Featured Plant: Ocimum spp: Basil by Anita Waghani & Laura Matter, Seattle Tilth

This year as you plant your tasty tomatoes in the sunniest spots in your garden beds, leave a little bit of space in the sun for the king of summer: Ocimum basilicum, or basil. This tasty herb has quite a history in culinary circles, medicinally and in folklore from around the world.

 Originally believed to have come from Asia and Africa to Greece in Alexander the Great’s time (circa 340 BC), it has since traveled the world and become a beloved part of many different cultures’ meals. Who hasn’t enjoyed the deliciousness of Pasta con Pesto or a Thai curry that is steeped in fresh basil or a soothing, healing cup of tulsi ginger chai?

 Interestingly, basil has been associated by different cultures with conflicting emotions (hatred and love), the ability to both protect against the danger and enhance the breeding potential of scorpions and the strength to ward off evil or, conversely, the ability to encourage verbal ranting when planting it to have a successful growing season. In some sense, this makes it a well-rounded herb, adapted to all contingencies of human whim and extravagance. 

 According to the WIKI website “Witchipedia”, basil can enhance astral projection or even assist your ride on a flying broom. Make sure to save a little bit of basil for Halloween night!

 For financial prosperity, try tucking a fragrant basil leaf into your wallet or back pocket — at the very least, you will enjoy the smell.

 However you choose to assign your loyalty to basil, be sure to learn about this plant’s needs so you can grow it successfully.

 Full of Flavors

 Chemically speaking, basil has three main flavor profiles derived from different compounds in the plant: sweet or anise-like, floral and spicy or clove-like. Basil also boasts rose, thyme, lemon and camphor to its profile. No wonder we are so devoted!

 There are many different cultivars of our most familiar sweet basil, O. basilicum, including ones with purple leaves, ruffled leaves, small and large leaves. Thai basil is a purple-stemmed and green-leaved variety, with a more upright and sturdy profile than the more-familiar Italian varieties.

 Holy basil, Ocimum tenuiflorum (previously known as O. sanctum), has a devoted following of its own, being closely entwined with the complicated love story of Vishnu and Tulasi in Hindu lore. My earliest memory of tulsi (holy basil) comes from playing with my grandma’s tulsi beads necklace, called Kanthi, when I was four. On my travels recently I was fortunate to visit Tanshikar, a working spice farm stewarded by Chinmay and Gauri. The picture is of the tulsi that is planted in the center courtyard of their beautiful ecological home. Gauri starts her day by first worshiping the plant. Chinmay mentioned, “Having this plant inside their home cleans air and infuses it with oxygen 24/7 during the day through photosynthesis and at night by a process called CAM (Crassulasian Acid Metabolism).”  Holy basil is used for religious and medicinal purposes and is often brewed as a restorative relaxing tea.

There are different types of tulsi:  Rama green leaf (mellow tasting), Krishna purple leaf (peppery), Vana wild variety and Kapoor heavy flowered (pollinator friendly). I have used them interchangeably in the teas, though the flavors vary a bit.

 The classic pesto choice is either Italian large leaf or Genovese basil. Thai basil is best for a green curry dish or other spicy and warming dishes. All types of basil belong to the mint family (Lamiaceae) and are recognizable as such by their obviously squared stems. They are grown as an annual, and because they are not tolerant of cold soil and weather, you must wait until the “queen of summer” (tulsi) has arrived to receive her king (sweet basil). The king and queen of summer are a natural pair in the summer garden.

 In Your Garden

 Provide basil with well-draining and healthy soil in a sunny space. Plant it on a cool morning, and water it well after.

 If you purchase a pot of basil with many plants growing in one pot, take the time to separate them, since each seedling will make one large basil plant at maturity. Check it every few days after planting to make sure it does not dry completely out as it adjusts to its new life in your garden.  Apply a dilute seaweed fertilizer for a strong and sturdy plant. These liquid kelp-based products can be added to the watering bucket weekly.

