Month: July 2006

This is very much a work in progress. I planted sunflowers for the first time last year, and this is the first year for this variety. It would seem I have a long way to go to acclimate this variety to local growing conditions by roguing out weak plants, then saving seed. I also need to experiment more to determine proper spacing and other growing conditions.

This particular variety is Russian. It is the black seeded type, which is also the type for oil seed. The vendor I got this seed from, Synergy Seeds, says it is a good variety for making sprouts.

In the meantime, it’s nice to have some pretty flowers in the garden! This is a short variety, growing to about 50cm high.

There is no food more typically Dutch, that you can grow in your garden, than the purple podded capucijner pea. In Holland nearly all the supermarkets carry jars of precooked capucijners, and everyone knows what they are.

The only edible part of the plant is the dried peas, which look like this (shown on a coffee saucer):

When cooked they stay whole, make their own rich gravy, and have a distinctive pea taste. They are frequently eaten with pork, but also taste nice just plain or cooked in other ways.