The Botanical Concierge

The neighbour’s grandkids came by to get some goodies from my garden so I gave them a tour and helped them find veggies to pick. They harvested zucchini, pattypan squash, green onion, cucumber, lettuce, beet greens, blueberries and radish! I love seeing kids excited about gardening and have so much fun teaching them about plants. Oh and to top it all off I got an invite to dinner (the pattypan dish was so delicious)!!
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If you’ve walked through the forest lately you may have come across this super cool plant called Monotropa uniflora (ghost plant). It doesn’t contain any chlorophyll so can’t generate energy from the sun. Instead parasitizes certain fungi that have a mutually beneficial relationship (mycorrhizal association) with trees. The fungi colonize a tree’s roots allowing it to receive energy (carbohydrates from photosynthesis) from the tree, while the fungi can tap into water and mineral sources the tree roots are too big to reach on their own. Then cute lil Monotropa hops on the train by taking carbs from the fungi. So you’ll find Monotropa in quite dark locations and in complex relationships (aren’t we all 🤪)! What surprised me most was to find out this plant is in the Ericaceae family (which includes plants like blueberry, huckleberry, arbutus, and heather). Have you seen these before?! They’re one of my favs to come across.

So nice to be meeting some more gardening nerds in my new community through sharing extra seedlings. They were also kind to bring me a kombucha scoby and black currants! There’s a group for swapping garden stuff on the coast already so I won’t be starting a crop swap up here. Im still running the group in Vancouver but will probably try to find someone to take over it soon. A bit sad as it’s been a lovey little group to be a part of the last few years!!