in the garden space

tarragon is emerging

and winter savory is alive after all, but only just barely. I cut off a ton of dead stems.

I'm pleased with the sculpit- there's been plenty to eat from at least once a week.

Sorrel has grown in thick again- looks like the deer have quit invading my yard temporarily (I scattered the soap shavings and hair again). But I haven't eaten this plant this spring- I used to have it as a fresh green alongside a pork roast usually, and we just haven't had that often of late.

Rue is regrowing from a cutback I gave it a few weeks ago. The bricks on this little bed have gone all wonky, leaning and crooked and full of gaps. I wonder are the plant's roots pushing them outward, or did I just set them poorly the first time. Really need to get out there and dig them straight with a proper little gravel layer underneath.

Not in a garden bed- elsewhere on the edge of a perennial patch- my rhubarb finally got harvested! This is a day after I cut about a third of the stems, and made one small pie. It was so tasty. I got no picture, we ate it so fast.

spring herbs

A few days ago I posted pictures of my herb bed last summer. Well, here's what is actually green right now. Sorrel! I'd have more of this to eat if it wasn't for the deer.

Next to it, lemon balm still alive under there. Don't know why it cheers me so much each spring to see these things growing again- they do it every year- but yet it does, enough to take pictures and admire.

Sculpit- enough to start eating it again. Just had some the other day, with onions as a side dish to pasta.

I still don't know why my winter savory is not doing well. I didn't even eat any of it this season. Only a few green leaves on the whole plant-

most of it dried up and sad like this, or naked twigs.

Lavender is doing great, though!

I'm not expecting my sage to regrow, sadly- that one also hasn't done great lately. And I'm going to have to restart green onions again. But hope to see the tarragon and lovage come up again.

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.

today is cold and damp

Perfect for digging and moving things. I dug up nearly the entire perennial herb bed (sparing only the corner where bunching onions grow) and raked in three scattered layers of broken rock. Leftover fragments of stuff my husband brings home from fossil-hunting trips. It was a heap on the back patio and now it's dug into my herb bed. Because I've read that they prefer rocky soil.

The sorrel was getting quite large so I took some divisions off the sides of the clump, but also accidentally broke off nearly all the leaves. However it seems pretty robust and I think will grow back quick enough. It's now in the far corner alongside the onions. Lemon balm replanted to its right.

The middle is rearranged- left here it's winter savory and tarragon, sculpit in the middle, two sage plants on the right.

Most of it doens't look like much right now, but the winter savory (which got a trim) has tiny leaves sprouting in its tangle of stems,

and the sculpit is only scraggly because I've been eating it.

Lavender replanted on the other end.

I tossed a finally layer of broken rock over the surface after replanting, and then tucked all the leaf litter back in place- because we have a temperature drop again this week, with nights just below freezing. 

winter greens

It has been very cold nights, some down into the low twenties, but often warm again during the day. The leeks I left in the garden didn't last, but the few green onions left are still okay, and I can still pick to eat sorrel, winter savory, sculpit, and purple dead nettle in certain sheltered spots. What I tried to grow in my little greenhouse- only part worked out. Nearly all the pots sprouted- but the lettuces are doing very poorly and leggy. Lack of light, or the soil was too poor, or it's just been too cold for them to thrive. Tatsoi I only got one good plant, but that one's doing fine. Haven't eaten it yet because I wish there was more. Chervil all growing but are slow to put out their first true leaves. Dill is okay and I've used some of it. Tokyo bekana is doing well!

A bit spindly, but grew much better than anything else. I actually picked some to eat just yesterday, glad for a bit of fresh greens. 

Maybe if I do this again next year, skip the idea of lettuces (unless I start them sooner) and just do the cabbage and spinach relatives.

blanketed

This past week I did the final work putting the garden to bed for winter. Turned the compost pile- there was less than before, only the bottom fourth or barely third was finished material, but it was very finely done, with a clear demarcation. I put six wheelbarrow loads on eight garden beds, the rue and perennial herbs just got leaf litter mulch. On top of the compost layer went four wheelbarrow loads of finished leaf mould from last year's pile. Started a new one. While it feels quieting to see all the beds flat and dark with their winter mulch, it also feels restful and I sure was satisfied, happy even, to find the rich darkness at the bottom of the piles. It still feels something miraculous and wealthy, to dig up all this goodness from heaps of waste and blanket it over to feed next year's plants. Only green in the garden now are a few leeks, sorrel, winter savory and lavender in the perennnial bed, rue and some volunteer borage on the back wall that brave the cold a little longer. 

All the vermicompost went on the front lawn, when I emptied out the blue bin a few weeks ago (don't think I mentioned it here). The worms were looking a bit poorly but now with fresh bedding and regular feedings again (I had ignored them lately) they're looking better.

