Books seed minds of avid gardeners
Ancient grains, current insects awesome
Home gardeners look forward to and celebrate that time in spring when long-lingering rains and chilling temperatures begin evolving into warm, cosy conditions with bright sunlight to lift our spirits and inspire our horticultural adventures.
More inspiration is here this spring in new publications written by West Coast authors.
Awesome Ancient Grains & Seeds: A Garden-To-Kitchen
Guide, by Dan Jason and Michelle Genest (Douglas & McIntyre, 208 pages, paperback, $24.95). This inspiring book makes a powerful case for growing and enjoying heritage forms of seeds and grains — protein-rich nutritional powerhouses that are easy to grow with minimal energy inputs.
Among the superfoods are amaranth, flax seed, quinoa, pumpkin seeds, barley and buckwheat. Jason, owner of Salt Spring Seeds, invites the home gardener to grow some of them and enjoy them at their nutritional and freshly flavourful best.
Each of the nutrient-dense foods has its own chapter, with the history of the plant, its nutritional profile, and planting and harvesting tips. There are also suggestions for enjoying the harvest — for example, “popping” amaranth seeds like popcorn and adding cooked ancient wheat berries to a tomato and onion salad.
In the second half of the book are 50 enticing recipes, such as blueberry cinnamon rolls with spelt flour and flax seeds. Morning Glory Quinoa Muffins incorporate fresh and dried fruits, nuts, yogurt and cooked quinoa with Red Fife (an ancient wheat) flour.
I’m looking forward to making Buckwheat Blini for breakfast pancakes and also as “underpinnings for savoury toppings” like a goat cheese, yogurt and chive blend. The recipe that brought back sweet family memories is Individual Strawberry Shortcakes with Flaky Whole Wheat Biscuits. In strawberry season I used to make shortcakes for the family using double slices of homemade baking powder biscuits, with a strawberry-sugar mix in the centre and more strawberries and whipped cream on top.
The book’s recipe uses whole wheat flour, flaked quinoa, and yogurt in the biscuits. I'll be sharing this treat with friends soon, as the garden's first strawberries ripen.
A Field Guide to Insects of the
Pacific Northwest, by Dr. Robert Cannings (Harbour Publishing, $7.95). The author, curator emeritus of entomology at the Royal British Columbia Museum, has created this eight-fold, waterresistant, durable guide picturing and describing more than 50 of the most commonly encountered insects in our region. Opened up like an accordion, the guide gives the user a glimpse into the remarkable diversity of insect life around us. Each entry is shown in its natural habitat. Gardeners will immediately recognize the frothy mass of what looks like spit nestled in a softstemmed plant. What we don’t usually see is the bug inside the foam, the meadow spittlebug — also pictured.
Gardeners will find the guide especially useful for identifying our insect friends — beneficial insects like hover flies. Most of us are familiar with lady beetles (ladybugs), but the guide also pictures lady beetle eggs, a larva and a pupa, all of which are important to safeguard.
Intriguing details abound in the brief descriptions. The bright colouring of some lady beetles warns predators that they might “taste awful.” With their striped bodies, hover flies mimic bees and wasps, “fooling birds and other predators that prefer to avoid stinging insects.”
Among the true flies, the slender assassin grabs a prey insect, injects it with a poisonous saliva that dissolves its innards, and “sucks the prey dry just like you’d devour a milkshake.”
Garden Events
VHS meeting. The Victoria Horticultural Society will meet on Tuesday, May 1, at 7:30 p.m. at Garth Homer Centre, 813 Darwin Ave. Linda Gilkeson will emphasize the importance of correctly diagnosing garden problems in Do You Really Know What The Problem Is? The pre-meeting workshop at 6:30 will feature Danielle Stevenson, owner of D.I.Y. Fungi, presenting Mushroom Companions in the Garden.
HCP workshops. The Horticulture Centre of the Pacific, 505 Quayle Rd. in Saanich, is offering the following workshops. To register, call 250-479-6162. hcp.ca. • Tea Cup Fairy Gardens, Saturday, May 5, 1 to 2:30 p.m. For children age three and up. Gather materials in the HCP gardens for creating a “fairy garden” at home. Parents or guardians welcome to stay and are required to stay with children under six years. Cost per child $15. • Eat Your Weeds, Sunday, May 6, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Learn how to identify, harvest, and use wild edible and medicinal plants found on a walk through the gardens. Take home recipes and enjoy a wild edible lunch prepared during class. HCP members $50, others $55.