Utilising a dry shady area

[Jeannine]

Ay home I have a narrow border area next to the carriage house, it was part of the lawn but the grass never did well as it was too close to the building I guess so it now has a decorative concrete border around it and I am thinking of putting perennial herbs on it, what do you think. It is sandy, very close to the house,about 24 inches x 20 feet or so. Quite dry and has limited sun..any chance for anything??

XX Jeannine

[Jeannine]

[Obelixx]

Sweet cicely does well in shade in my garden and self seeds freely but you'd need to work plenty of garden compost into the soil to improve moisture retention.   Chervil is also happy in shade.

[star]

American land cress, chives (at a push) and just out of interest, I have a Mellissa seedling....self sown, in a very shady part of my garden.

[artichoke]

 
Edible ferns? Unless you believe them to be poisonous, though it is said that reasonable amounts don't harm anyone.

http://www.thekitchn.com/seasonal-spotlight-fiddlehead-47357

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddlehead_fern#Health_effects

[Jeannine]

Good, cos chives is one I wanted to put there.

Fiddleheads are eaten here by the way, collected from the wild or bought frozen in the grocery stores. XX Jeannine

[artichoke]

Alpine strawberries are said to like shade.

Interesting that you can buy them where you are - have you eaten them? I have quite a lot of ferns in my dry shady place but have never tried eating them in the spring.

[Jeannine]

Yes I have eaten fresh fiddleheads, they are picked when the fronds are still tightly curled up, once they start to uncurl they are no good. I am not a big lover of them and wouldn't buy them frozen but if anyone is into foraging it makes for a good green veggie.

XX Jeannine

You might find this useful, I just found it on the net.

                                        http://www.chefdecuisine.com/vegetables/fiddleheads/fiddleheadmain.php

and the best I could find for identifying

                                         http://umaine.edu/publications/2540e/

[artichoke]

Thank you for all that fascinating information. It looks as if I have to try to remember the names of my ferns if I don't want to poison myself.

My first mother-in-law came from Framingham Mass. and talked a lot about the family farm and Scraggy Neck holidays, but not a word about fiddle ferns. It must have been survival food for her ancestors so perhaps it has been conveniently forgotten. Her family on both sides were early settlers. I wish I had asked her more about them.

I have illustrated a book on the food plants of Dhofar (in Oman) and the tribal people who showed us their food plants were matter of fact about them: "This is what we eat", and they would eat them while I was trying to take notes. The more educated ones were embarrassed about these "primitive" customs, so the whole book had to be written in the past tense. ("This is what our grandparents ate - we now have rice and carrots")

[Jeannine]

interesting but they are not considered poor mans food. on the contrary they are very very upmarket, the frozen ones are very expensive and if they show up on a menu it is only on the very expensive restaurants, sort of somewhere between wild mushrooms and squash flowers, definitely very posh!!

XX Jeannine