Growing squash in bales

Several years ago I planted vegetables in straw bales as an experiment, and had pretty decent results, and again the next year with potatoes planted in the remains of the bales. What I did NOT like was how much seed was still in the bales and sprouted. I fought them for 2-3 years.

Two years ago I cleared a large area, laid down cardboard, covered it with 6" of alfalfa from some bales I purchased locally, and covered it all with 6" of wood chips. I had 2 bales of alfalfa left over and just stuck them in the barn.

This year I took those 2 aged bales out of the barn and planted winter squash in them. I'm totally astonished at the growth. In the photos, it's hard to see there are actually 2 plants but one is an acorn squash and the other is spaghetti squash.

The acorn squash isn't doing well, but there must be a dozen or so spaghetti squash growing on the other plant!

Raised Beds

Several years ago I made a straw bale garden, basically as a how-to for someone with limited mobility or even wheel-chair bound. It was pretty successful for growing vegetables, but I didn't repeat it due to all the weed seeds in the bales. I fought those damned weeds for 3+ more years.

About the same time, I saw an ad in the local paper for free small Japanese cedar shipping crates and I picked up about a dozen. My plan was to dismantle them and use the cedar slats for a chicken house, but taking just one apart was a nightmare. They used so many staples in the construction that much of the cedar split when taking one apart, and the wood was not useable except as kindling. 

The remaining crates have been just sitting in a stack at the end of the driveway for several years. 

Since my health has diminished, I finally decided to cut the crates down and use them for raised beds and make gardening/weeding a bit easier on this old woman.

This is the start of my small raised beds made from those Japanese cedar boxes. I'm still debating whether to put the cut-off tops in another row or two since they are the same size. I could nail the lids back on the tops and invert them so they'd all have bottoms but if I do, those would sit directly on the ground and perhaps rot sooner. (Not that that's a problem.) The bottom pieces (shown in the pics above) have 2x4's as part of the support under them, probably to make them easier to move with a forklift when they were full of car parts.

The bags and containers sitting in the crates are amendments (organic compost, worm castings, Greensand, Azomite, CalPhos, etc.) that I will add when I get a load of topsoil. The single crate with dirt already in it is lined with hardware cloth (welded wire mesh) and planted with sweet potato slips. I'm not sure that box is deep enough for root vegetables though, but I didn't have enough hardware cloth for one of the deeper boxes I cut specifically for root veggies.

All the boxes will get lined with fiberglass screening to keep most of the dirt from filtering out through the gaps in the slats. 

I have a few more crates sitting around that I can use if necessary to expand the raised bed area... some are on the front porch holding paper to start fires, kindling, and firewood. Keeps the porch looking less messy!

There is a mfg. plant about 40 miles up the road that imports rack and pinion parts from Japan, and they are shipped here in those crates. When I moved here in 2006, the crates were free and I got a bunch. I understand they now charge $10 for them.

Actually, getting two small raised beds out of one $10 crate is pretty cheap. I doubt I could buy the lumber for $10.

Eating what I grow

I'm deleting a few veggies from my garden this year... those I seldom eat although I enjoy them immensely, and those that are always iffy for me to grow (like melons, peppers and sweet potatoes). I'm finding it is less stressful to just buy those occasional things at the farmer's markets, as long as I know the vendor and how he or she grows them.

The things I will give more garden space are the vegetables that I can overwinter in the root cellar (mostly winter squash), or put up by either lacto-fermenting, freezing or canning... things like sauerkraut, green beans and tomatoes. Also vegetables that are far too expensive for me to purchase on a regular basis... such as fennel bulbs, leeks and shallots. 

This year I'm trying to grow some cipollini onions that are carried on many olive bars (in balsamic vinegar). I LOVE them but not at $9 a pound!

"Cipollini onions (pronounced chip-oh-lee-knee) were once a rare treat only to be found at fancy restaurants and the occasional gourmet market. We’re glad they’re finally getting their due attention...Now what exactly are they?

Their name literally means “little onion” in Italian, and indeed they are! Cipollinis are about the size of a golf ball with a flattened appearance. They’re thin-skinned and have translucent white flesh with more residual sugar than your average yellow or white onion.

Which makes them incredible for roasting or caramelizing. Roasted whole in the oven or cooked in a little butter on the stove top, cipollinis become soft and practically melt in your mouth. Those residual sugars caramelize and concentrate, leaving behind none of the astringent raw onion flavor.

