On Friday, Scott and I attended the annual Hidden Garden Benefit tour in Utah Valley. We try to go every year, and it benefits the Newborn Intensive Care Unit at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. Each day before the tour, they have workshops that are included in your ticket price and we’ve never managed to get to one, so this year we worked it so we could attend. They were taught by Joy Bossi , who is a local radio and TV personality and professional gardener. She taught about edible landscapes, and mentioned nasturtiums as edible and also an attractor for pollinators. But she said they don’t transplant well and are impossible to start from seed. Then she asked if anyone had been successful in growing them and I timidly raised my hand, along with a couple others. So she asked me to tell what I do to raise them. I explained that I rub the seeds with a nail file, plant them in flats under clear plastic domes, and put them under my lights. Then I harden them off outside and plant them in my gardens. (Just like I do with all the other annuals, perennials, and vegetables I grow from seed each year, except the sanding.)
Well, you would have thought I was some genius gardener! Scott and I looked at each other rather dumbstruck. We laughed about it in the car on the way to the first home. Later in the day, we were stopped at one of the homes by an older couple who said, “Here’s the nasturtium expert.” So we chatted with them and gave them my “secret” to growing them. So now you know-I am one of the few who can grow nasturtiums. But I’ve never tried eating them.
More about my gardens: Because Brian and I were home all week, we worked in the gardens every morning until it started raining and have made great progress. All the flower beds except one are cleaned up, edged with rock, and newly planted with this year’s new plants, and they look great! Perennials blooming today: roses, poppies, columbine, salvia, iris, penstemon, lamium, and catmint.
Okay, so you know my problems with gardening. But I had no idea nastursiums were difficult to grow, so I just soaked them for a few hours, stuck some in some soil and put them under my lights with the rest of my seeds. They are the ONLY thing that has lived and is thriving! What the heck?
I attended a workshop presented by Joy Bossi last weekend. I’m not much of a gardener, but I was fascinated by some of the things she told us about her life.