Amidst snowstorms, grey skies and brittle cold winds, it is hard to imagine the vibrant colors spring will soon give our valley. Of course, our vegetable gardens will be in full splendor, displaying the wonder of the Seed Savers collection. Yet the most unforgettable piece of this flashy ecosystem is the native and heirloom flowers and herbs that have found a home at Heritage Farm. Walk through the gardens in the heat of summer and you will understand why Ralph Waldo Emerson said that “the earth laughs in flowers.”  

This combination of Cleome and Dill attract beneficial pollinators to our display gardens.

Early in the 1990’s it became apparent that our ancestors’ treasured herbs and flowers were being forgotten and lost. In an effort to continue what Seed Savers Exchange Co-Founder Diane Whealy has called “a legacy of love,” the Flower and Herb Exchange network was created. Its mission was to connect growers who were collecting and preserving rare flowers and herbs from their family gardens, local seed swaps or even abandoned backyards. Today, 20 years later, the publication is stronger than ever.

The 2010 edition of the Flower and Herb Exchange. This year, membership grew to 1,800, with 123 members listing 1,304 total varieties.   

FHE members have helped to protect and extend the longevity of many flowers and herbs. Joanne Thuente, the lead compiler and organizer behind the project, agrees, stating that “members of the FHE have maintained and shared family heirlooms for all these years, thereby ensuring the availability of these treasures for future generations.”

Flowers and herbs complete the life of our gardens, attracting pollinators, beneficial insects and grateful neighbors. Combining the vivacity of flowers, the deep aroma of herbs and the practical beauty of vegetables can make any garden a place of magic. In the relationship between food and flowers we find a functionality that is wise and a beauty that is ancient.

1 40 lb. bag aged compost or manure

2-3 square straw bails

1 roll of twine

Get Growing:

Select a 10 by 10 foot area of your garden that receives direct sunlight for at least six hours a day and is relatively protected from the wind. Using a stick, you can trace a 6 by 9 foot rectangle (or squares, circles, dodecagons - be imaginative!). Following your outline, dig a narrow 6 inch deep trench to plant in. This would be a good time to dig in compost or manure. Space Mongolian sunflower seeds 1 foot apart, other sunflowers 4-6 inches apart and sprinkle Morning Glory seed in between. Since Morning Glory’s grow more rapidly than sunflowers, it is a good idea to plant them a week or two later. Before you do, soak them in luke-warm water to ensure germination.

Cover with loose soil and keep moist until the sprouts break through the soil. Cover the center with a 2-3 inch layer of straw to keep weeds down and provide a comfy floor. Make sure to leave a space for a door!

To help give your house structure, consider using tall stakes to help secure the sunflowers.  Connect them with twine which the Morning Glories can climb on, providing your house with a beautiful purple ceiling. This is a space to play, rest and imagine. Fill it with stumps, chairs, carpets. Make it a space worthy of relaxing summer afternoons.

The annual fee for membership is $10 ($12 Canada / Mexico, $15 overseas). To become a member of the Flower and Herb Exchange, send a check to: Flower and Herb Exchange, 3094 North Winn Road, Decorah, IA 52101. You can also visit our website at www.seedsavers.org.

Whoever told you to eat your greens because they were good for you wasn’t telling you the whole story.  A great thing about gardening with heirlooms is that you’re not limited to standard grocery store variety “greens.”  With a vegetable garden you can have salads with purple carrots, speckled lettuce, black tomatoes, gold beets, and red lettuce.

But this color isn’t just for good looks; it is an indicator of different nutrients in your food.  It’s time to start thinking of the color of your vegetables in terms of nutritional health:

Blue & Purple vegetables contain phytochemicals that  help to lower the risk of some cancers and are good for urinary tract health, memory function and healthy aging.

Green produce help to promote strong bones and teeth, vision health and may lower the risk of some types of cancer.

White vegetables, which includes tan and brown, are known for the phytochemical allicin, found especially in the onion family. It promotes heart health, a lower risk of some cancers and helps cholesterol levels. Garlic and onions are the top items in the white/allicin produce list.

Yellow & Orange produce  have Vitamin C and phytonutrients, carotenoids and bioflavonoids. These are beneficial for heart and vision health, a healthy immune system and a lower risk of some cancers.

Red vegetables have phytonutrients that promote heart and urinary tract health, memory function and a lower risk of some cancers.

