Rocky Mountain Gardening: Anybody growing vegetables in the Rockies?, 1 by pajaritomt

pajaritomt wrote:
rutholive,
I can see why you like it there. Spacious views, light population and the ability to grow a lot of things. You do have everything a gardener could dream of there.

To completely change the subject, I will show you one of my favorite edible plants, one that is sadly overlooked in western ( like opposite of Asian ) cooking. It is the oriental garlic chive, often referred to as Nira by Asians. These are chives but are used in many more ways than we use chives. They can be chopped in small pieces and sprinkled over potato and cheese and many other dishes as we do in western cooking. The do have a mild onion/garlic flavor -- not anywhere near as strong as onions or garlic. They can also be stir fried with meat in quantity. Craig Claiborne's Chinese cookbook has a recipe for 3 cups of chopped chives stir fried with the meat from 1/2 of a cooked duck. Yum.. I have also cooked them with clams. Yummy. Asians cook the buds. Though I have often seen bunches of buds for sale in the Chinese grocery, but I have never found a recipe for them.
They also have very nice flowers, like many aliums and the individual flowers can be cut off and sprinkled on top of a salad or probably a lot of other dishes for a nice pervasive alium flavor.
I undersand that Asians use them medicially but I don't know much about that.
These chives spread like western chives and are easy and attractive to go. I have a large number of them in my lily bed -- yes it is wierd, but my lily bed contains many herbs as well as lilies.
I include a picture so you can get the feeling. Looking for something pretty, easy to grow and edible? Try oriental garlic chives. They have a flat leaf instead of a round one like western chives.