Drought and the Garden

The severe heat and lack of rain has had a distinctly "not good" impact on my garden. The radishes are small and extremely pungent, the lettuces wilt and bolt faster than I can get to them, and my first flush of roma tomatoes all succumbed to blossom end rot. I picked them all and tossed them to the animals - and there are a few new flowers now, just 3 days after.

Fyi, I always thought blossom end rot meant that the soil was calcium deficient - but it also appears with inconsistent watering...as too much water can wash away the calcium, and too little leads to dry soil in which the tomatoes cannot access the calcium. I had been watering in the mornings to help the roots get thru the hot days...but the ground was bone dry when I returned home most nights...so I must rethink the mulch it is obviously not holding in the moisture well enough. I am curious to learn which mulches people are using with tomatoes this year - and what success they may be having :)

Late Spring Spearmint Harvest

My spearmint is growing like mad - the stalks are over 2 feet tall - I guess they really liked the feeding of composted manure I gave all of my containers before winter!

Flowery Mead

Flowery Mead is a medieval term, referring to a meadowy area (think exact opposite of a modern, sterile, monoculture lawn) lushly carpeted with a mosaic of tiny flowers. Like these wee naturalised crocus!

Think of medieval tapestries, with their often very lush portrayals of turf grass intermingled with cowslip, violets, periwinkles, trefoil, columbine...the poet Giovanni Boccaccio described, "in the midst of the garden a lawn of very fine grass, so green it seemed nearly black, coloured with perhaps a thousand kind of flowers..." in his Decameron of 1348.

While my raggedy patch certainly doesn't compare with the wonders of gardens past, it does bring a smile to my heart!

How does your garden grow?

Preserving Summer: Dried Herbs

We grow herbs: mints, basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme and tarragon. And while we love using them fresh all summer, we also love to preserve their delicious flavors to brighten the darker days of winter.

Much of our basil is frozen in olive oil, but properly dried basil retains a lovely scent and flavor that we use in pasta sauces. To dry it, simply harvest first thing in the morning and lay out on a clean towel in a dry room for a few days. Try to pick a place that doesn't get a lot of sun and where the air circulates. In a few days, the leaves will be dried and can be stripped from the stems. I store them whole in a mason jar - they seem to retain the flavor better whole than if I powder them.

This method is also how we dry mint (for tea), oregano, and other leafy herbs. We stopped drying rosemary in bulk - we clip a few stems and dry them and just bring in the pot to our sunny living room to overwinter.

How do you preserve the tastes of summer?

Garden problems

We had serious issues with critters and heat this year. EVERY tomato was half-eaten!! Most of my onions were chomped (or disappeared) as well. And the lettuces all bolted (pretty flowers, but beyond bitter lettuce).

Garden Update May 8 '11

We spent Mother's Day tending gardens...mine and my mom's. I had hopes of setting in two large raised patches in our yard, but as there is an active paving project in progress we thought it best to wait another week. Sigh.

I did sow more containers, with edible flowers, radishes, beets, a "privacy screen" of tall grasses (grow grow grow!!), an elephant ear bulb, and some echinacea. And I acquired some basil, rosemary and oregano at the herb sale - all of which went right into pots of rich organic soil.

I am also playing with the arrangements of the various planters, to maximise yields and to garner a wee bit more privacy (our deck is open to all eyes on 3 sides - it can be a bit annoying until the plants fill in).
What is started in your garden?

Thoughts on Fruitfullness

Flowers signal a promise of fruit...and yet they do not bear fruit unless certain conditions are met. Proper minerals in the soil, light and water must arrive at the right times and in the right amounts, bees or butterflies or other pollenators must be present and working... and even then flowers may fail.

When my son was 3, my sister in law and my best friend were both pregnant with twins. Naturally that led to questions and conversations about how babies are made. I did not want to fob him off with fairytales about storks - but nor did I feel a technical explanation was appropriate to his age. So we left it at "to have a baby, one needs a mommy and a daddy and a miracle from God". Simple and in no way contradicted by later conversations that discussed the more technical aspects of human reproduction.

Even with all our technological advances, the best we can do is plant seeds with high hopes and tend to their needs...we cannot create increase...

