Starting another batch of herbs

Well, we are still running behind getting these posts done, but one thing we have done is start a few more seeds. I had these left over peat pots from a year ago. They take seed starter soil, but it was what I had and I was trying to not buy too much more. We pulled out the seed starter mix and got to work.

Well, we found pots

Once they were filled, we ended up putting chives (from the chive box), as well as dill, cilantro, and parsley in them.  This allowed us to finish off a few seed packets and again try to use what we have.

Seeds

I apparently forgot to take an after picture with all the popsicle sticks sticking out, but its the same as every other year. By the time we got these started, we had already started moving the tomatoes out of the seedling containers, so some of the cups got put in that tray to save space.  The rest got put in a  muffin tin at first. Once we finished potting up the tomatoes, the rest got moved into that container as well.

An almost done photo

Since I did this a while ago, I can say they all seemed to have sprouted quite nicely. They are still a bit small to go in the ground, but they are making up time quickly. The entire tray currently lives outside and is getting ready to harden off and be put into the front beds. Maybe I will remember first of the month pictures... Maybe.

The rosemary that talked

The little rosemary that said... please take me home.. I need a good home. 

I need a good home

And while it was still a tad early to be bringing plants home from the store (and it wasn't even the nursery) rosemary is used for so many things in our home, we really needed to get one started so we will have enough rosemary for all the things we do.

And in the ground

Good thing I knew just where to put it. Right in the spot of an old rosemary that was pretty well dead. Now to get it established enough that we can start harvesting.

Signs of life in the garden

This time of year is a fun one for Pooka. Daily and some times multiple times a day, she walks through her gardens and just loves watching to see what is coming back. Its almost like a second Easter bunny that comes daily. She will walk through the garden always looking for that new sign of green, and with all the rain we have had lately, things are starting to wake up.

Blueberry is waking up

One of Brother's blueberry bushes is looking rather excited to see spring. It was the first to bud and may even leaf in the next few days. The other two are budding out, but no where near this close to showing signs of green.

Raspberry

Just like the blueberries are all starting at separate points so are the two raspberry bushes. This one is green everywhere and showing lots of life. The other one I am not entirely sure it isn't dead, so we are going to focus on the fact that one of the bushes lived. Seeing all that green gave Pooka and I a bit of hope maybe we weren't getting in too far over our heads, maybe.

Chives

The chives were one of the first things up. They don't look like this much longer, but rather Daddy has been joking he may need to mow them soon. My response was more along the lines of maybe we need to be making some bake potatoes and eggs to use them up. Well, that and I need to let Pooka and her friend K at them They won't last long after that. Pooka has already gone through the chives and gotten herself a few snacks saying "Oh, how I love the first chive of the season." Seriously, I can't make this stuff up, it is how she is.

Tarragon

In the old reliable department is the tarragon. The "lets' eat the sidewalk and everything on either side" tarragon. I am actually going to have to do something about this guy since this was taken on today, and spring isn't even all that sprung. Imagine how big it would be by the end of the summer. Stay tuned for my first attempt at dividing something.

Rose bush

Gremo's rosebush came back this year. Pooka asked if her letter underneath had been destroyed during the winter. Being a coward, I changed the topic. So far all the growth seems to be at the bottom of the plant, and I am hoping that is a good sign. Never having done much with roses, I am kinda flying blind. Although Daddy asked if we should do something about the big spear.. I mean stem growing up the middle. It has HUGE thorns and no signs of life yet. I told him we wait and if its still dead looking by mid may, I will remove it.

stars

Not all of our stars survived. In fact, this seems to be the only set that did, but they are happy as can be. I am hoping they will eventually take over this area, much like they did at my grandmothers. Right now, we are just waiting to see what it does, since my attempt to bring one inside died horribly.

