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Herb Garden: Expansions and Transplants
Last week I posted “Herb Garden: The Battle of the Bulge” and shared how due to my over-eager planting, the rosemary and lavender were eating each other alive. On Wednesday, Joe tilled up the strip of earth along the fence and we bricked a path from the entrance to the patio. The path now dwarfs the patio, which I downsized to make room for the new bed, but it’s nice having bricks all the way from the deck to the patio. Nothing in an herb garden has to be permanent – except maybe for a very mature rosemary or lavender. I tend to move plants around in the garden as…
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Herb Garden: The Battle of the Bulge
It’s a rookie mistake. You are starting an herb garden. Maybe it’s not your first time, but the last one you tried had poor light and the plants never did really take off. In fact, the lavender started dying the moment you put it in the ground. So you finally get a sunny spot, and optimistic attitude and you just pack those little 4″ plants in. In your mind, the closer they are together, the sooner the bed will fill in, and you’re little herb bed will be featured in a BHG photo spread. Except that your rosemary grew like it was on crack, and the half-dead lavender you transplanted…
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Herb Garden Inspiration
Albeit I haven’t seen many herb gardens, one of my favorite places to visit is the herb garden at the Historic Oak View County Park. Dedicating a space solely for the growing of culinary herbs is quite divine. I have an herb garden that wraps halfway around my back deck, and slowly this space is expanding to other parts of the garden as I find new cultivars that I *must* grow. Yesterday, the Oak View garden was past its peak but was beautiful nonetheless. Usually when we visit in the spring and summer, the place is buzzing with bees and butterflies. With the fennel already mostly consumed by monarch caterpillars,…
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Open letters to plants
Dear extremely lazy tomato plant, I hope you realize that you had all summer to produce offspring, and why you decided to wait until the end of September to make a tomato is beyond my understanding. Was it that the climbing squash vine was cramping your style? As you can see, waiting until the cool weather was a very poor decision. No, I will not be eating your nasty rotten fruit, nor will I be saving your seeds. Dear bi-color dahlia, you are gorgeous dear. Do I dig up your tubers after you die back? I want to keep you around. Thanks gracing my garden. Plants from the Lowes clearance…
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Morning Garden Walk: Mystery Greens and Pest Problems
At the end of summer, I started scattering seeds: radishes, parsnips, romaine, arugula, spinach, bok choy, baby butterhead, black seeded simpson, carrots … you get the picture. Every seed packet that allowed fall planted was scattered over several plots. As I waited for seeds to sprout, and as they failed to or the sprouts were shriveled in the heat, I seeded more. I added straw. I watered. Then, the tropical rains came. I had no idea what was planted where, and some seeds were washed to pockets near the brick edges. Enter mystery green #1. This morning I tasted it, and my mouth was surprised by a spicy peppery flavor.…
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Mini Herb Pail
I have a terrible habit of buying dollar pails in the entrance of Target. I always claim that I buy them so the Man-child can keep his toys in them, but now we have an assortment of little pails that we use to lazily stick random writing utensils, buttons, and screws that we find lying around the house. They have become clutter pails. Anything with a flat surface, a hook, a knob, or a cavity serves as a clutter magnet in our house. In our kitchen bay window, we have a pub table from the flea market and a storage entry bench with hooks that we relocated from another room to make…