So I look over my strawberry blossom with care...and will savor the small miracle when the berries arrive in June :)

Drying Basil

I've not dried my basil harvest in the past, as I have almost always processed them into pesto and frozen "cubes" or "sheets" of the delicious stuff. But a friend mentioned drying...so this is a wee experiment. I have a few stems drying in the same room as the mint, flat on sheets - and another few hanging upside down in the cool dark closet.
I have to say, the mint that is drying "ala pillowslips" seems to be coming along nicely! Here's to hoping the same can be said for the basil!
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Drying Mint

Today I harvested a small batch of mint from my garden. I have experimented with drying methods, and found that for me what works is to lay the clean, dry stems on a clean piece of cloth (a pillowcase or a sheet works well, depending uupon how much you have). As long as the stems are placed so that air circulates around the leaves all shouls be well! And how welcome an addition this will be to my tea blends!
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Time Began in a Garden

It is such a delight to come across these beautiful pocket gardens all across my little town, with their vibrant colors and fluttering wildlife!

I pass this cottage garden every day on my walk to the train, and I enjoy noting the small and large changes as the seasons shift. Now in summer mode, it is visited daily by a variety of butterflies and hummingbirds.

The Spring garden is started!

Over the weekend, in between helping a friend move and my mom to tidy her yard, I achieved more than I imagined possible in my own garden!

Pots all cleaned and refilled with fresh soil

Seeds planted: radishes, scallions, mint, cilantro, spinach, spring lettuce mix, elephant ear bulbs

Starts planted: pansies everywhere (because their sweet faces and bright color are irresistable!) and broccoli.

Decrepit wicker porch settee finally disposed, and a nice painted rocking chair installed in its place

Much general raking, sweeping, tidying

Planning where the backyard plot it to go this year (last year the squash did not do well, so the garden will move to a better spot)

All of this involved much running up and down three flights of stairs between the deck garden and the compost pile, which doesn't seem much at first, but really does start to catch up after the 10th trip or so! It also entailed observing the amusing antics of spring-crazed squirrels, local children, and migrating geese and ducks (flying in formations overhead).

I gave the local children a spare 6-pack of pansies to put in their own garden, as they spent a great deal of time watching my activities with grave interest (and many questions). I love encouraging children to grow things!

Has anyone else started a vegetable garden yet?

Basil from cuttings

Last week I purchased a small basil plant from the supermarket. The intention of the market is that I use up the basil and buy more...
However, anyone with a little time and a little space can take a little potted herb and make a garden full of plants from it! I started 2 cuttings immediately. How? Simply snip a stem, pop it into a glass of water, and place it in a warm and sunny spot (like a windowsill). Keep the water filled, and after a week or so you will notice wee roots growing. At that point, you can gently place the new plant into a pot of soil. (I prefer to put the "babies" in pots even if I will eventually place them out in the garden - its a good intermediary step to help them gain strength).
Its so easy!

Basil and mint from cuttings

A super-easy way to create new plants for indoor pots (or to increase your outdoor garden) is to propagate by cuttings. I have a few cuttings of basil and mint in this glass of water - in a few days they will have wee white roots and that is the time to pop them gently into the soil. I use organic potting soil.
You can also do this with those packets of fresh herbs purchased from the produce section of the grocery store!

Fall garden

My garden is still producing, but now that cooler days and nights are here it is time for my fall garden.

This morning I am potting up cuttings of basil, rosemary and mint to bring indoors for the winter. Tomorrow we will pull up the lettuces that are going to seed and the tomatoes that are done for the season, and in their stead we will plant kale, spinach, additional green beans and cabbages.

We will also figure a strategy for over-wintering the strawberries :)

Fall garden planning

I know its a bit early, but since I will have some heavy work ahead it seems a good time to start planning my fall garden. The dreams can start today - and the hard work can wait til mid-September :)

I never had the chance to prepare raised beds for my spring planting, so I will get at least one bed done and transplant the strawberries in late September. (Emergency back-up plan is to overwinter the huge pot in the garage)

If I can get two beds done, I will do beets, kale, spinach, cabbage and maybe one or two other hardy fall crop plants in there. Otherwise I will do spinach and kale in containers, and hold off on beets and cabbage til spring.

The long container is currently holding carrots and green beans. Once these are done I plan to re-sow the same. They did well :)

I am already rooting lots of basil and mint cuttings, in hopes of 1)extending the outdoor crop til frost 2) expanding the plantings to beds and 3) potting up some plants for indoors over the winter. I managed to successfully overwinter rosemary last year, and will do so again.

I may also experiment with potting up some tomato shoots for wintering indoors. I don't expect fruits, but I want to learn if they will survive til spring and can be transplanted back outside successfully to bear fruit.

What are your fall garden plans?