A taste of paradise

Discover the secret to a flourishing garden by pairing your tomato plants with companion plants that offer mutual benefits. From pest control to nutrient enhancement, the right Plants with Tomatoes can elevate your tomatoes from good to great.

Mario Tama / Staff

Towards the end of June, I received some seeds from Dobies to trial. I chose varieties that could be sown later in the year, but at the point at which they arrived I didn’t have a garden. The paving was finished, but the raised beds weren’t yet built. I chose to sow only the nasturtiums – Princess of India and Alaska.

Sprouting broccoli is not the usual sort of broccoli you’d find in the supermarket. Those big heads of tight green florets are heading broccoli, also known as calabrese. Sprouting broccoli is a much more majestic plant, taller and hardier and giving a generous harvest of small florets in early spring, when the kitchen garden struggles to put food on your table.

Thompson & Morgan is launching two intriguing new winter squash varieties that they say taste just like mashed/baked potato when they’re cooked. As an alternative to potato, they contain fewer calories and less carbohydrate, but more fibre. T&M think they’re on to a winner with these, given the trends towards healthy eating, plant-based diets and home-grown vegetables.

On Saturday, ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer shared a taste of home with the rest of the crew of the International Space Station (ISS). Maurer is from Saarland, a forested, southwestern German state. Saarland is named after the Saar River, a tributary of the Moselle, and Saarland is considered part of the greater Moselle wine region.

The seeds of Islamic gardens grew from Persian gardens that were created to be oasis in the desert. Islam spread the sphere of influence to India, Turkey, and Spain from the Taj Mahal to Alhambra.

The fruits of ‘Juliet’ are somewhere between a plum and a grape or cherry type of tomato— just 2 inches long or so—and borne in clusters of 12 to 18. They’re small enough that I simply halved them (above) for the skins-and-all quick tomato sauce that I freeze 40 containers of each year. I am fascinated with this rich-tasting little plum, now bubbling happily on the stove. Johnny’s Selected Seed rated indeterminate ‘Juliet’ as their most disease-resistant variety in trials (no small honor), I learned today.I have Roberto Flores, the self-proclaimed Dirtmeister at Good Dogs Farm in Ashley Falls, Massachusetts, to thank for growing the brimming bag of ‘Juliet,’ and my crafty neighbor Susan Schneider of Shandell’s, who scooped them up for me yesterday, knowing I’d been complaining about being a bag or two short. And I have the Millerton, New York, farmers’ market to thank, too—appreciation all around, friends.Have you grown ‘Juliet’ (pac

WHAT DO YOU SAY (AFTER ‘THANK YOU’) when someone sends you something thoughtful but, well, um, you’re just not an orange person? This latest doodle from Andre Jordan reminds me of all those holiday gifts I never wore but just couldn’t throw out, either.

CEDAR APPLE RUST is having a banner year here. So what do you do when you live with warring roommates? In the case of the back-and-forth rounds of battle between the towering Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) in my front yard and all apples and apple relatives around the place, nothing.Well, I do watch in fascination, especially at the stage of cedar apple rust above (a few weeks ago), when orange, almost gelatinous “telial horns” are developing where the cedar galls were last fall and winter. I don’t intervene, despite the havoc this fungus causes, particularly foliar damage and defoliation of apple relatives (the reason my shadbush, or Amelanchier, and my oldest of apples lose their leaves so early each year; the reason I don’t even try to grow hawthorns).Quince, crabapple and pear are some of the other plants similarly affected.

These Common Bird of Paradise Problems and Solutions will guide you into growing and maintaining a healthy specimen indoors and outdoors!

Lychee (Litchi chinensis) is native to Southern China and grown extensively in China, India, and other Southeast Asian countries. The tall evergreen plant can attain height up to 49-92 feet (15-28 meters). It has evergreen leaves that resist water. Small whitish or yellow-green flowers bloom in clusters usually in spring and early summer in warm climates.