OOooOOooOOh! They have come!

To my RSSsubscribers; I've shortened the feed to protect the blog from contenttheft. Sorry for the inconvinience.

My new batch of seeds was forced through our door today. Fourteen beautiful seedenvelopes plus a bonus I really don't know what to do about. In line with Murphy´s law the one envelope you get is always the one you need the least. Well, at least I ordered loads of useful seeds; the long, dark winter (no snow) and a period of 'no wanna' has taken its toll, only my lemon balm and the tiger nuts have survived. In short; I need to reconstruct my gardens. Here's the list (Names [in brackets] are direct translation from swedish, my dictionary fails me sometimes.):

Basil "Genovese" (Ocimum basilicum)
-Tastes good and you can use it to fight whiteflies - no need to hesitate on this one.

Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis)
-Makes a good tea, looks nice on the windowsill and works well as a decoration on tortes.

Chives (Allium schoenoprasum)
-Adds taste to mashed potatoes and the sourcream for the soused herring (favourite swedish summer dish), plus it's a good spice for sallads.

Watercress (Rorippa nasturtium akvatikum)
-I'm planning to use it in our first aquaculture. Nice filling in sandwiches, addition to steaks and sallads.

Kyona Mizuna cabbage (Brassica rapa var. japonica)
-What would humanity do without the cabbages? According to the Impecta catalogue it's fast growing, easy to grow and without big demands. Its taste is supposed to be a "soft, perfect cabbage", so I want to know if it fits in a sallad.

Salvia (Salvia officinalis)
-Nice for pork. I'm not completely able to handle it yet, but it's easy to grow so I give it a new chance.

Garden nasturtium 'Alaska' (Tropaeolum majus nanum)
-You may recall that I found the leaves of 'Alaska Scarlet' particularly yummy? I want to see if this works equally well. An addition of yellow flowers to the red ones is nice anyhow.

Broccoli 'Calabrese Green Sprouting' (Brassica oleracea L. ssp. botrytis var. cymosa)
-Good for sprouting according to Impecta. From other sources I've learnt that it's better to mix in the seeds as a spice when you are sprouting other things. This is probably what I'll do, since there are only 200 seeds in the envelope.

Carrot 'Paris Market' (Daucus carota L.)
-Tiny, round carrots - I couldn't resist.

[Leaf amaranth] 'Calalo Red' (Amarantus tricolor (A. gangeticus))
-I bought this mostly to have something decorative on the windowsill. In the pictures this one has bright green leaves with purple/dark pink centers. I hope it tastes good too - at least it's packed with vitamine A.

[Alger sallat] 'Tiara' (Fedia cornucopiae)
-You can grow it indoors all the year round according to the catalogue, and Impecta is hinting that growin a plant each for the guests at a big party could be a fun idea. I probably won't do that, but anything that can fill up a sallad is wellcome.

Land kelp (Basella alba)
-Are to be grown in big pots with sticks as support. Finally I've found a use for all those 'rocket sticks' we picked on New Years Day. Is said to have mild taste and should be used as spinach (surprise!).

Suger plant (Stevia rebaudiana)
-This plant works like aspartam; a small piece of a leaf is as sweet as a sugar cube. Since my father in law and my brother in law both have diabetes this plant is an item of interest. I do hope I can grow plants healthy enough to give them.

Tiger nut (Cyperus esculentus)
-Yes, I do have two mini gardens of tiger nuts already, but I want more to be able to harvest more tubers. And I've found a use for the straws; they'll be bedding in the vermicompost

RainGel (water crystals)
-I'm planning to use my terracotta pots again, but I'm still lousy at water my plants in time. I hope these will solve the problem. The snag is that I don't know if these crystals kan stand a heat of 200¤C (392¤F), which is what I use to sterilize my soil. I have to do some more reading before I mix them into it.

On another note; my quinoa is sprouting fine, I hope they'll taste good when they're ready...