February 3, 2013

It has been a busy weekend in the garden!

Since it is the beginning of the month, I thought I would do a quick summary of what is going on right now.

This is the third or fourth generation of wild dill that has come up near my fish pond.  The original parent plant was part of a "beneficial insect forage" packet of seeds that I tossed up there.  Not sure if the insects are appreciating the dill, but I do!  :)  I am always thrilled to see the new babies come up, and I was not disappointed this year.

This is interesting to me.  I plant garlic a couple of times a year, and this is the first time it has come up like this.  Each of these green bunches came from a single clove, planted about four months ago.  I am letting them mature, to see what I get.

The feathery clumps behind the garlic are my asparagus.

Here is a detail shot of the asparagus.  This is a three-year old bed, and I think I might just be able to harvest a few stalks this year!

My "wild" blackberry bush is still hanging on.  It looks dead, I know, but it still has a little green to it, and I am confident it will spring back to life in a few months.  I am just as confident that I will not enjoy many (if any) of its berries, as the squirrels and birds plot against me every year and steal every last one.

This is an experiment from last year.  This little thing is a pomegranate shrub.  I kept it in a container for YEARS, and for years, it always produced lots of blossoms, but only meager fruit, small and hard, and with immature seeds.

I decided, last fall, when the tree went dormant, to try planting it out in the ground, where it can spread its roots.  It was very root-bound when I took it out of its pot.  This previous summer, it grew a lot of leaves, but no fruit.  I am hoping it was just stretching a bit in preparation for giving me a bumper crop THIS summer, but we'll see.  It currently has a number of small, closed, buds, so it is alive and waiting for the weather to warm up.

The herb garden (which is really just a rosemary garden, since the rest of the plants are not herbs, but more for decoration) is still going strong.  I have to hack the rosemary back every year, just to keep it from taking over.  I keep thinking I will add a few more herbs to the bed, but I just never get around to it.

I DO love going out there and cutting fresh sprigs of rosemary whenever I need them!

I repotted my one-year old cherry tree on Saturday.  I should plant it, but I haven't decided yet where I want to put it, and it was starting to come out of dormancy, so I put it in a larger pot, hoping that the tree will hang in there for me until I can make a decision about its new permanent home.

Part of my reluctance to plant it is because I really need to get up on the hill and completely revamp the drip system up there.  I keep patching it, and it keeps holding together, but I would like to set up a more organized layout.  Also, many of the trees currently on the lines don't need supplemental watering any more.

I also started a new compost bin this year.  I now have two bins, a small one in the back of the house and this one in the smaller, fenced-in, garden.

Indoors, I planted some carrots this weekend.  This is another experiment, to see if I can grow them year-round inside.

The container is a plastic water jug.  I like using these to start plants, because if you cut them correctly, they act as mini-greenhouse, they can support deep-rooted plants, and they allow you to water from below the plant.

I will take some pics when I "make" the next one, to show you how cool they can be.  Downside:  they only last one year.  They get old and brittle and have to be thrown out.  But I go through a lot of bottled water (my well water is drinkable but full of minerals and tends to destroy anything it sits in, so I use bottled water in the coffee pot, iron, etc.



 

What better container to use to grow mesclun mix, right?  :)  The bunnies happily finished off their box o' salad at just the right time for me to use it as a planter for a batch of lettuce.  This also an experiment, as I've never tried growing lettuce inside before (and don't have much luck with it when I grow it outside).

The seedlings planted in late January were big enough to transplant, so now, instead of two containers of pac choi, I have six.  :)

(Oh, and btw, the parsley sprouted, so the only "dud" appears to be the onion seeds.  I haven't given up on them, though!)

And, instead of one container of basil, I have four! (Yes, you only see three here.  The fourth is still in its original pot.)

My spearmint plant, harvested from a little patch that grows in a boggy area near my birdbath outside, was not doing very well.  I pulled it out of its container (see previous blog) and found out the poor thing was completely waterlogged!  I had mistakenly thought that it was using water at the same rate as my peppermint (which has drainage), and watered it accordingly.  It was so full of water, the water actually poured off the top of the container!

I transplanted it into this container (that has drainage holes), and I am hoping the plant will forgive me and bounce back.  (This picture was taken 24 hours after planting, and the spearmint looks pretty perky, so I am optimistic.)

I also trimmed up the peppermint.  The trimmings are sitting in a jar of water right now, and will be planted after they root.

Remember those sad little miniature roses?  I finally got around to repotting those.  They look very cute in this planter.  I am looking forward to seeing them bloom this summer.

Out on the deck, my "baby" (aka my bay leaf tree) is doing great.  It has been with me for years now and has survived flood and drought and being covered in snow.  I pick a few leaves now and then, to add to my dried bay leaf inventory, but mostly leave it alone.

I love my bay leaf tree.  :)

Also on the deck, my English thyme and Greek oregano (pretty darn multicultural out there) survived the winter and are starting to look a little happier, now that the sun is coming out occasionally.   These little guys are both in Earthboxes on the deck.  Their planter-mates didn't make it, so I will be on the lookout for other perennial herbs to add to the deck this spring.

Last on the list for today - this is a healthy and happy watercress plant, planted from a sprig of watercress peeled off of a bunch of watercress purchased at the grocery store.  I love starting plants from plants I have to purchase.  :)  I have done the same with lemon grass in the past.








I am sure I have forgotten a few plants, and I didn't take pictures of all the dormant fruit trees, because there wasn't much to see.  So I will leave you with this last picture, for now, showing my citrus bank of lemons, oranges, and grapefruit, living side by side in organic harmony.