Take everything you thought you knew about the taste of fresh strawberries and throw it out the window. You know nothing! Nothing at all!! Not until you have tasted an Alpine Strawberry can you speak to me about the amazing goodness of strawberry flavor. They’re like candy, but so much better. It’s strawberry, but like strawberry flavor on steroids. There is just no comparison.
Continue reading Alpine Strawberry (Fragaria vesca)
Most gardening blogs don’t relate to me. I don’t have deer, I have snails. I don’t have 10 feet of snow in November, it’s sunny and the windows are open. I can’t start spinach in April, it’s too dang hot.
Continue reading The Winter Garden
Purple pesto, anyone? Deep purple color, sprays of pink flowers, amazing basil taste. It’s kind of nice when nature wraps up all the best features into a single plant. This basil makes a stunning addition to any salad and turned my basil jelly a lovely garnet hue.
Continue reading Purple Basil (Ocimum basilicum var.)
Salvias (sages) are a wide-ranging group of plants native to a variety of habitats around the world. What they seem to have in common are brightly colored, tubular shaped flowers that hummingbirds and butterflies just love. This particular Sage is no exception, and has the added bonus of sweet smelling leaves that give off a pineapple scent (hence the name). The leaves and flowers are both edible, and are usually used fresh.
Continue reading Pineapple Sage (Salvia elegans)
![20171019_172357[1]](https://mostly-greek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/20171019_1723571-e1508540989829.jpg?w=512&h=357)
The majority of plants can handle soil that is near a neutral pH, but some are really picky and they will let you know before long if you don’t give them the soil environment that they need. Stunted growth and yellowing leaves are some of the more common signs that your soil pH is not where it should be.
Continue reading Home-Made Soil Acidifier
Pears are fussy things. Every fall you wait for them to get past the hard and tasteless stage and to move on to juicy tenderness, and just when you think you nailed that perfect moment, it turns out you completely missed it and you wind up with mushy or mealy blobs. Ugh. Continue reading Baked Pears
We inherited these trees when we moved into this house roughly a decade ago. We actually had nine, but a desire to completely change the landscaping on the entire property has whittled that number down to two. No regrets.
Continue reading Liquidambar (Liquidambar styraciflua)
Most definitely friend!! Though this bizarre looking creature may give you the heebie-jeebies just looking at it, you will want to welcome them with open arms. You are looking at the juvenile stage of everyone’s favorite aphid-eater: the ladybug!
Continue reading Friend or Foe? Ladybug (Coccinellidae)
Imagine you’re living in a small Greek village. It’s summer, the rising sun is warming the air, birds are starting their morning routine, and you are awoken by the braying of a donkey and the cackling of a proud hen that has just laid her egg for the day. What do you do? You go make breakfast, because with all that noise you aren’t falling back asleep anytime soon!
Continue reading Eggs with Tomatoes and Feta (Strapatsada)
It was by pure accident that I discovered California fuchsias. The Old Man and I were in the process of transforming our dull, and rather dead (thank you drought), yard into a more water-wise and heat tolerant landscape. An internet search for drought tolerant plants to use led us to the discovery of a nursery, not too terribly far away in the neighboring foothills, that specializes in California native plants, which by their nature are rather used to not getting much rain.
Continue reading California Fuchsia “Silver Select” (Epilobium canum ssp.)
Mostly Greek 