SURPRISE

In the "Wait that's alive?" category is the chamomile. Yeah, I am not sure why it is alive either since again, I heard it was a very temperamental annual. It seems quite happy in its little spot and Pooka actually told Ms. A (The owner of our favorite nursery) that it came back and even she was shocked. Free tea supplies for mommy and Pooka gets to once again prove people wrong.

Begining of September pictures

 I will fully admit we have been a bit busy. In fact, we have been swamped with real life. I completely forgot the first of the month pictures for August. This just means that there will be more of a noticeable difference in the garden. That's it, I wanted to show more of a difference.

Pooka's pollinator garden

Pooka's polinator garden is filling out. The plant I left there not knowing if it was a weed or a plant was actully milkweed, so its a good thing I left it. I will admit I need to weed it bit, but its filled out on one side. A few of the last plants we put in didn't seem to do well, so we will wait till next spring and if they do not come back (Since everything in there is a perennial) then we will replace them. Pooka and her friend K go play in her little flower bed daily and pick flowers for butterflies or the birds. Even if it adds more work, its been worth it to see the girls have so much fun.

Garlic bed

The garlic was pulled in July and we replaced it with annual herbs and veggies again this year. We have dill (that is going to seed) celery, parsley and Pooka's black eyed susan sitting in the corner. The living chair has done much better in this spot, however, I think I will need to get another pot of mint to really fill it out for next year. However, in a few weeks we will rip out all of these plants and plant next years garlic. Keeping other plants in this bed after the garlic has been pulled also keeps the weeds down.

Front bed

 The explosion that is the herb bed is out of hand. I dry and I dry herbs, and I cannot keep up. The tarrogon will be divided next spring and sent to new homes, and I will probably get rid of all but one thyme plant. With all the wet weather this year we didn't water as much, and I noticed the top tier was dying from lack of water. This means next year it either needs to be hardier OR I need to remember to water it even when its been raining. One or the other.

Peppers and basil

All of the basil plants are quite happy having flowered completely. Its gotten to the point you can't pull the flowers off. Pooka and I did not put as much energy into that this year and you can tell. The plants still did well, but they are a bit spindly and starting to die back a bit. At least we got our basil jelly this year. More on that another day. The chinese 5 color peppers AKA Death peppers are very happy in their spot. We had to stake them up so they didn't fall over with all their bounty. Daddy is a very happy man as we are drying our own hot pepper flakes and hes begun his talk of siracha-cha again.

Sunflowers

The sunflowers are doing very well. We did have a couple that fell over due to being too big, but for the most part, they do not seem to mind having been started straight into the ground. However, not all of the seeds seemed to start, and the plants themselves do seem to be much further behind in producing seeds. This was our last year of using store bought seeds so I am hoping they will produce enough seeds to continue for next year. I do still have some seeds from last year, but I know Pooka loves being able to save her seeds and have Pooka sunflowers. The leaves on the first sunflower are bigger than not only mine or Pooka's hands, but Daddy's as well. Hopefully we can continue saving at least a few seeds.

Corner of nothing

 This is a very sad picture. It had been raining so I pulled everything off the corner stand and put them on the table to get watered. As you can see, the musculin lettuce bolted horrible and our squash in this pot is still fairly small. It doesn't seem to be doing well. The rainbow char just needed a good water. As pretty as char is, we don't seem to eat it, so it will probably be pulled from the garden never to be seen again. We don't plant for pretty around here. Pooka's humming bird hanger is doing well. The flowers just keep getting bigger, however, the cold weather is causing it some issues since it does not have any ground to keep it warm. The lemon tree has a few more lemons about to finish riping and some new ones starting. Although it may need a bigger pot next year.

Long view of the messy deck

Oh the mess that is my back deck. We have lettuce and spinach that has bolted, the tomatoes on the end of the deck by the table have decided to eat the chairs. No one can say I only show the pretty shots. The blueberry bushes and lilac are doing well in their little pots, Although Audrey the morning glory never did do well this year. We got a couple of flowers, but for the most part it has just been a few leaves. I will admit this area looks better today then when I took these pictures at the begining of the month because I started to clear out most of the dead/dying plants for fall. You can't really see from this view, but the lime tree actually has limes that are getting bigger on it, so now I wait and see if we have fresh limes at Christmas.