Seriously, you haven’t had caramelized onions until you’ve made them with cipollini onions. Even you onion-haters out there might be swayed!" Source

Busy, with small garden accomplishments

In spite of burning up the highways with many trips to Wake Forest Medical School in NC to see my doctors, I've managed to do a few things for the garden.

It's another day here of scattered t'storms. Good thing I have a table on the front porch where I can work on starting seeds.

According to the biodynamic planting calendar, yesterday, today and tomorrow are good days to start fruiting vegetable seeds. I started some tomatoes and a few winter squash yesterday but I need to find more seed flats. Hopefully there are some in one of the sheds; I'm such a pack-rat.

 

 

The few seeds I started 3-4 weeks ago are really healthy and ready to transplant. Like a fool, I thought I'd remember what was where without markers. I can tell the summer squash from the beans, but not which is which bean variety, nor can I tell the yellow squash from zukes. What an idiot! I made sure to use markers in the seeds I started yesterday.

I left last fall's dried Japanese morning glory vines on the new trellis, thinking some seeds would fall and germinate. Wrong! Too bad, because I built that trellis specifically to grow enough vines to shade the end-wall of the house from the hot summer sun. 

However, the 2 hardy kiwi I planted last spring on that trellis are doing great and have climbed to about 4-5' tall already. They won't fruit this year (I think they are too young); their fruit is a little smaller than a regular kiwi, and smooth-skinned rather than fuzzy, but tasty. I'll take some oics when the rain stops.

Mike accidentally mowed down the 4 grape vines I started last year on the other trellis. He mows for me when I'm unable, and complains more every year about the things he has to mow around, whereas it was just all grass when I moved here 6 years ago. I keep telling him that my goal is zero grass except maybe a small patch for the dog.

The 2nd food forest guild, started last year (with a plum tree seedling in the center) is slowly taking shape. The chives I planted around the periphery had grown enough by early spring to divide, which I did yesterday. They are wilted but will perk right up in a few days. (A ring of alliums or daffodils around the perimeter is said to keep the grass from encroaching. We'll see if that's true.) I found a bag of daffs that I'll plant tightly between the chives. I have several herb plants to place between the plum tree and the chives, plants that attract and feed pollinators. This year a few tomatoes will go in that bed since the plum seedling is still quite small.

Photo by RC Designer

As my friend in Chile says, borage is a great beneficial plant. It attracts bees, which increases pollination of nearby plants, enhances the growth of tomatoes (by confusing and repelling tomato hornworms); helps brassicas (by repelling and confusing cabbage worms); and strawberries. It's also beneficial for cucumbers, beans (both climbing and bush beans), grapes, zucchini/squash, and peas. Borage can help all plants increase their disease resistance.

Borage is also useful as a mulch, and is very good for the compost pile. It contains calcium and potassium which may account for another reason why tomatoes do well near borage. Blossom end rot, not only in tomatoes but also with zucchini, is caused by lack of calcium. Potassium helps plants to bloom and set fruit, which may increase production in tomatoes and strawberries.

Photo by nociveglia

Borage is an attractive annual that should be grown in every home garden. It produces beautiful star-shaped blue flowers and cucumber-flavored leaves. Used for flavor in salads, cream cheese, tall drinks or cook it and eat like spinach. The flower has a sweet honey-like taste and is often used to decorate desserts and dishes. If frozen into ice-cubes, the flowers become exotic drink coolers.

The oil that is extracted from the seeds (marketed as "starflower oil" or "borage oil") is a good source of gamma-linolenic acid (GLA). Borage also has herbal / medicinal value.

10 Kitchen Gardens to Visit Before You Die

I'll be away for a few days (medical), so some of the info from this post on Kitchen Gardens' blog might be interesting in the interim.

This one interested me the most, perhaps because I have been to Cuba, and had Cuban friends long before Castro took over and Miami/South Florida took in thousands of refugees.

Havana's Organopónicos (Havana, Cuba)

Then these:

Forest Farm and Four Season Farm (Harborside, Maine)
The old walled gardens of Helen and Scott Nearing (Forest Farm), and the newer gardens of Eliot Coleman who learned from the Nearings.
 