There are even more nutritional benefits of eating these “colors” if you grow them in your backyard.  Digger’s Club in Australia has found:

“The pigments that plants develop to protect their tissue from the damaging effects of sunlight or pest attack contain the health protecting anti-oxidants we need.  Peel away the skin and 90% of the protection is lost.  Commercially grown fruit picked before ripening have lower anti-oxidants than fruit matured in your garden.” 

So, as far as heirloom vegetable gardening goes, skin-deep beauty isn’t such a bad thing.  Here’s our not-so-green salad garden plan:

Combination 4: Beyond Green Greens

If you like eating: SALADS! swiss chard, kale, spinach, lettuce, beets, nasturtiums, dill

If you want your landscape to have: An abundance of leafy greens that are much more colorful and flavorful than store-bought iceberg lettuce, all sorts of textures, and intriguing aromas

Recipe and Meal Ideas

Dilled mashed potatoes, grated beet slaw with yogurt dill dressing, sautéed greens with garlic and mustard seed, steamed beets and kale, crispy kale snacks

Cost/Savings

What you need to grow for a family of 4:

*Information from The Gardener’s A – Z Guide to Growing Organic Food, Tanya Denckla

**Estimated yield data is approximated according to yield data from Diggers Club in Australia.

***Prices found in Decorah, IA, for mostly non-organic, conventionally grown food.  These prices are much lower than what you would pay for the specialty produce you will be growing in your garden.

Varieties (click on each variety to learn more)

Swiss Chard: Five Color Silverbeet

Swiss Chard grows very well with other greens such as lettuces and spinach.  This variety features a rainbow of colors. 

Lettuces: Pablo and Red Velvet

Pablo forms beautiful rosette heads that look almost like flowers. 

Red Velvet is the darkest red looseleaf offered by Seed Savers Exchange. 

Spinach: Bloomsdale

Spinach is a great companion for Brassicas such as kale.  This quick growing variety has thick, dark green glossy leaves.

Beets: Burpee’s Golden

This is a good dual-purpose beet for roots and greens, both of which are tender and sweet.  The beautiful orange globe roots are great for salads since they do not bleed. 

Kale: Red Russian

Beets, lettuce, spinach, dill, and nasturtiums are all good companions for kale.  This variety has frilly purple-veined blue-green leaves tinged with reddish-purple. 

Nasturtiums: Ladybird

Nasturtiums may help control pests such as aphids, beetles, and cabbage loopers.  This dwarf orange and red variety has tasty leaves and flowers. 

Dill: Grandma Einck’s

Dill attracts beneficials such as lady beetles, wasps, spiders, hoverflies, and bees.  This Iowa heirloom has large fragrant heads with abundant long-lasting foliage that is great fresh or dried. 

BELOW:  Carrots of different colors and nutrients

BELOW: During the summer of 1996 there was an evaluative grow-out that included 4 plants for each of the 800 varieties of lettuce maintained in the seed bank at Heritage Farm.  Data and photos were taken to document the collection.

BELOW: Beautiful beets

Gardening grew in popularity this past growing season, so did all things cooking.  Have foodies finally realized that gardening is an economical solution to their culinary habit? Or are gardeners turning into foodies as they search for recipes to accompany their tasty, and often exotic, heirloom vegetable varieties.  Either way, planning your garden around a meal or style of cooking can give you a season full of perfect and affordable ingredients. 

If you're gardening with heirlooms this is easy to do – just pick a country to build your garden around.  For example, Thailand, Poland, and Russia are known for enough vegetable varieties to fill your garden with the perfect basil for spring rolls, cabbage for cabbage rolls, or beet for borscht.  So pick a favorite country to plan your garden around -  we're picking Italy.  You can check it out below.

Taste of Italy

If you like eating: Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, kale, basil, parsley

If you want your landscape to have: Traditional Italian varieties to use in delicious recipes, space-saving leafy trellises of tomatoes, vibrant pepper and eggplant color combinations, eye-catching textures of kale and parsley, and basil’s heady aroma and natural pest deterring abilities

Cost/Savings

What you need to grow for a family of 4:

*Information from The Gardener’s A – Z Guide to Growing Organic Food, Tanya Denckla

**Estimated yield data is approximated according to yield data from Diggers Club in Australia.

***Prices found in Decorah, IA, for mostly non-organic, conventionally grown food.  These prices are much lower than what you would pay for the specialty produce you will be growing in your garden.