 Because basil is an annual, your plant will make attempts all summer long to go to flower and then to seed. It is crucial to pinch out the flowers as they appear on the tips of the branches to prevent them from completing their reproductive goal. Once seeded, the plant loses flavor and will decline. Use the trimmings as a flavor enhancer in your iced tea or as a little spice for your dinner salad.

 Pinching the flower tops or even taking a snip a few leaf pairs down the stem will also create a bushier plant, with more branches to harvest later. A good strategy is to continue to prune all summer long this way and then pull the whole plant for harvest before the cold weather hits in the fall.

 In this area, pulling basil by the end of September before the rainy season hits is optimal. Holy basil is an anomaly to this type of management, as the spiritual strength of the plant is believed at its peak when in full bloom. To maintain the integrity of Holy basil, grow it as a short-lived annual. Just be sure to plant lots of it at intervals from June to July so you have plants to harvest all summer long. This year I brought the pot inside for winter and the plant is thriving!

 Preserving Precious Plants

 Basil is a relatively problem-free plant if cared for properly. If aphids, white fly or spider mites pester your basil, it is likely your plants are water-stressed and the soil is too dry. Conversely, if you find black spots on the leaves and limp stems and leaves on the plant, your basil’s soil likely needs to dry a little between watering, the drainage needs improvement or the plants need more direct sun. Six hours of sun daily is best for a healthy plant with the most flavorful oil content.

To combat slug and snail damage, try trapping with beer or yeast in small plastic containers sunk into the soil by the plants. The snails and slugs are attracted to the trap and fall in and drown. Simply bury them once you have filled the cup. Or place wood shingles on an angle on the soil, leaving a gap underneath for the slugs and snails to shelter from the sun. Pick the shingle up and flip it over, harvest your crop of mollusks and toss them into your yard-waste bin, where they can munch their way to compost heaven.

 Harvesting Your Basil

 In the fall, when it is time to harvest, pull the entire plant from your garden and strip the leaves for drying or freezing. To keep some stems for fresh use, trim the branch from the whole plant and set it into a glass of fresh water. Keep the water clean and you can enjoy fresh leaves for a week.

 To dry, try a food dehydrator, ensuring even heat and complete dehydration to avoid spoilage.

A simple way to preserve the fresh flavor of basil with a minimum of effort is to chop the basil into small strips, mix it with olive oil and freeze the mixture in ice cube trays. You can pull these out later and add to anything that requires some fresh basil flavor.

 Pesto making, an annual ritual for many gardeners, can stretch your basil harvest into a plethora of tasty treats for wintertime meals. And the kitchen will smell like heaven.

To learn more about all the fine details of basil visit the Herb Society of America’s basil guide.

For one-on-one advice about your basil growing adventures, call the Garden Hotline at (206) 633-0224 or visit our website: www.gardenhotline.org.

And if you have any extra basil this summer, stop by the learning garden at McAuliffe Park any Thursday between 10 am and 2 pm  in person and share a stem or two!

 LAURA MATTER is an educator and Garden Hotline program coordinator for Seattle Tilth (www.seattletilth.org).

 ANITA WAGHANI  leads the Soil and Water Stewardship program and the learning garden in Kirkland at McAuliffe Park, sharing with the community how to grow food organically and sustainably. 

My Favorite Bulbs by Carleen Cafferty

At the Heritage Garden hundreds of bulbs have been planted, and they are now under a bed of compost. You'll discover many different tulips and daffodils, along with my favorite bulbs: Crocus tommasinianus (called Tommies for short), Galanthus nivalis (snow drops) and 'Tete-a-Tete' daffodils. My favorites are also the easiest to grow and multiply in your garden, without any effort by you. The crocuses and snow drops freely seed or naturalize! This means that when they mature, the flowers produce seeds, and the seeds germinate and spread all over your garden and into your lawn.

