posting here

keeps my interest from flagging, so here we are. It's colder this week during the day- sunny but just around fifty degrees, so I haven't been putting plants out. Today I weeded one more raised garden bed, clearing up leaves that had blown in around them, and hauled a bucketful to the compost pile. Most of what I yanked up was purple dead nettle- it's thick through all the beds. Regretting that I let it grow so much. I don't make tortillas from scratch anymore, and never found another way I like to eat it . . . This weeding plus a short walk (two blocks) wore me out. Sigh. 

So here's nostalgia pics from the year before my ankle injury. I hope it will look like this again someday! Full of thriving herbs. I'm sure the tarragon (center here), sorrel (back left) and lemon balm will revive- I've seen green leaves under the leaf mulch on the lemon balm. But the deer have eaten my sorrel.

and the green onions didn't come back- I had replanted some in 2022 but they didn't make it. This pic is from the year before

I miss having good leeks. My best ones were never as thick as you get in the grocery store- but they were fresh and always on hand.

The previous years' leeks in two newer beds were skimpy. I realize now I made a mistake when I put up the last three beds- layering with newspaper shreds and chipped cardboard okay, putting in broken sticks nope. Thinking back now I realize all the plants in those three beds had been sub-par. Wood chips on top of the bed for mulch I think works fine, having it mixed into or under the soil it probably steals nitrogen. At least, that's my guess. 

The garlics that shared the leek bed last year did just okay. One of my daughter's friends saw my small garlic heads on the counter and laughed: "I've never seen such tiny garlics!" Yeah. And they didn't cure properly, of all the garlics I dug up in fall, two-thirds or more rotted. Want to try growing them again, but I'll have to buy anew in fall- none of mine were worth replanting.