Monticello (Charlottesville, Virginia)

Kibera Sack Gardens (Nairobi, Kenya)

Amalfi Coast MountainsideGardens (Amalfi Coast, Italy)

Seed Starting and Germinating

In my zone, it's getting to be seed-starting time, and I have actually started one flat of beans and summer squash. Still too early to start seeds like tomatoes, and we'll have frost (or close to it) for the next week or so. Our last frost date is May 15, so it's always iffy until then. 

I was gifted a nice small portable greenhouse that I just put together, and have sitting on my front porch. In addition to the flat of seeds I have started, I purchased a few lacinto kale plants, and some thyme that are in the mini greenhouse, along with some garlic, onions and shallots that need planting if I can ever get someone to till that bed for me.

I got these 2 charts from a friend but she didn't say where she found them. I prefer to note the source of things I post that are not mine, but the information in these is very good so I decided to share them anyway. The charts are based on AIR temperature. 

Edited to add I found the source: http://cultivatorscorner.com/when-to-start-vegetable-seeds 
Hope they are helpful to you!

Minerals, and the Stalwart Scots of Old...

Two, three, and more centuries ago, the Scots in the Highlands (and those in the Southern Uplands) were stalwart, hearty men who were able to hunt or fight in battle all day without fatigue. We know they often raised sheep, and they fished and hunted deer, but their main carbohydrates were from the oats and barley they grew. 

I haven't found any descriptions of the nutritional value of the oats and barley they grew back then, but you can be sure they were more nutritious, especially in mineral content, than what is grown today. As Dr. Shanahan points out in her book, it was common practice to replace the thatching on their crofts every year, and put the used thatch on their gardens. One big difference in that practice, and the mulching we do today, is the mineral content of the thatch.

The Scots usually heated their crofts with peat fires where wood was scarce, and the smoke rose and escaped through loose areas in the thatch. The thatch itself collected minerals from the smoke. The cooking/heating fires were often directly on the floor, and crofts had a chain and hook hanging from the roof above. This could hold a potful of porridge, an iron kettle of boiling water, or a griddle for baking bannocks or flat oat bread. 

The fires were seldom allowed to go out completely, and the thatch collected the smoke and minerals all year long. I suspect the carbon collected from smoke in the thatch was biochar. By putting this mineral-rich material back into their gardens when they re-thatched annually, they kept the soil re-mineralized.

We fail to do that today, not because we don't have peat fires and thatched roofs anymore, but because home garden advice stresses NPK, and occasionally calcium/lime to "sweeten" the soil. The ignored and overlooked micronutrients are so very important to good garden health, and therefore our own health.

If you truly care about health, give yourself the gift of a good soil survey (not the cheap kind from the Extension Service) that tests minerals and micronutrients. It's not necessary to do it very often once you get the soil adjusted. Your plants will thank you, and your healthy body will thank you.

Growing Belgian Endive

I am halfway into my experiment with Belgian Endive, because today I dug up the roots that grew all summer in the garden. The summer greens are edible, but quite bitter except the very tiny, baby leaves, so none were harvested. 

Some of the roots grew long and very fat, and a few grew long and skinny, and a couple grew gnarled. Of course, I broke several of the roots off at the tips because I didn't dig deep enough. (I only dug as deep as my shovel would go.) I doubt it will matter, but it will be interesting to see what kind of buds each type of root produces this winter, or if it even makes any difference.

I trimmed the tops to about an inch long, depositing the tops for composting, and then trimmed the tops again down to about 1/4 inch before putting them in a bucket for cool, dark storage.

I didn't have any sand, which is recommended for the root storage, so I used a left-over bag of potting soil to support the roots in the bucket. The potting soil had become very moist from sitting on the ground (probably had a hole in it somewhere) and I hope the roots do not rot before I am ready to expose them to light, some in January and some in February.

Once the roots are exposed to light (and some warmth), it takes about 3 weeks for them to grow the pale white and yellow-tipped torpedos we find at the grocers (at exorbitant prices).

The growth over the last 6-7 weeks was hearty, and I'm sorry I didn't take a photo today before I started digging them. The photo above was taken in late August, artichokes on the left and Belgian endive on the right. I didn't plant many as this was a trial run.

Rice Cowpeas

Another newbie in my 2012 garden: rice cowpeas (click the link to see a photo of them after drying and shelling.) I've never grown any cowpeas, aka Southern Peas before, so how they grow off the top of the stems was a big surprise to me!