I lived in a home where horticulturist Mr. Brehm had lived. He designed the garden beautifully and one of the things he planted were the Tommies and the snow drops. The bulbs were everywhere. Any time I shared plants with friends, there were bulbs in the soil. The wonderful thing is that they are the first bulbs to come up in the spring, and as a bonus, deer, rabbits, and squirrels rarely bother them. When there was a sunny day, I would go out in the yard to admire the crocuses. The loud buzzing of the bees enjoying the flowers was something I will never forget.

The 'Tete-a-Tete' daffodils are also a favorite of mine, in that their bulbs naturalize and are also deer and rabbit resistant. They are prolific bloomers with two or three flowers per stem. They also are short, 6 to 8” tall, so they do not fall over and need to be staked. So, if you plant a small grouping of 5 bulbs, in a few years you will have a beautiful large clump.

When all of these bulbs have died down, and are just dried up leaves, it is easy to remove the smaller leaves in your garden. With larger bulbs I find it a hassle to wait for the long stems to finally die down.

I now live in a home with a much smaller garden. I keep planting more and more of these bulbs every year. I’d love to get that lovely purple field of Tommies happening in this garden. It took years to get the picture shown.

I wish you success in your garden with these easy-to-grow bulbs.

How Did Tulips Get to the Heritage Garden? By Lena Wegner

This spring the Heritage Garden, will again be sparkling with thousands of colorful tulips. A brief history of their journey to Sammamish follows:

The tulip (Tulipa) is a member of the lily family. In the wild it grows over large areas in the high plains of Asia. It likes a temperate climate with cool springs and dry summers. Tulips flower in spring, go dormant in summer, and new shoots emerge from underground the next spring.

By the year 1000 AD tulips had spread from their native area, and were widely grown in the Ottoman empire. Persians cultivated tulips in 1055 in Constantinople; sultans had famous tulip gardens and the flower became deeply embedded in their culture. It was mentioned in poetry (Omar Khayyam) and was pictured on coins. The flower became the symbol of the Ottoman empire.  (Click here to continue reading on our website about tulips and tulip mania in Europe.)

Tulip introduction in to Europe cannot be traced with certainty.  One theory is that the Viennese ambassador to Turkey in 1551 sent bulbs to Vienna, another theory is that tulips were introduced into Europe in 1554 by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, ruler of the Ottoman Empire when he sent both tulip bulbs and seeds to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in Vienna.

When noted French botanist Carolus Clusius in 1573 planted tulips in the Vienna Imperial Garden, he started the spread of the plant throughout Europe. Clusius was then hired by the University of Leiden in Holland, and he is credited with having planted the first tulips in Holland. In 1593 he planted both a tulip teaching garden and his own private tulip garden. He was very protective of his plants; he neither gave any of the bulbs away nor sold them.  Tulips were highly prized by that time and had risen to status symbols. They were still very rare. This atmosphere led to two raids on Clusius’ garden when over 100 bulbs were stolen. These Leiden tulips eventually led to Tulip Mania and the tulip industry in Holland.     

Tulip Mania started in Holland in 1634, during the Dutch “Golden Age”, when the country engaged in thriving commerce and world trade. The Dutch had been freed from Spanish rule and could now accumulate wealth.

Tulip bulbs began to command fantastic prices. In an article on the history of the tulip the University of Missouri cites the sales transaction for a single bulb as follows: “two loads of wheat; four loads of rye; four fat oxen; five swine; twelve sheep; two hogsheads of wine; four barrels of beer; two barrels of butter; 1,000 pounds of cheese; a bed with linen; a suit of clothes; a silver tankard and a sizable wagon to haul it all away.”

