Nasturtiums and you.

The Nasturtium plant is an annual trailing plant with rounded edible leaves and bright yellow, orange, or red flowers.

Although the leaves are edible, they are a little on the strong side and although, along with the flowers, they are often used to decorate Salads, they are rarely eaten by the Hoi Polloi. (Yours truly included.)

Irregardless of how I feel about its edible qualities, I do love it as an easy, fast-growing, pretty, ground covering plant. As it is only an annual it does mean that if you want it permanently in your garden, you do have re-grow it every year. On the other hand the Nasturtium is one of those plants that once seeded, tends to self propagate itself, and thus all you usually need to do, is either thin them out, or pull out the resulting self-sown plants growing where you don’t really want them.

One major problem some people have with the Nasturtium plant is not the fault of the plant but rather the fault of the grower. Many people complain that whenever they try to grow Nasturtiums, no matter how much tender loving care and fertilizer that they put into them, all they get is a massive show of leaves and next to no flowers.

The problem here is that Nasturtiums unlike some plants do not need massive fertilization or rich soil to grow in. The plant grows and flowers best in average conditions, and by over feeding them, you encourage the plant to put all its energies into growth making at the expense of flowers.

The more you feed them, the less they produce what is expected of them and the rest goes into unwanted plant growth and not into desired flowers. This reminds me of the currant situation with obesity in our generation. A recent survey suggests that we get more than our daily need of energy, in just one Take Away meal, without the need of the extra energy taken in from our other meals for that day.

Because we are taking in more nourishment than we need for normal; activities the extra goes into excess growth and its resultant obesity, and resulting inefficiency in our normal activities; in some case, our former normal activities, as some are now too difficult to do anymore.

What about you? Are you over fertilizing your Nasturtiums and yourself? If you desire the proper results from your Nasturtiums, then you need to watch what you feed them. The same goes for yourself. Are you giving yourself the proper care needed to get the best out of you or are you over fed?

There is no easy solution to this but a major beginning would be to cut down on the size of your energy intakes, plus some extra exercise. Maybe even just to getting out into the garden to start with, Hey? Walter