I bought the seeds because the dried tiny white cowpeas aren't much larger than rice, and said to cook in 40 minutes. I think this might be a nice quick-cooking staple for the pantry.

The cowpea (Vinga ungulculata) is considered nutritious with a protein content of about 23%, fat 1.8%, carbs 67%, and water 8-9%. As in most legumes, the amino acid profile complements cereal grains.

Cowpeas are fun to grow, tasty and a great choice for novice, expert and children gardeners!

  

My Cherokee "Trail of Tears" beans

I'm a believer in saving seeds, and keeping the heirloom varieties going. We have lost so much genetic diversity with "modern agriculture". This year I decided to grow the Cherokee 'Trail of Tears' bean.

My harvest will be smaller than I hoped, because a man doing some weedeating for me managed to cut the pole beans off at their base! Fortunately most were far enough along that they should dry on the vines; I'll add those to the pods that dried sooner. I should have enough for a pot of soup beans and still save a few beans to replant next year.

The pods start out green

and then turn purple

This variety has been given a ticket on Slow Food USA's Ark of Taste.The Ark of Taste is a catalog of over 200 delicious foods recognized as of cultural and culinary significance as well as being in danger of extinction. By promoting and eating Ark products, we help ensure they remain in production and on our plates.

The Cherokee Trail of Tears bean memorializes the forced relocation of the Cherokee Indians in the infamous winter death march of Cherokees from Georgia, North Carolina, northeastern Alabama, and Tennessee to what is now Oklahoma (1838-1839). They carried this bean throughout this infamous walk, which became the death march for thousands of Cherokees; hence the ‘Trail of Tears.’

In the face of its poignantly dismal history, the shiny, jet-black seeds are used with pride in many traditional American Indian dishes. The seeds are encased in six-inch, greenish-purple pods. These small attractive beans are often dried before being consumed, and have a delicious rich flavor.

This bean was first offered to the SSE (Seed Savers Exchange) back in 1977 by the late Dr. John Wyche of Hugo, Oklahoma. He shared that his Cherokee ancestors carried the beans over the infamous "Trail of Tears" in the winter of 1838.

The vines reach about eight feet producing six inch green pods with purple shading.  The seeds are a shiny, jet-black color.  They can be used when young and tender as green snap beans or left to maturing for dry beans. seeds

Sharon's Natural Gardens (Delmar, Delaware) had this to say:
"The fresh beans have a real bean flavor missing in modern beans. It is very resistant to any insect damage and has no disease problems. It also makes a good soup bean. We like to grow it on a fence, interplanted with cherry tomatoes and heirloom cucumbers."

The Red Wing Farm is a market garden and homestead in the Swannanoa Valley (near Asheville, NC). They grow this bean, and had this to say about growing it:

"A Cherokee man in Oklahoma donated seeds from this bean variety to the Seed Savers Exchange and so we are able to bring a few back to the mountains to plant in our river valley, where Cherokee people and their ancestors lived for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans.

The Cherokee people, and the other peoples of the decimated cultures that remained after the European invasion of the Americas, saved the seeds that had been planted by their ancestors: corn, squash, herbs and flowers, grains. And beans: hundreds, maybe thousands of ancient varieties of beans.

How do we retrace the steps of these ancestors and recover the intimacy with the natural world that was at the core of their systems of living? By planting a bean, covering it with dirt, giving it water and sun. By encouraging all of the life in the soil and air and water that nurtures the seed: worms, beneficial insects, microscopic life forms. By cultivating intimate relationships with the plants that feed us and the earth, air, water, and light that feed them. By preserving the seeds that sustain human life for another generation.

Nurturing the small bean plants in my garden, I honor the lost, forgotten, fragmented, and violated cultures and people that stand at the beginning of an unbroken chain of life between the tiny green plants in my garden and the plants grown by peoples of the Americas before European invasion.

Harvesting the beans in the fall, I invoke and offer gratitude to the people who stewarded, protected, and cultivated the bean-ancestors of my garden plants. I say a prayer to the earth for the restoration of human relationships with the natural world. Planting beans in my garden, I give thanks."

