The Delimma of the Volunteer Plant groups vs Turnips and Epazote Plans

There are always surprises in my garden. I plan a layout, plot successions of plantings, think about form and color, food and recipes and then I'm overwhelmed or mesmerized by a big group of borage plants. They were so lovely, so strong and I let them be. They grew enormous then in the last bout of rainfall which lasted at least two weeks fell over on top on the radicchio and shadowed growing lettuce and arugula seedlings. I'm too easily wooed by these volunteers that seem to be plopped into strategic corners of my plots. It's like each plot is it's own living form. I can only do so much editing and adding the the plot does the rest. I know how Egyptian walking onions work yet I have a difficult time yanking them out It's too cool to watch them take hold where ever they please. So maybe I need to get tough, or find more Egyptian walking onion recipes that feature borage. I yanked the borage from the middle of the Chris plot and as luck had it I had packets of seeds in my pockets at the wet workday last week and realized, when the weather broke, that they were soaked and should go in somewhere. I started with the spot where the strawberry spinach didn't come up. Trying again with that in the middle of the plot. Yanking the borage created a nice open space. I planted a row of lettuce one that was described as standing heat well and the rest of the packet of the strawberry spinach.

Also in the Chris plot, Mary Sue's Lebanese cucumbers are beginning to climb over the rusted wine cask rings and the cedar berry stakes to the twine trellis I made last week. The Tomatos are florishing bigger ones every day on almost all the plants. The Tomato plants that went in late in the Elliot plot are a bit behind but the turnips make up for this. I read, on an alottment site years ago that the best food for tomatos is a tea of compost. I started a batch last week it takes about 3 weeks to go through the phases from stinky to yeasty. I picked a big kitty litter bucket full, covered it and I'm waiting.
Maybe it was planting the turnips twice that did the trick. This is my third big bunch. Lots more to come. I had a nice surprise when I came to the garden last Thursday, my garden friend Jessica left me a recipe for Asazuke or Japanese lightly pickled turnips we spoke of the week before. She also enclosed a packet of the Japanese instant pickling powder that she likes, it's kombu flavored. I sliced up this bunch of turnips and tried her pickling powder easy and tasty. They're ready in an hour but I liked the ones that I kept till the next day. the salty sweet kombu flavor became more infused into the turnip slices. I've grilled them, pickled them, made a red wine/ sage and rosemary based roasted vegetable with them and the Madhur Jaffrey mint/coriander/tomato wonder. What next?

The Elliot plot is ripe with volunteers there's the tomatillo patch at the end by the beans. They were the best tomatillos last year so I'm letting them be as long as the beans manage to climb past them. This week I noticed the first nicotiana seedlings. This variety of nicotiana is the unvarnised huge variety that grows to 4 feet and has long flowers that smell sweet in the evening. I'll keep a few plants. Their so amazing.

I made California roll sushi with red perilla tonight. It has a wonderful fragrance and makes a nice maroon line complementing the nori line in the sushi.

Epazote is all over the place. I'm weeding it out and keeping select plant near the epazote sign and chimney pot. It's getting taller and eventually I'll need to select a few and get rid of the rest. I used the epazote and big dandelion greens (from the Chris plot) in quesidillas with cheese and pinto beans on Saturday. I'ts a funny strong tasting Mexican herb like nothing else. I first read about it in a Diana Kennedy Mexican cookbook. We ordered seeds but they didn't grow so I wrote her. Whe sent me a leaf and a nice note encouraging me to try again. What really would have worked was a scratch N sniff epazote blotter. The flavor is so distinctive that once I knew it I can pluck a tiny seedling and identify the patch. It reseeds just as well as perilla in Philadelphia which is to say it's all over the place.

Georgia, the turnip smelling poodle patiently waited while I took photos of the Carlolina silver bell seed pods. She had a little turnip greens treat in her dinner.