10 Foods I Wish I Could Grow in My Garden but Can't

a garden that's just starting for the season

It's sometimes fun to imagine what a garden could be if I had the right conditions. There are so many yummy foods that are grown somewhere on this planet. So I came up with my list of 10 foods I wish I could grow, but can't. Number one and two could possibly be on your list too, or maybe not. I had a hard time deciding which should be which place. Here we go. (starting at 10 and working to my most wished for)

10. Camellia sinensis, the tea plant. You actually can grow a tea plant in my area, if done in a pot. Camellia sinensis requires a minimum of zone 8b. I'm just a little too inland to leave this plant outdoors in winter. If I had a greenhouse, I absolutely would grow a pot or two of camellia sinensis. Of course, what I would be harvesting is green tea. I don't know if I'd want to put the time and work into turning green tea into black tea, which is what I prefer. But it can be done.

9. Olea europaea, the olive tree. If I did everything just right (amended soil to drain better, site the tree against a south-facing wall, and be vigilant against fungal disease), I could in theory grow an olive tree. However, my yard is too shady to ripen olives, even if I could coax it to set fruit. Despite this, a few people in the Seattle area have been able to grow and harvest small amounts of olives. Growing up in California, we had two olive trees in our yard. My parents never did anything with the fruit (and my father was rather annoyed by the purple staining of fallen fruit onto the concrete walkway). But these made great trees for climbing.

8. Arachis hypogaea, peanuts. You likely know this, peanuts are not a true nut but a legume. What we eat as a "nut" is actually the seed of the peanut plant, borne in pods like peas or beans. Native to hot tropical climates, peanuts need long hot summers with more warm days than we get in a season. If I could grow peanuts, I could pair them with item number 1 for a lovely homegrown and homemade treat.

7. Prunus amygdalus, the almond tree. Almond trees can be grown in my area, but our wet spring weather here leads to blossom rot. In addition, almond trees bloom too early for reliable pollination in my area. Almond trees thrive in Mediterranean climates, not cool maritime ones. There are a few types of nuts that cannot be grown in my area. I chose almonds because they are the only common tree nut that I am not allergic to.

6. Ipomoea batatas, sweet potatoes. Sweet potato plants need long, hot summers to produce large tubers. My area has a slow start to the hot weather each year, typically waiting until after 4th of July to warm up. Sweet potatoes can successfully be grown in a greenhouse. But if I had a greenhouse, I think I would use that space differently than to grow sweet potatoes.

5. Citrus × tangerina, tangerine tree. Technically I could grow tangerines here. However, they would have to be a dwarf variety grown in a pot. The opot would have to be moved outside to a very sunny spot on our property in May each year, then moved back indoors in October. As it would be a very small tree, it wouldn't yield much. I do have a neighbor who grows lemons in a pot on casters. She moves the pot outdoors each year, then wheels it back inside for fall, winter,  and early spring. I've only ever seen 8 or 10 fruits on her little tree.

4. Citrullus lanatus, the watermelon. You can grow watermelons in the Seattle area, but my yard is too cool and isn't full sun. If I had a very sunny spot I could grow melons on black plastic mulch.

3. Persea americana (or avocado pear), the avocado tree. Most avocado trees prefer a temperature range between 60 and 85 degrees F, typically found in zones 9-11. There are some cold-hardy varieties that can be grown in zone 8b. My husband lived in southern California for a year when he was a boy. Their rental home was adjacent to an avocado orchard. His mom was told she could pick up any fruit that had fallen for their use. My husband hated avocados as a child, unfortunately, He missed out on a golden eating opportunity. I also lived in California growing up, but we didn't have a handy avocado orchard nearby, and my father didn't like the mess that fruiting trees produce.

2. Coffea, the seeds of which are known as coffee beans. Coffea needs the climate of the tropics to grow and produce. Colder climates slow growth and prevent flower production. A frost will kill the leaves and a freeze will kill the plant. Hawaii is the only state in the US where coffee is grown commercially. The Coffea plant could in theory be grown in a greenhouse in my climate. However, it would be more along the lines of a horticutural experiment than a way to get my daily beans.

1. Theobroma cacao, otherwise known to us as the cocoa plant. Cacao is an evergreen tree, grows up to 39 feet,  It grows in the tropics, which are far from my area. Theobroma cacao gives us cocoa butter, chocolate liquor (used to make baking chocolate and chocolate candy), and cocoa powder. Chocolate anc cocoa contain two stimulants, caffeine and theobromine. Theobromine tends to be less stimulating, but its effects last longer. Some of us experience sleep disturbances if we consume chocolate later in the day.

The primary challenges in my garden are cool, wet springs, followed by short warm (not hot) summers. We don't receive enough heat hours to grow many foods, and my yard is partly shade. As it is, I choose cool season vegetables to grow in peak summer months, foods like kale, mustard greens, Swiss chard, spinach and lettuce. I do grow a few heat-lovers, but those are restricted to the sunniest and hottest spots of our yard, like up against the black asphalt driveway or surrounded by brick walkways. Some of my top 10 wish foods are in the just dreamin' category. I'm guessing none of us live where cacao trees could grow and produce. And likely only one or two of us live where coffea grows. But the rest of my list would be possible to grow in at least some parts of the US.