Particularly prized were so called “broken tulips”, tulips that had colored stripes. Growers did not realize that the striping was caused by a virus which weakens the bulb and causes it to have fewer offsets. Pictured on the right is the Viceroy image, displayed in the 1637 Dutch catalogue Verzameling van een Meenigte Tulipaanen. Its bulb was offered for sale for between 3,000 and 4,200 guilders (florins) depending on weight (gewooge). A skilled craftsworker at the time earned about 300 guilders a year. (Today’s variegated tulips do not carry the virus. Their coloring is achieved through breeding.)

Speculation was rampant, price movements were published daily like stock quotes today. When the more prudent investors began to sell their vastly overpriced bulbs, the bubble burst, prices went down fast; the year 1637 saw the end of Tulip Mania, but the tulip industry survived. On the left below is a watercolor  of the Semper Augustus, famous for being the most expensive tulip sold during the tulip mania.

Information on the introduction of the tulip into America varies widely. Tulips were mentioned as growing in Colonial Williamsburg, but more often it is cited as having occurred in the middle of the 19th century.

In our northwest area tulip cultivation reportedly began in 1883 when seventeen-year-old George Gibbs migrated from England to Orcas Island.  He rented some acreage for $10 a year to grow apples and hazelnuts. Nine years later he bought “a hand full of flower bulbs” for $5 which he planted.  When he dug them up 2 years later they had multiplied.   He wrote to Holland for advice on how to grow them, but the Dutch were secretive and did not respond.  He sent some bulbs to Holland anyway, amazing the Dutch when they saw the large, healthy bulbs.  A delegation traveled over here to see for themselves how it happened that tulip bulbs grew successfully outside of Holland. 

Gibbs moved to the mainland and in 1899 applied to the US Department of Agriculture to help him start the tulip industry. The Department liked his idea and bought 15,000 bulbs in Holland as an experiment, then contracted with Gibbs to raise them.  The experiment was a success. 

Featured Plant: Tasty Tomato Tips by Janelle Deutsch

Years ago, I joined the Pine Lake Garden Club (PLGC) to learn about various plants and how to improve garden skills. As it turned out, the PLGC had an annual plant sale that May. It was suggested that members should participate, so I did. My entrepreneurial instincts guided me to plants that people liked to eat in the summer and tomatoes were at the top of my list. Unfortunately, my first attempts at growing tomatoes were only mediocre. My tomatoes were not overly sweet, and I was getting blossom-end rot, a disorder caused by a calcium imbalance that turns the blossom end of a tomato black. Luckily, I had a wonderful conversation with a Master Gardener about my tomato woes and she gave me some very sage advice. She told me to use the growing methods that indigenous people have used for centuries. Namely, dig a hole and put a dead fish in it and then plant the tomato in the same hole. She also told me to use some Epsom salt. The combination of the two provide nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, potassium, magnesium and other good stuff for the tomato. Since she gave me that advice, I have used that growing method with great success. Here are my tips for growing tasty tomatoes.

1. In March select a sunny spot for your tomatoes and add calcium to the soil (e.g., eggshells, calcium spray such as Rot-Stop). Make sure the soil drains well and has plenty of compost in it.

2. In May, dig a deep hole in the calcium enriched soil and drop a small dead fish in it. I use fish parts that I purchase at the fish counter at the grocery store.

3. Put a thin layer of soil over the fish and then add ¼ cup of Epsom salt.

4. Add soil over the Epsom salt and then plant your tomato start. I use baby tomato plants that I started from seed indoors. I particularly like seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds.

5. Pack down the soil around the tomato plant and give it a good watering.

6. Over the summer, give your tomato plants some organic fertilizer. I use Dr. Earth Pump and Grow for tomatoes, vegetables and herbs. Use as directed.

7. Water the tomatoes on a regular basis.

8. I tie up my wandering tomato branches to a chicken wire fence that surrounds my garden. This allows the fruit to absorb the sun’s heat and ripen more quickly.

9. Avoid planting tomatoes in the same spot that was used the year before. It's best to rotate tomatoes to avoid soil fungus disease and insect pests. Diseases can build up in a spot if tomatoes are planted in the same place year after year. Insects can select a specific plant that is located in the same spot as well.

