlooked for something new, make a note in your garden journal to plant them next year! They’re beautiful and completely user-friendly!
Have a great week, and enjoy your garden!