Seed Sources
Seed Savers Exchange
Victory Seed Company

Or find Producers on LocalHarvest

Growing Yuppie Chow

 Photo By ilovebutter

Photo by Phillie Casablanca

Yep, I guess I'm guilty of growing "Yuppie Chow".

Yuppie Chow is that stuff Foodies buy from upscale natural foods stores and farmer's markets, such as heirloom slicing tomatoes, garlic scapes, mesclun salad mixes, baby carrots and tiny squash, haricot verts, bok choy and such -- you know, expensive things, but not the bulk of one's calories. Yuppie Chow.

I'm currently rethinking what I can grow because if there's a food crisis, I don't grow enough to feed myself adequately without outside additions. In an extended crisis there will be NO food on the grocery shelves, and perhaps no gas to get there anyway. I'm open to growing food suggestions if you have any! 

Of course, Yuppie Chow is not all I grow. The heirloom tomatoes, various herbs, asparagus, and bulbing fennel are considered Yuppie Chow, but I also grow enough garlic, shallots, leeks, onions, and long-keeping winter squash to last through winter. The winter squash, of course, provide lots of calories. The other things simply add more flavor than calories. I hate insipid-tasting food.

I don't raise any meat animals or have chickens for eggs, so I'd be low on protein. My few small nut trees wouldn't produce 2 ounces of oils even if I could press them, so I'd be short on the essential fatty acids that come from meats and oils. Tubers don't do well for me here (other than Jerusalem artichokes), too many tunneling rodents that get to them first.

I'm looking to grow things that can flesh out my pantry in an extended crisis, both perennials, and annuals where I can save seeds for the next year. Currently, I only plant a few things where I save seed, like tomatoes and beans. I need to learn how to save seed from things like summer squash and cole crops because in an extended crisis, there may be no available seeds.

My fruit trees are small and won't bear for a few more years so I only have some perishable berries for fruits right now.

I'm thinking to try growing oyster mushrooms because they contain around 15% protein, as well as adding complex flavors to cooked foods, but I guess that might be considered more Yuppie Chow...

Lowered Expectations

Who among us hasn't lowered their expectations for garden vegetable production this year? I know I have, yet a couple of things have surprised me. I've tried to grow onions for the last 4-5 years, and finally this year the soil has been amended enough that I actually grew a few! (Not enough, but it's a start.)

I already posted my garlic and shallot harvests; both produced enough to see me through the winter.

Lemon Squash

I harvested quite a few Costata Romanesco zucchini (now finished, many used in frozen quiche for winter meals) but the lemon squash continue to proliferate. I'm amazed at the insect resistance. I've given some away, shredded and frozen some, but most have been sliced half an inch thick, steamed for 3 minutes, and dehydrated. I'm out of freezer space!

Red Kuri winter squash

My biggest disappointment is in the winter squash, planted on my new hugelkultur berm. Some of it is due to hot and dry weather, but the rest is because I didn't get the berm well-covered with soil, and it dries out quickly even with daily watering. I'll add more soil and mulch this fall after the squash are finished and it should be more productive next year... plus the logs will be decomposing and hold more water. I do have a few Red Kuri growing, just not enough to feed me all winter.

I still have hopes for a few pole beans. The photo above is the Cherokee "Trail of Tears" which is an unassuming black bean that I grew just for the name, and to save some heritage seeds. I don't have pods yet on my Kentucky Wonder Beans... danged rabbits keep eating the plants!

I have a few tomato and pepper plants scattered around the garden, but zero hopes of any of them fruiting.

Now that I've collected (and caused the demise of) about 10,000 Japanese Beetles, I should have a few filberts and some fall rhubarb. Plus, I have enough dandelion greens for a soup kitchen!

My garden struggling in the heat

I know I am not alone in walking around my garden and seeing all the sun-baked plants, but it sure is disappointing. Here in the Appalachian mountains we have been running on average as much as 15ºF hotter than normal for most of June and into July. 

Shallot harvest 2012

A few things have done rather well, like garlic, shallots and onions, but those were all planted months ago. 

Lemon Squash

Summer squash have grown like gangbusters, of course. This year I planted Costata Romanesco zucchini, and lemon squash (it's "lemon" only in size and shape). I'm pleased at how insect resistant they have been. So far I have baked and frozen more than half a dozen squash quiche for winter meals (plus my Sis and I have eaten a couple more of them), and frozen some plain shredded zucchini in case I decide to make zucchini bread for the Christmas holidays. (I've gained a lot of weight and really don't need the temptation!)