Onion bed

 As you can tell, 99% of our onions have been harvested. I should of planted something here, but there are a few bulbs we missed. I just recently heard of a variety of onion I can plant in the fall. Our onion crop is generally fairly small onions and we need to expand this crop. I am hoping the fall variety (once I order them) will help with that. These guys will be put in the same bed for 2 years just so I can see if it works and how well. This is where Pooka yells "FOR SCIENCE" . We admit we are learning new things and experimenting on what works.

Brandywine, Rainbow cherry and fireball tomatoes

Tomatoes and more tomatoes. These are the brandywine, fireball and rainbow cherry tomatoes. I swear you should start calling Pooka Dr. Mendel. Somehow in this section grows what we are calling the Pooka tomato which is a purple/black roma. I didn't plant anything like that in the entire yard, so I have no idea where it is coming from. Also, we have fallen in love with the Brandywine tomato. Its a nice meaty tomato but we have pulled some off the plant that are a lb a piece. While it is more a paste tomato, we have used it as slicer, and are considering getting rid of all the Beefsteaks once we run out of seeds.

Tomatoes, Basil, Carnival, long sweets and cubanelle peppers

The tomatoes are rather imposing and eating my deck. The pea plants were eaten by the tomatoes and pulled fairly early. The basil has held its own, but is still fairly small. We still cannot grow a bell pepper to save our lives. I don't know what it is, but they never seem to produce. The long sweets are loving this spot, as are the cubanelle peppers. But the bell peppers we may just give up on for our friendly peppers. The purple peas are very dead in this picture, and should of been ripped out by now. They did not restart when I reseeded them.

Beefsteak, Roma and Blueberry tomatoes with pots

The rest of the tomato jungle. I have had a couple of tomato leaves get singed by the grill, but all in all the tomatoes like this spot. I don't think this is the tomatoes favorite spot, but it works. The beefsteak and romas are doing well but the blueberry tomatoes are exploding, and Pooka loves all the colors they come in. I guess its another time to call her Dr. Mendel since they have grown to multiple colors. We have 2 little watermelons growing in the pots and the raspberries are doing well.

Failure

Another year, another failure with corn. It seemed to be doing well in the pot and then a windstorm came through and it was done. I think next year we will try this in a small section of the yard. But unless something changes, I will not be buying more seeds of it. So we have until this packet of seeds dies to figure out what we are doing wrong. Where we live, you go a couple miles in almost any direction and all you see is corn. Really makes you wonder what we are doing wrong we can't grow it around here.

Tomatoillos

 The tomatillos are doing wonderfully. We are getting a ton to cook with. However, the purple ones only turn purple when they are left on the plant after they split their lantern. They don't seem to last on the plant long enough to do so. This is another plant that will be sticking around, and we may increase what we are planting of it. We will have to see how much room is in the garden next year.

Hot Peppers and Eggplant

The hot peppers and eggplants are doing well. After they got big enough to hold off mr. Bunny. Daddy loves this variety of jalapeno since it grows a large amount very quickly. However, they have been very mild this year (As well as the poblanos). Hot peppers do require hot dry weather to get hotter peppers that we just haven't had. The poblanos make a good substitute for green peppers in most of our dishes, so they will be sticking around for a long time.

Broccoli and Cucumbers

The broccolli has done well. The geometric broccoli is still not producing (So much for that one) but the standard broccoli has done well, even if every single broccoli plant has decided to fall over. I should stake them up, but for now they are okay where they are at. The cucumbers had done okay. They did loads better than last year but not as well as the first year. This location they get some sort of pest that ate just the skin off the cucumbers, but if you peeled them they were fine and maybe some squash beetles because the plant is suddenly dying back. But in the end, we got our cucumbers for lunches and salads and some pickles so we are happy.

