[ErubTiereedig]

Effie, thanks for telling me about "blite"! I tried to look up the word, but it looks like there are a few different plants that are called blite, so I'll have to try to narrow it down.

It does flower - if you can call it that - but the flowers are greenish not red. Perhaps we have a another variety here.

Here the greenish ones grow wild, but some ladies gave me some seeds from Greece for the red variety last year, and they say the red ones are much better.

When we first started our garden I used to spend quite a lot of my time uprooting purslane (glistrida) until a neighbour who is from a village told me that it is used in salads. I looked it up on the Internet and it is another of God's wonder foods. It is full of goodness and nutrients and I use it often. I tried pickling it but that was a complete disaster.

We have a ton of purslane here, too. It's one of my more annoying weeds... but I didn't know it was edible! I might have to try it sometime, but I'm guessing I'd be too afraid to try it on my own. Next time the Greeks are visiting I might ask them to show me how to use "glistrida".

The wiki page on purslane has a picture of a Greek salad! look at this:


Here the worst weed is Canadian Thistle, which is the worst one to uproot, and also it's full of thorns. I think the Greek word for that is "Adragathia", or something like that. Did you know that thistles are also very therapeutic? It's funny how the most obnoxious weeds are so therapeutic... how did anyone ever think to try eating them??

I bought two blueberry bushes a couple of weeks ago. They came from Holland and I am optimistic that they will prosper here. Blueberries don't grow here although there is a wild berry that is similar.

I have some blueberry bushes, but they are very difficult to keep happy. They need an EXTREMELY acidic soil! It's annoying to try to keep the soil acidic enough. But it's amazing how many fruits they produce!