The funniest thing happened! I had a few plants left over after setting everything out in the garden, and want more herbs, so I put them up for swap on craigslist. Finally a lady called me offering mint in trade, and discovered she lives right across the street from me! So this morning we toured each others' gardens and traded plants. Her yard is full of prolific growth- I admired her geraniums, rose trellises, lilacs- and saw that so many things I want to grow will flourish and come back every year even with
out mulching against the cold. She admired my composting, the paths I built, and general tidiness (glad I had just mowed the lawn yesterday! or it would have looked a lot more shabby). And here's what we traded:
I gave her my last three baby Strawberries
one lone Cherry Tomato (which has grown quite a bit since its last photo near bottom of
this post)
this Thyme in a pot
some Fennel dug from the patch in Isa's garden spot, and one of my Parsley pots.
She gave me in return all these Mints!
Chocolate Mint
a Peppermint and Spearmint (thought I'm not quite sure which is which),
some Lemon Balm (which I've never used before but she says it's great with fish).
It looks the most terrible- they're all drooping sad now from the shock of being yanked out of the ground and put in new containers. I do want to grow all of them (except the mints, which just spread too much) directly in the ground but if they're in pots first I can give them time to recover and move in/out of shade until they're happy again.
Also some cuttings of Sage
Rosemary
and Lavender (I never realized before how similar the rosemary and lavender foliage is before).
Not quite sure how the cuttings will do- I've dipped them all in root hormone powder, and crossed my fingers. I'll share new pictures once they've all perked up and look nicer again (or report on their demise, if they fail!)
Now I feel quite rich, with all these herbs! I've got a new plan forming to make half my concrete-edged raised bed a permanent herb garden, once I have the young flowering crabapple and crepe myrtle out of there (I'll probably transplant them this fall or next spring). All that's missing is some chives, dill, and I wonder if I could grow a bay leaf tree...?
5 comments:
I want to do a plant swap SO BAD!!! I wish we lived closer...I'd totally do a swap with you?? Where do you live by the way? I've always assumed you lived in the Carolinas for some reason...if you do you could meet up with Heather and swap with her!!! And take lots of pics of the two of y'all of course and send them to me :p
I live in Northern Virginia! So... I think us swapping plants would be troublesome. (I've heard of people sending plants in the mail but feel weird about that- what if they got crushed? or died?) But I could totally send you some seed! I save lots of seed: lettuce, chard, green beans, cilantro, basil, cosmos, tithonia.....)
I LOVE that idea!! Though I don't want to take your seed stock :/ I can see what I have too and send you some!!
Don't worry- I have so much lettuce seed it's not even funny. I grew from the original store-bought packets this year and have seed saved from the last two years' plants as well! This year so much grew I even sold some seedlings. Let me make up a list of what extra seed I've got and I'll email it to you, see what you want!
Awesome :) I'll email you back with what I have too! I have a few sugar baby watermelon seeds left if you want them...plus some other stuff!
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