Like every year, we have some successes and some failures. But that is what happens in science. Not everything works the way you think, so you keep trying until you figure out what does work.

And the Herb bed explodes

Even before this week of rain, the herb garden had exploded. Apparently having been in the ground all winter did not stunt their growth at all. The garlic has gotten super tall. I am already waiting and hoping on all that fresh garlic. Daddy even asked if we could find a few cloves to try canning with some hot peppers. I am sure I can find you a bulb or two dear. 

Garlic is doing well.

In the herb bed, there are plenty of plants that have enjoyed this spring as well. The tarragon especially jumps at you in this picture. I am going to have to start drying and using it. The thyme plants have all come back fairly quickly as well. Pooka's purple sage has come back a bit more green than last year, but I am wondering if that will change through the summer. 

A portion of the herb bed

There is much more growth further down the bed, but I forgot to take pictures. The one thing that doesn't seem to be doing well is one of my lilacs, but I was worried it may not come back in the first place. I am hoping to get out there in the next day or so and get a good count of whats out there and hopefully hit the nursery with Pooka and get the remaining herbs so we can get them in and going. After that, it is all harvest with a bit of weeding.

Signs of life in the garden

We are starting to get a feel of what may come back in the garden. Not everything in the garden seems to have survived our extremely cold winter this year, but strangely, some things I had no nope for coming back are. I am just happy we are not replanting the entire bed. The chives were the first to pop up and say Hi to us.

The chives appeared

I know that this parsley seems to have reseeded itself. I am completely okay with that. In fact, I am looking for a second place to plant some more seeds.

Parsley popping up

 The thyme even started to green up, and has since taken off. Looks like we will have plenty of thyme.

Thyme greening

Our friend tarragon has also appeared and once it broke the mulch has gotten huge. I honestly thought this guy was an annual, but I won't turn him away. He has gotten so big, we have started harvesting him already.

Tarragon pops up

We have had more herbs pop up. The lemon balm that became so important to me has greened up and is looking good. Pooka's black eye susan has finally topped the mulch. I may have one lavender that will regrow, but it is fighting to see if it will. I am hoping if I can run out in between rain storms the next day or so to get a good inventory of what is out there and what I may of replaced already. Sadly our beloved Rosemary has not come back. Which is slighly weird to me since I thought they were perennial. In fact, I have seen them survive the winter in a small pot before. Oh well, I will just have to try harder to find ones that will handle the cold a bit better. I am just happy we will not have to replace the whole bed. Pooka is already out there daily "sampling" her garden and sharing it with her friends and getting them to try new things. That makes it worth it.

First Harvest

We have had our first harvest. It wasn't much, just a quarter oz of tarragon and an eighth of an oz of chives, but it means we are getting things back out of the garden. Both our tarragon and chives came back from last year, so in a way this harvest is all profit. A very tasty profit when we put it in our scrambled eggs.

Hello Harvest

The Easter Bunny strikes again.

Easter bunny came again this year. He seems to know he is the only time Pooka gets much over the warmer months and wanted to make sure she had some things for her garden. He brought her a hanging humming bird planter and some new flower seeds for her garden. She got Poppy flowers that do produce the poppy seeds for baking, as well as a butterfly flower and a fairy bouquet set of seeds. She is thrilled and is waiting for us to finish a few things in her flower bed so she can get them planted.

Pooka presents from the Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny also leaves us a note each year to tell us how many eggs the kids need to find. This year his note also told the kids he just had to have a nibble of Pooka's herb garden. He said it was just so tasty looking, he wanted to try it and he hoped Pooka didn't mind. Pooka only comment was to wonder if he had tried the chives or if it was the tarragon he ate off of. At least she is willing to share.  Now to find some flowers for that planter, I guess Pooka gets another trip to the nursery.