The tomato is the edible berry of the plantSolanum lycopersicum, commonly known as a tomato plant. The tomato is considered a fruit but some list it as a vegetable for nutritional reasons. The species originated in South America and Central America. During the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Spanish brought the plant to Europe (similar to the introduction of the dahlia plant). From there, the tomato was made popular in other parts of the European-colonized world.

Tomatoes are a good source of vitamin C and the phytochemical lycopene. There are so many varieties and uses for tomatoes. Hopefully, with these tomato tips, you can grow tasty tomatoes that you will enjoy. Happy Gardening!

Old Garden Roses

While weeding in the garden, I’ve wondered why we are drawn to certain plants.  My guess is it’s pleasant to remember the gardens from our childhoods.  I prefer iris, peonies and roses because that’s what my dad grew.  Imagine leaving everything behind forever to start a homestead in a new land, either today or centuries earlier.  Malaysia was home to my husband, who appreciates the hardy banana in our garden.  Plants give us connections to our “roots”.

The Rose Bed.  In the Heritage Garden, we have focused on roses which would have been brought by early pioneers to Seattle well over 120 years ago.  These roses are called Old Garden Roses (OGRs).  They are the roses known prior to 1867, the date of the first hybrid rose.  OGRs are divided into many classes.  You’ll find eight different roses, with signage noting classification and dates in our bed.

We think of hybrid roses as fussy in Sammamish – needing water, fertilizer and even with extra care, we end up with unhealthy black spotted leaves.  You might try Old Garden Roses instead.  In general they are more fragrant, disease resistant, drought tolerant and, most importantly, often more deer resistant.  In abandoned cemeteries along the Oregon Trail, there are still stands of OGRs, able to survive without human hands.

Two of our roses originated from the Alexander House on the banks of Lake Sammamish from over 100 years ago.  These two roses were propagated by Ilse Burch and donated by the Sammamish Heritage Society, which bookend the rose bed.  This pink multi-petaled rose is tentatively identified as a Damask rose:  Damask perpetual 'Sidonie'.

From the Olmstead Gardens in Ellensburg, we have a yellow bloomer called the Harison’s Yellow, or the Oregon Trail rose, which was most likely brought by wagon train and grown from rose slips (a soft wood cutting) or rose hips (the rounded fruit of the rose which contains rose seeds).  The Olmstead Garden also donated our ‘White Pet’ Polyantha rose.

A new-to-me rose in the Heritage Garden is the Moss Rose which is easy to identify by the mossy looking growth on the sepals and stems. Ours is ‘Capitaine John Ingram’ from 1862, obtained from Rose Lee of Rosebriar Garden and Design.

Companion Planting.  Our aim in the garden is to demonstrate methods which keep harm at bay without modern intervention.  Many annuals help to decrease the presence of insects and furry pests, while providing nutrition and cooling the soil.  OGRs usually have a one season flush rather than the continual blooms of hybrids.  To add interest to the garden, we have planted nasturtiums in the rose bed which attract some pests (aphids) and also the beneficial insects.  Companion planting was used extensively by indigenous populations, also demonstrated with the three sisters grouping in the Children’s Garden: corn, beans and squash.

Medicine.  In addition to bringing memories of home, roses also served a medicinal purpose in the household.  The rose hips are harvested for tonics, rich in Vitamin C.  We have a rose in our medicinal herb bed called the Apothecary’s Rose (Rosa gallica var. officinalis) which has served this purpose for centuries, originating in the Middle East.  It was used for tonics, teas, jellies and fragrant oil.

Come to visit the garden to see all the roses.  We have gained knowledge from Heritage Roses Northwest, the above-mentioned gardeners and from member research.  Although these roses usually bloom once in late spring, their benefits may make them the favorite rose in your “homestead”.