Borage
Borago officinalis • Hybrid • The Chef’s Favorite • Open-Pollinated
Bees, bartenders, and cooks delight in this beautiful, giant herb. You barely have to do anything to keep it alive and it will reseed itself so you won’t ever need to plant it ever again. I love this plant so much that I chose it as a Stay Home Garden Bunker Crop.
JOY MAX SCALE ✦✦✦✦✧
✦ Large plants bear hundreds of small, edible flowers with a mild cucumber flavor that is excellent in salads and as garnish. Harvest borage as it begins to flower. Dry flowers quickly under moderate heat with good air circulation.
✦ Long harvest period. Medicinal: Seeds are a rich source of gamma-linolenic acid (GLA).
✦ It will always draw bees to your garden. They cannot stay away.
✦ Super cottage-core, so cute you won’t mind when it grows big and gangly. Just cut it down when it flops over. Another seedling has probably already sprung up to take its place.
✦ As long as it has some drainage, it will grow in even poor soil. It’s also very drought-tolerant, an almost worry-free plant.
✦ Because borage leaves are rich in minerals and vitamins, the leaves make nice mulch for almost any vegetable. Use the older, larger, fading leaves for this purpose. Borage plant material rots easily and so it is also a quick source of energy when used as green mulch or added to your compost bin.
✧ I have to give it one ✦ deduction just because it can annoy you if you plant it in the wrong place. It gets big and as the plant matures, it can become quite sprawling and spindly. It will inevitably shade out other plants and flop over. Moving is difficult and usually isn’t worth the effort and the hairy stems will irritate unprotected skin on your arms you if you try to keep it cut back. Giving it ample sun to grow sturdier and space away from the rest of your crops will avoid this annoyance and keep you smitten.
Basic Growing Information
Direct sow seeds when summer wanes or as soon as the soil has warmed in the spring. Plant 1/4-1/2” deep, 3 seeds per foot in rows that are 24” apart. Thin to 12” spacing for individual plants. You can transplant or move borage, but it’s not easy. They grow a long taproot so baby them with seaweed water until they recover.
PLANT HEIGHT: 18-30” PLANT WIDTH: 18” SEED SPACING: 18” SEED DEPTH: 1/2” IDEAL TEMP: 60-70º Germination: 7-14 days DAYS TO MATURITY: 50-60 SOIL: Average LIGHT: Part Shade in Spring / Full Sun in Fall
Tips for Growing Borage
It’s so easy to grow borage that you almost don’t need any tips. Plant it somewhere slightly out of the way. It doesn’t need any fancy soil but for best results, work in a few inches of compost before sowing. It needs some sun to germinate and take off as a seedling, but once established, it can do pretty well in part shade.
It will reseed freely and come up any time conditions are favorable. It’s easy to pull seedlings if they spread to areas where you don’t want them.
You can eat the fuzzy leaves as well as the flowers when young, but as it matures the stalks and leaves harden and get fuzzy with itchy hairs. Finely chop the young leaves & stalks for use in cooking; prepare and use them as you would celery.
It is cold hardy but will not survive a hard freeze. Fear not, those seedlings will still pop up if your plant has had a chance to flower and produce seeds.
Companion Planting
Tomatoes, strawberries, brassicas, squash. Said to repel tomato hornworm and cabbage loopers.
Seed Saving
It’s easy to save seeds from borage. Just take a cup with you to the plant once they seeds have withered and browned. Use your hands to carefully knock the seeds into the cup. You should never have to buy borage seeds again once you’ve grown the plants one season in your garden.