The green tomatoes I picked and put on kitchen windowsill didn't ripen, they just got moldy and tossed. Should have tried making fried green tomatoes! Half the cowpea pods I picked just withered icky-looking too, but the rest I am waiting for them to dry and see if the seed inside is any good. Next time must watch the weather reports more closely, and pull them all before the first night the drops below freezing. We've had a few now.

last beets, herbs

Pulled the last few golden beets from the garden.

Finally cut some herbs to hang and dry. 

I don't have enough parsley or thyme to do this, and the summer savory suddenly died, but there's a decent bunch of sage. 

What's really done well this year is the tarragon. So I cut several bunches of that. 

Also one small bundle of lavender. To make sachets. 

Cut back the sorrel in the garden, because it was overwhelming the sage and winter savory nearby. 

Still eating some sculpit, but the salad burnet didn't did well here. In fact I forgot it was there, and never ate any of it. 

My digital camera is having issues- I have lots of photos on it but can't move them to the computer. So this will be a journal without pictures for a while. Which isn't nearly as fun.

Edit add 9/18- Found my husband has a little usb device that can plug the SD memory card from my camera straight into computer. So I retrieved all my photos and am updating the posts now!

garden

First the good. I harvested sweet pea seeds to save

and tatsoi (so many!)

Lavender is done flowering, so I cut it back. Chopped up all the trimmed stems, leaves and flowers, scattered on the beds of amaranth calaloo and leaf beet chard / cowpeas. I think some bugs don't like the scent! A few striped beetles immediately took flight away from the bed onto collards. I tracked with my eyes and smacked 'em.

The cowpea, bush green bean and leaf beet chard bed:

with collard greens behind:

I trimmed out over half the leaves of the sorrel- because they looked sickly- leaving more room for the sage and lemon balm now. Tarragon has grown nice! I used some in a soup but a bit too much, my kid complained the flavor was strong

Then moved on to a dismal chore: cleaning up all the wilted foliage. Carrots- all looking dead and brown-

but the smallest inner leaves are fine. And I pulled one- the root is fine. No rot. So I don't think it was the downpour.

What's left of my tomatoes, after I cut off all the brown and yellow and wilted leaves. Dreadfully familiar, this. At least now you can see how many tomatoes I have! But I don't know if they'll be okay.

I didn't find any pests on the tomato or carrot plants, but startled a few stinkbugs in the zucchini and cucumbers. After clearing out half the zucchini leaves that were rotting or blanched of color, this is what's left. It looks so leggy and open now.

But maybe enough still healthy to recover. Here's one zucchini growing!

On the opposite end of that bed, what's left of the lovage (that towered over my head just a few days ago)

I haven't been out here enough the past two weeks, to keep ahead of the bugs. There's whitefly and cabbage loopers on the collard greens. Leaf hoppers in the chard and green beans. Some kind of beetle in the amaranth, and slugs in several places. I have biodegradable, organic insecticidal soap, but can't use it in hot sunny weather or it will cause leaf burn. We have several more days of sun before it rains again. I'm considering coming out to spray the plants very early in the morning, before it's hot- and then hose them down after . . . 

there are a few things

to eat so early in the garden, holdovers from last year or perennials. One leaf lettuce that survived all the winter without cover:

Sorrel- doesn't look great yet but we had some in wraps with lentils.

Sculpit- I picked and tossed in a dish with onions recently

Green onions- haven't eaten these, but I did pull and chop to cook with portabellas a few skinny leeks from last season (not pictured)

Not going to eat last year's tokyo bekana anymore. It's bolting under the row cover! Maybe I will get seed.

outside

There's a funny thing about the tokyo bekana. When I cut leaves the other day for a stir-fry with rice, noticed one plant (left here) is different. It's leaves are slightly darker green, have small prickly hairs, thinner midribs, and are lobed on the lower stem. More characteristic of turnips. And guess what, I read that tokyo bekana readily crosses with turnip. So I bet the seed I bought, got unintentionally crossed!

It's still edible in the same manner, just not as crisp and sweet. I pulled that one tokyo/turnip plant, and reseeded a half dozen tokyo bekana- one in that spot, the rest between some collards. Overhead- that's the bed of collards and other greens on the far right. Bed in center has slo-bolt lettuce surrounding the blue collard plant gone to seed (I've been cutting off new flowers that form now, as I want it to put all its energy into making nice seed and don't need more than it's already producing!), leaf beet chard on one side, young swiss chard on the other. Bed on the far left is the perennial herbs with- top to bottom left to right: green onions, lemon balm, sage, sorrel, nepitella, sculpit, winter savory and lavender (not visible, leaves from the clematis on the deck post obscure it)

Also a picture taken from the deck- view of one of the perennial beds in the yard. Either side of the tree my pannicle hydrangeas, right against the trunk the bunches of yellow salvia, front of that several nice variegated hostas. The aguja is filling in very well, and on the outskirts against the lawn, area where I removed grass between tree roots is (hopefully) my new permanent borage bed.

I finally got around to adding leaf mulch to that, so it looks somewhat tidier.