We Hope This Episode Finds You With a Happily Growing Garden

Season 5, Episode 35, July 12, 2023

Jul 11, 2023

‘Phyllis’ marigolds in Dee’s garden last year.

On this week’s episode, we talked once again about marigolds, then introduced a new basil and a salad cookbook and discussed some interesting dirt and rabbit holes.

Why marigolds? Because Dee watched a gardening show featuring the UK’s Carol Klein and saw a marigold she loved, and then spent an afternoon finding seeds for it without knowing the actual name for it, which means she had to search through all kinds of pictures. It’s ‘Court Jester,’ which you can find from several seed suppliers, including Eden Bros. (Search for ‘Court Jester’ from that link.)

You can find seeds for the ‘Phyllis’ marigold pictured above at Botanical Interest Seeds.

For even more info on marigolds, I wrote a FH article about growing marigolds from seed last summer that you might find of interest. And the good news is the information still applies this summer! That’s what we call evergreen content! Ha!

For the vegetable topic, we talked about one of Dee’s favorite basils, Blue Spice Basil (Ocimum americanum). You can buy seeds from Eden Bros. (Search for Blue Spice Basil from that link.) Dee says you’ll only need to buy the seeds once because it’s a prolific self-sower.

Blue Spice Basil comes up every year in Dee’s garden

On the bookshelf, Dee reviewed Salad Freak by Jess Damuck. (Amazon Link), a book she purchased when she was out shopping recently.

For our dirt, I talked about The Jane Austen Escape Room Book, illustrated by Marjolein Bastin (Amazon Link), which Dee sent me recently. It’s a fun book. We also talked about an article in the WSJ that Dee read about collecting John Deere tractors. (That’s a gift link, so it should work.)

Down in our rabbit holes, Dee got lost looking at zinnia seeds and following some of the flower farmers who are breeding them. She’s supporting one, in particular, Milk and Honey Acreage, via the purchase of their 2023 Zinnia Seed Donation Mix – ZinniaSeeds.com. She also bought their 2022 mix, which is quite different, she says.

My rabbit hole made me buy another book, Hanna Rion: Her Life and Writings, by Kitt R. McMaster III (Amazon link).

And that’s it! We hope this episode finds you with a happily growing garden!

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