Rosemary oh Rosemary how we missed you

I admit it, I broke down. I was tired of using real conditioner, and really Pooka's hair looks so much better with our homemade stuff. However, I wasn't sure if our rosemary out front was even alive. So I broke down. I bought one of those little herb plants at the grocery store.

Rosemary from the grocery store

It was in fairly good shape, if a bit small. I just was hoping to get something to get us through until we can either figure out if the stuff out front is alive, or it can replace it. The plant itself, aside from being slightly root bound is in good shape. Daddy has already used it more then once for dinner. I think he misses having the fresh herbs to cook with as well. I guess this means spring has begun and plants are invading.

Welcome home rosemary

The herb bed right now

What the herb bed looks like right before the sudden snow storm. Since I did NOTHING to put it to bed, I am not terribly surprised that is is not looking its best. I am giving the herbs their time to see if they will come back. We have had very little the way of warm days, and since it was such a severe winter, and this side of the house only gets morning sun, I am hoping in a few days something may come back.

 I know we lost a couple rosemary bushes that have lost almost all their needles while they turn brown. And the curry of all things seems to be doing okay as well as the bay. But I know eventually its going to need cleaned out and that will take most of a day.

The garlic beds looks just as dormant, but Pooka has seen a few tender shoots come up. Soon we will hopefully have our garlic for the year poking out everywhere, and things will start to look alive once more. I think seeing these two beds turn green will finally make spring real for us, so long as we stop getting snow. Which sadly is in the forecast for next week. Winter Let US GO. 

A day alone

With Pooka now in big girl school with brother, I occasionally find myself home alone with just the animals. I will not say it is comfortable yet, but it does me good to keep busy when they are gone. This particular day, I wasn't as good at keeping busy, but I did decide to get to work on preserving some of the herbs. I went outside to the front bed and brought in all of this. Over an ounce of hot peppers to make siracha-cha-cha (Pooka has a little dance she does whenever someone says siracha), herbs to dry and 15+ ounces of basil. I did save some purple basil as well to make Purple Pesto for Pooka (those leaves are in the measuring cup).

A short days work. 

I ended up making 2 bags of nut-less pesto since we do have a nut allergy in the family. I am hoping this will become a go to meal for when we forget to thaw dinner. It sadly tends to happen in spurts.

More herbs dry. Not necesarily these, 

I did get over an ounce of herbs dried. It wasn't these per say, but when you have seen one pile of herbs, they all look the same.

2 bags of pesto.

Out of the 15 ounces of herbs, we got a half quart of purple pesto and a quart of pesto. The purple pesto had already been in the freezer, and while I tried to lay it flat, I think it shifted on something. Now to cut back the basil outside before it frosts and make more. Sadly the siracha-cha-cha will have to wait till another day.

"What did you do this weekend?"

Personally, I love when people ask us "What did you do this weekend?" Some weekends I have nothing fun to say. Sometimes I can answer with this:

24 Half pints of peach jam

Well, we got peaches from the neighbor's tree for free and made 24 half pints of jam and 4 pints lazy peach preserves.  With the cucumbers from our garden we canned 5 pints of classic dill pickle spears and 1 pint of classic dill pickle chips. We also froze 7 3\8 oz of sweet peppers, dehydrated 1/8 oz dry parsley, 1/4 oz dry oregano, and 1/2 oz dry purple sage. We even went out of town for a birthday party for Pooka's cousin at a Zoo with all the aunts and uncles.

Pickles anyone? 

I wish I could say after all this my house is flawless. That there are no dishes or laundry out of place, or even that the lawn got mowed, but I wouldn't be honest. Not when a good chunk of the weekend is devoted to spending time as a family and being together. In fact, let us not discuss the state of a Pooka's room that I really should of made her clean before we went picking peaches at her friends house.

Newly dried herbs

A long holiday weekend comes in handy. Too bad we can't make every weekend 3 days long. But even on short weekends, it is about doing what you can and spending time together in whatever ways you can.