The winter squash (Red Kuri and Spaghetti squash) planted on my new hugelkulture berm have finally taken off on one end, but the other end planted with just Red Kuri is languishing. The photo of the better end above was taken 2 weeks ago; the vines nearly cover the berm now. It is taking daily deep watering to keep the hugel berm plants growing since the sod/dirt layer is rather thin, but in a year or two the logs will have rotted enough to act as a sponge, and the smaller twigs/limbs will have broken down a lot. I do intend to cover the entire berm with newspapers and a heavy layer of wood chips before winter, so that should help next year.

Rabbits have repeatedly nibbled both kinds of pole beans I planted right to the ground (Kentucky Wonder and Cherokee Trail of Tears) but I finally have a few that I temporarily caged after re-planting so I may still get a few beans. I did stick in a few fava beans here and there, more for the soil than to eat.

The Finocchio (or Florence) fennel that is said to hate hot weather is actually producing a few bulbs although I lost most of my seedlings in the early heat wave.

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Garlic Harvest 2012, plus Pickled garlic buds and scapes

I apologize for such few posts recently, but I HAVE been really busy in the garden (plus I'm having some health issues on the side). This is my 2012 garlic harvest, better bulbs than I expected from just 2 short rows!

Actually, this photo is not all of them, just what I had already dragged up to the porch to dry when I took the photo. They will get hung to further dry in the tool shed in a few days. I think my harvest is more than enough to see me through the winter and still have enough cloves to replant in the fall.

The shallots and onions won't be far behind, but the leeks won't be harvested until early fall.

About a dozen or so of the garlics were hardneck, which develop a scape with a bud on top. I cut the scapes and put them in to lacto-ferment, cutting off the buds to ferment them separately since they don't keep as long.

Close-up of the seedheads...

The lacto-ferment "brine" and technique is easy. Use 1 tablespoon of non-iodized salt to each 2 cups of non-chlorinated/non-fluoridated water. Cover the foods with the brine, leaving a space at the top of the canning jar, and the lid loosely tightened to allow gas to escape. Use a weight of some sort to keep the food submerged if necessary. (I used a piece of plastic cheesecloth on the seedheads since they wanted to float. The scape pieces sank, so no weight needed.) Keep on a warm counter for several days as they ferment. (Caution: they may overflow, so I put mine on a saucer.) After about 7-10 days the fermenting (bubbling) will have ceased. Tighten the lids and store in a cool, dark place... or refrigerate.

I use Ball plastic lids to avoid the lids getting corroded.

Cool Weather seeds

This is the first time any cool-weather crops have survived a winter in my garden, and several are now making seeds... something I usually don't get to see (much less save any seeds from them!).

Red-stemmed Swiss Chard

Beets

Carrot, looking feathery and ready to flower and make seed

The leaves on the cole plants are so eaten by insects that I cannot tell what is cauliflower, broccoli, or Brussels sprouts. They all have formed long skinny pods that look alike. I don't really care which is which because I'll sow them for this fall, and eat whatever comes up! I will try to save the seeds from each plant separately and label them A, B, and C before I plant a few to see if I can ID them later on.

Elsewhere in the garden, the garlic, shallots, onions and leeks are doing fine. In between the rows of garlic are some Belgian Endive, outlined by the white box in the photo below. The garlic will come out shortly, and give the endive tops plenty of sun to grow deep roots. I'll dig the roots this fall and put them in a tub of sawdust in the dark root cellar. With any luck, I'll have lovely blanched endive heads by January or February.

Belgian endive and Pear Salad, Photo by ExperienceLA

The Jerusalem artichokes I planted last spring have multiplied greatly. They should be a bright spot in the garden when they flower! In the fall they will be dug from this location, and many will be re-planted along the white rail fence (barely seen in the background) as a hedge and windbreak. I'll save a few to eat, of course!

The Babington leeks I planted last fall have shot up 1 flower stalk so far. The top of the flower stalk is 4' tall, and it looks like the flower will be gorgeous! The globular seeds in the pod will drop to the ground and root after the flower is gone.

Here's the Babington Leek seed pod 12 days earlier. Most of the seeds that I sprouted this spring died from neglect of a place to plant them, so I'm delighted to see some seeds from last fall's planting.