Recipe and Meal Ideas

Tomato basil stuffed peppers, roasted eggplant hummus (aka Baba Ganoush), pesto pasta, caprese salad

Varieties (click on each variety to learn more)

Tomatoes: Cherry Roma and Italian Heirloom

These two varieties are both indeterminate, which means they vine up trellises well and keep producing fruit all season instead of ripening all at once.  Cherry Roma is an addictive, 1-inch  tomato with a sweet-spicy flavor that is delicious fresh or dried.  Italian Heirloom is a heavy producer of over one pound beautiful red tomatoes.

Pepper: Marconi Red

This large sweet pepper is known for its extremely sweet, large fruit.

Eggplant: Listada de Gandia

This is a beautiful purple stripe Italian eggplant.  Some think this is the best strain available on the market. 

Kale: Lacinato

Kale is a long season vegetable that lasts well into the winter.  Its excellent flavor is enhanced by frost.  This is an old Italian heirloom with blue-green leaves and a heavily savoyed texture. 

Basil: Purple Dark Opal

The scent of basil confuses and repels pests such as aphids, asparagus beetles, mites, mosquitoes, and tomato hornworms.  This is an Italian strain with beautiful lilac flowers and dark red stems.  It is spectacular as a garnish, in salads, or for adding color to basil vinegars. 

Parsley: Giant from Italy

This variety produces a continuous supply of large flat leaves with strong parsley flavor.  It is prized by Italian cooks. 

BELOW: Italian eggplants and beautiful purple hues.

BELOW: Beautiful Listada eggplant on the plant.

Although it may look like this outside, inside we’re thinking up more planting combinations for our gardens.  In our last Garden Planning blog, we talked about the idea of edible landscaping as a way of bringing together beauty and function in your garden.

Besides creating a veritable treat for both your eyes and stomach, edible landscaping makes good gardening sense.  That’s because edible landscaping often times incorporates companion planting – or the idea that some plants can actually be helped by being grown next to each other.

A good example of companion planting is the three sisters - corn, pole beans and squash.  The Three Sisters have been grown together for generations by Native Americans.  While each tribe grew these plants in different ways, they understood the benefits of partnering these plants together.  The corn acts as a support for the pole beans to climb; the beans are nitrogen fixers bringing much needed nutrients to the corn’s shallow roots; and the squash acts as a ground cover, blocking weeds and deterring pests with its coarse leaves. Sometimes sunflowers are added to the mix and serve in a similar capacity as the corn, a pole for the beans to climb on.

Here’s our2nd Garden Planning combination:

Combination 2: Three Sisters Garden

If you like eating: Beans, corn, squash, nasturtium, succotash, and sunflower seeds.

If you want your landscape to have: Dramatic height of the corn, sprawling vines from beans and squash, varieties of textures, pockets of color,  each plant performs an important role in helping each other grow.

Recipe and Meal Ideas

Three Sisters soup, homemade corn bread, popcorn with garden herb butter, Succotash, roasted squash with maple syrup, and grilled corn on the cob.

Cost/Savings: What you need to grow for a family of 4:

*Information from The Gardener’s A – Z Guide to Growing Organic Food, Tanya Denckla

**Estimated yield data is approximated according to yield data from Diggers Club in Australia.

***Prices found in Decorah, IA, for mostly non-organic, conventionally grown food.  These prices are much lower than what you would pay for the specialty produce you will be growing in your garden.

Varieties (click on each variety to learn more)

Pole Beans: Hidatsa Shield Figure and Purple Podded Pole

Hidatsa Shield Figure beans were historically grown in a Three Sisters style.  Purple Podded Pole beans will look beautiful climbing the corn and adding splashes of purple to your garden. 

Corn: Two Inch Strawberry Popcorn, Country Gentleman Sweet Corn, Oaxacan Green Dent

These three varieties have different uses in your home: popcorn, sweet corn, and flour.  The Oaxacan Green Dent was grown for centuries by the Zapotec Indians of southern Mexico.  Strawberry Popcorn has a unique red color that is visible even after popping!

Squash: Table Queen

This variety is similar to a squash grown by the Arikara Indians.  It is a manageable size and tastes great! 

Sunflowers: Teddy Bear

Sunflowers have been grown for hundreds of years in the Americas.  Stray beans and squash vines may find their way up the sunflower stalks too.  The birds love the seeds, and if you roast them, you will too!  This variety is shorter than other sunflowers and can be planted as a border around your garden.

Nasturtiums: Empress of India

Nasturtiums are good growing companions for both corn and squash.  This variety has deep red flowers and dark foliage to contrast with the lighter green of the corn, beans, and squash.  You can eat the peppery flavored flowers and leaves too! They’re great in a salad.

BELOW: 3 Sisters Garden at Heritage Farm

BELOW: Three Sisters Harvest