If you had a list of foods you wish you could grow in your garden, what would be on it?

Is Organizing Your Stuff the Key to Unlocking More Space?

I was thinking about this question earlier this week. I kept thinking how nice it would be to have a larger home, or more closets, or a basement, or accessible attic space. Our culture encourages us to have far more belongings than our grandparents could have imagined having. My house is crammed with stuff. It was built before big closets, and lots of them, were thought to be needed. Finding a place fore everything is a constant battle.

So I thought that perhaps if I just organized my stuff better I could keep everything tidier and in a dedicated space.

A couple of weeks ago I was particularly annoyed by how crowded my canning jar cupboard had become. To be fair, I also keep used commercial jars on one of the shelves. And those keep rolling in as my daughters buy jarred foods they like and I add instant coffee jars. It's a joke in our house, my epitaph will someday read, "She never met a jar she didn't like."

By the way these shelves look today, you would never guess
that just a couple of weeks ago it seemed there was
no place to put another jar. 

The second shelf is the result of creating more room on the shelf
just below this one.
I used another shallow box to stack smaller jars on top of larger jars,
which meant I could keep almost all of our commercial jars on
that shelf and leave this one free fore more canning jars.

This is the time of year my jar shelves fill up, as we consume what was canned last season. So it should be no surprise to me that the cupboard would become so full. We'd reached a point where there simply wasn't any more space for jars. I wasn't the only one annoyed by the lack of space in this cupboard. Anyone who had the task of putting away a just-washed jar dealt with the quandary of "where can I put this?"

I knew it was just a matter of organizing those shelves. I do this every year and can find places to put every last canning jar that I own by the middle of summer.

I wish I had a before photo, then I could show you what I mean. I didn't think this chore would be photo-worthy. But take my word, there was not a single bit of space for another jar, or so it seemed.

I pulled everything out and began to organize. I could see there was some dead-space in pockets here and there, space that could be used to store additional jars. This wasn't space that was between jars, but in the airspace above some of the jars. To respond to this, I used a couple of shallow boxes to hold smaller jars while the boxes themselves sat on top of medium sized jars, makeshift extra shelves. When I was finished, I not only had plenty of room for the canning and commercial jars, but I had cleared the front half of an entire shelf just below.

My husband even queried where did I put all of the other jars. It was a matter of organization --putting like items together and stacking smaller on top of bigger, with the help of a shallow box turned shelf. I do this with bedroom closet space too. I check for places where open space exists. It's often above the top shelf or below the hanging clothing. If like size clothing items can be grouped, this open space can be maximized and put to use to create additional clothing storage. Sometimes there is hidden open space. For example, when there's about 1/4 of a box of cereal remaining, but the entire box takes up room as if it were full. When the pantry seems to be overflowing with boxes, you can gain space by taking the partially full inner bags out of such boxes and grouping together in a single storage container. This can be true of all manner of consumable products.  I order dental floss in 12-ct cartons. I could see that the cabinet under the bathroom sink was stuffed to the gills, but couldn't see a way to organize out of that situation. That is, until I opened the carton of dental floss to see that I had two individual packages left. The individual flosses could come out of the carton, and the cardboard carton could go into the recycling, yielding free space the equivalent of 2 shampoo bottles. 

Organizing is very helpful, but it isn't the entire answer for all situations. When making space, I have to purge some unnecessary stuff, too. 

But with canning jar cupboard chore, I didn't have to get rid of too many jars. I think I recycled a grand total of 3 coffee jars in a shape I didn't care for and their bulky plastic lids in that purge.

In the canning jar case, organization went a long way. In other organizing projects, decluttering makes the greatest impact. I do have to ask myself if I really need to hang on to some things. I save plastic containers, thinking I may need to use them all for freezing foods. But at some point, my future freezer storage containers have just become excess junk. About once every 6 months the drawer where I store these plastic containers becomes too full to close. That's when I sit myself down on the kitchen floor and ruthlessly edit this accumulation. I think I have proven to myself that we don't need a second drawer of plastic containers to store all of our freezer foods and some leftovers. One drawer will suffice. This is true in other categories of storage. I don't need 20 pairs of shoes. I can "get by" very nicely with half that amount. By keeping fewer pairs of shoes, I have space in a small bedroom closet to hold other clothing. And the fewer pairs of shoes suffice for all of my footwear needs.

There are some categories of belongings that give me great pleasure to own, and I exceed amounts that most folks would consider necessary, because these are the objects that I particularly enjoy collecting. I collect dish ware. It's my "thing." I may not truly need all of the dishes that I have, but they bring me enjoyment to look at them and use them.

So what is the answer to finding space for everything in my already jam-packed home? It isn't just organizing what I have. And it isn't just about decluttering regularly. It's both, together, but also recognizing that some belongings are special to me, off limits to purging, and need space that may or may not fit standard organizational methods.

I love that I can find more space by rearranging the contents of an area. It's so satisfying to look into a cupboard and see open space waiting to hold the next emptied canning jar. I love that I can own some special items in excess of what others think is needed. I really don't need that bigger house, or the extra closets, or a basement or attic storage. I can create order in my surroundings and own all of the things that bring me pleasure through intentional management of my home.