Ramps do not cultivate well is my understanding but do the best grown in the wild for better strength and flavor. They use to say that was why they have never been produced commercially. Now I do know they did try ginseng commercially. I sure do miss fried potatoes with ramps and ramp burgers but no longer in in or near West Virgina where they use to have ramp festivals and you could buy bags full alongside the roads. They were talking about stopping those festivals as they thought it might destroy the complete species of plant. If you eat a ramp raw when you walk into any room all those there could smell your breath but once cooked it never was that bad, but such a wonderful flavor when used in cooking.

You are asking tough questions! I cook for 2 maybe 3 or 4 times a week. Family comes once a week. Other night we have leftovers, eat out, or my husband cooks something easy. I have been studying and trying Asian recipes this past year. How much you plant depends on how much you like each vegetable. I've been able to try some things from the Asian market. Maybe some of my comments on your list will be helpful. Daikon: I grew a short row but wasted most of the crop because it bolted sooner than I expected. I did not have a good set of recipes so I didn't use as much as I might this coming season. I also plan to plant Chinese Watermelon or Red Meat Radishes. I like Daikon and carrot pickles but my family does not. Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin; much smaller than American pumpkins) We grew a variety from Johnny's called Confection which I believe is from this family. It's a winter squash. Confection has been a great keeper, stored in our semi-heated garage. It is March and we still have some good squashes. Our crop wasn't as good the second year as the first but we had a very rainy summer. I discovered we much prefer using the squash in Massaman curry instead of sweet potatoes (which we do not grow). I'm not familiar with the next 3: Winter Melon Pickling Melon Sword Beans Long beans: I am trying these this year. I planted too late last summer and the beans didn't have enough time to mature before our early frost. Check the days to harvest. Amaranth (water spinach): not familiar Chinese celery: I take this to mean cilantro. I have a hard time growing it because it bolts early. The seeds sown late did better in cooler weather. mustard greens: we discovered we don't like mustard greens mizuna mibuna burdock root (gobo; it's a long root veggie) bitter gourd Asian Eggplants (Chinese, Thai, and Japanese varieties) Bok Choy and Pak Choy (pak choy is baby bok choy): These bolt easily. Just grow a few plants so you can use them fresh, and do successive plantings. Misome: not familiar Turnip Greens: This year I will grow choy sum for the first time. I finally bought some at the Asian grocery. We like it better than Swiss chard. Watercress: not familiar Komatsuna:not familiar Azuki Beans, Black soybeans (kuro mame): I don't grow Sesame seeds, black, white (don't know about this; all depends on if my growing season is long enough): cheaper to buy Herbs: Yomogi (mugwort, Japanese herb) Shisho (Japanese variety of Basil) This really isn't a basil but it's related. I don't use it much. Thai Basil: I love the flavor of this. A small patch would be good, maybe 3 x 1'. I did not freeze or dry this. Garlic Chives: I really haven't made good use of these although I have grown for many years. A short row is probably sufficient. Bird's Eye Chilies: I grow one plant but we don't use many hot peppers. I use bottled sauces that add enough heat.

mugwort is a wonderful culinary, medicinal, and recreational herb. My experiences with it started as my misunderstanding and thought that it may be a substitute for marihuana, however not really mimicing marihuana well, I found that it was a good herb in it's own rite. I have found that Mugwort's flavor goes good in numerous types of food. Caution should be used hen cooking with mugwort because of the consituent thujone, which exists in mugwort at a realitively safe recreational level, and as such, care should be used to use it at a dose that will impart it's sweet, mildly licorice like flavor but not enough to impart it's medicinal or recreational qualities, which I find that anywhere between an eight to 1 whole leaf is a good amount for this. I sometimes enjoy mugwort in scrambled eggs, and I have also heard good things about it's use to flavor rice. It's medicinal qualities are inducing lucid dreaming, and to an extent inhibiting and sometimes killing intestinal parasites. I particularly enjoy mugwort for it's recreational qualities though. The methods for ingesting for this purpose can be eating the herb (usually at quantities over 1 leaf) making mugwort tea, or smoking mugwort. It has a light and uplifting, somewhat euphoric high (around the same level of euphoric potentail as raw cacao (chocolate) beans, and mild hallucinations. The hallucinations are usually nothing more than seeing colors a little more 'vividly', sometimes vision distortion (ie- 'wide angle lens/fish eye vision) but sometimes, at higher doses, can cause either psychedelic hallucinations (seeing colors that are not part of a real object, seeing objects that aren't there but resemble objects that are) or sometimes delusions (seeing something that isn't there but looks real enough to make telling the difference difficult, this is rare and only happens at very high doses). Don't get too over excited or nervous though, mugwort, at least at reasonable definitions of high doses, can't cause hallucinogenic fantasies, or 'trips' as some people call them, and you will remain in reality, just random and non-overwhelming visual intrest capturing, short lived oddities, and again, only at high doses. for some reason, mugwort that has turned orange in the fall is more likely to cause visuals, and mugwort that has turned predominately purple for the fall tends to offer more of a strictly mild stimulant effect, even if that same plant in the summer was one that produced visuals. I do not know the reason why some mugwort I find that some mugwort becomes orange, and others purple, or what the corralation with the distinction of recreational values is. Other then that, Mugwort is a stimulant (although obviously not a strong one because people can sleep and enjoy the dreaming effects. Also, it is important to note that, as I have found to be the case, plants that produce an herby flavor don't cause the dreaming effect, and those that have a licorice-y are more likely to cause both the dreaming effects and the psychedelic effects. This seems to have nothing to do with the color changing phenominon in the fall as plants that have even the most pronounced psychedelic/dreaming effects that have a strong licorice-y flavor can become purple in the fall and have only a strictly stimulant effect, and vice versa. The usual dose of mugwort (1-2 cigarettes, a cup of mugwort tea, 2-3 leaves chewed and swallowed) usually only produces the stimulant effect with a relaxed, mildly spacey under tone, which is quite pleasant. Sorry if I blathered or didn't make sense, I actually just harvested a bunch of mugwort earlier, and the thujone or other undiscovered recreational element appears to (and this is not the first time this has happened) be able to be aabsorbed through the skin, and since I can estimate that I handled probably a quarter pound of it, I am at the point of having hallucinations (I looked over and my window was the garage door for a second) plus I am very tired. Hope the information was somewhat useful. Peace, and have fun growing/harvesting mugwort!

The lemon balm is outcompeting just about everything else. I wish I could have lavender do well here but with clay soil, even heavily ammended, its a no go. Has anyone mentioned borage yet? Its really lovely with those pendant blue flowers and tolerant of partial shade. Others are oregano, any of the many mints, (mine are spearmint, peppermint, citrus mint,bee balm -- regular and dwarf, and catnip). I'd like catmint but i'm rapidly running out of room. Consider horseradish, chives, sage -- my tricolor was a disappoinment as well. I put in some wormwood. Its the first year for it. I hope it overwinters (it should) the silvery leaves really perk things up. As for annuals the various basils love my heat and humidity, as does the mexican bean herb epazote (be warned it kinda stinks, worse than cilantro which has self seeded like crazy). Oh yeah, dill. Self seeds all over too. I don't know if yarrow is technically an "herb" but it works with all the rest. My wish list for here: lavender, lavender and lavender. followed by rosemary (too cold) and the thymes. The humidity seems to be too much for them. Parsley also doesn't do well here consistantly. Happy planting! mmo