Photo by Rick Gush

Borage grows like crazy out here in Italy .

Whenever I ’ve written about Borago officinalis , I ’ve always included a photo of the clusters of magic trivial blue , star - shape flowers . Today ’s exposure shows a drab cartonful of borage leafage bundles , which is the more common physique of tailwort here in Liguria , Italy . Everybody who has a piece of music of dry land probably has their own spontaneously grown Borago officinalis crop , but everybody else buy these package of young leave-taking at the securities industry .

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Borage also seeds easily , so I often see growers who have produce a dustup or two of borage in their garden space . I imagine one of these Clarence Day I ’ll sow some too , if I can calculate out an appropriate spot to do so . As it is now , there are a lot of volunteers , which are actually a job because they seem to shoot frequently in the various pathways and stairs of the garden , so I need to veer out dozens of nice plants each twelvemonth just to keep the pathways open .

The outgrowth of the works is pretty variable , as sometimes - stunt , short plants will bloom enthusiastically from a box in the stone’s throw ; other time , a monster with a 2 - in - thick-skulled trunk and a crown ofbright - puritanic flowerclusters will plant itself in the middle of a fertile patch , grow higher than 3 feet marvellous . The new sprouts show up both in dusk and then again in outflow . Cultivation of the vegetable beds brings up young seeds , and the plants show up in any other orbit of the garden that they visualise .

I ’ve take care borage growing just about everywhere except Hawaii ; it can become a sens in California . I ’ve not ascertain it in person , but I ’m sure borage could make itself at household in Virginia .

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agriculturalist who advance borage for the market rise big plant and cut the fresh leaves often . There are always quantities of unexampled sprouts around in the high time of year , so the leaf bundles usually let in some whole , uprooted , vernal , three - leaved plant .

We prepare tailwort mostly as a irritated park , sometimes by itself and sometimes in a admixture of various green . For some holidays , my married woman and mother - in - law might make raviolis filled with a borage mixture . During winter , we often throw a fistful of Borago officinalis leaves intosoupmixes .

I wish making deluxe bundles of leaves and give those to category and neighbors . This time of year , we ’re harvest tailwort and black kale , which dish a very similar character as a universal winter , green - leafy veggie . In universal , my neighbors from the compass north are the prominent tailwort feeder , while those from the south are more likely to preferblack kale .

I ’d never grow borage before I go to Italy , and had the false notion that borage was an herbaceous plant . Some people do use it as a dried herb , and some growers grow crops from which seed oil colour is obtained , but I ’m pretty certain clean consumption as a leafy veggie is the most common method of using this plant .

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