Frozen peppers.

September first pictures

I know this post is late, life has kinda been a tad nuts with all of us trying to get into school routines. Sadly, the garden is showing signs of neglect, but I am hoping to work on that this weekend and fix it back up. I know a few plants have given their last out there.

The front small bed is looking rather nice. The dill has taken off and the milkweed is blooming again. I remember just a month ago this bed looked so barren. It has filled out and is looking very alive.

 Sadly, yes the front bed is overgrown. We are trying to get back into the habit of drying herbs and cutting it back, but its been a bit harder to figure out how to get it all lined up right. However, it is nice to still be about to walk outside and just grab some herbs, which was the whole point. Next year we will probably cut back a bit on what goes in there.

This is the basil circle that is suppose to go around my lilac. The tree itself is looking rather sad, but the basil has gone to flower and I am having a hard time keeping up with it. However, you can see the pretty colors of Pooka's 5 color chinese peppers through all the basil.

The sunflowers are about done. Most have lost their blooms and I either cut the blooms away to save the seeds or the animals have gotten them. This weekend we are hoping to go out there and kill most of it off. We also need to figure out something better for dealing with the weeds. But that will be a discussion over the winter. 

The small bed under the window is doing well. We haven't gotten any broccoli off these plants yet, but last year it was about now the broccoli started to come in and these plants were started a bit late. We just transplanted some new Pak Choi into this bed so thats why they look a tad wilted. They were mad I had uprooted them from their pot.

We have a few new green bean plants starting, but the peas have yet to sprout. I am thinking I may go out and buy another package of peas if I can find them and put them in. It all depends. there is also another Pak Choi plant in here as well as the way overgrown basil. Again, the herbs need cut back. Work never ends it seems.

The pepper plants are going strong. They have liked this heat wave we are getting and I am collecting sweet peppers right and left. We finally had enough to freeze the other day. The tomatillos are still a question on if the fungicide will work or not.

 I think the corn is dead. I think there is one ear in there I need to go pick, but it may of rotten a bit. That one I just didn't give the attention to this year. I promised Kiddo we will try again next year. However, the beans in the peas in that pot are doing well, as well as the peas in the back pot. The squash I think is done. I need to pull it but that is part of this weekends clean up I think. 

The broccoli is doing well and we are due to have broccoli again tonight. I did realize this year we need a few more cucumber plants to get what we need. As Aunt Pooka told us this weekend, its a balancing act figuring how much you need but not getting too much. This is the part I find hard. Too bad no one says "This many tomatoes, this many cucumber for a family of 4."

Oh, tomatoes, tomatoes. They are everywhere. While our tomatoes may not be as tall as they were last year, they are covered in nice pretty giant green tomatoes. I just hope the season stays warm enough to harvest them all. I will say we did decide next year to cut back the tomatoes plant number a bit, but like with the cucumbers, we aren't sure how many is "enough".

The cherry tomatoes have started to reach a nice height. We still have not seen any purple ones, but Pooka is loving having yellow cherry tomatoes. They do drive Daddy nuts since he has a hard time deciding when they are ripe. The jalapenos are doing well, but the poblano peppers have yet to have much on them. The plant is finally starting to produce, but we haven't been able to harvest anything yet. I think this may be the year for bad peppers. then again they like HOT weather and it has been cool.

The celery is doing well, the marigold and the snapdragons are blooming again. I also really need to cut the scallions back, but that is a good problem to have. I think I may cut them back and try to freeze them for later this winter. Pooka loves using our "chopper box" to cut the veggies, this would be a good one for her to use.

The deck is a giant mess, which is why I only took one picture. Most of the squash is dead, or dying, and I need to pull some bolted lettuce and restart it. All in all, the deck is overgrown, but it is producing, which is the point. We even have 4 eggplants on one plant. Maybe those deserve space in the yard next year. Those and the free yellow squash since we actually found we like that fresh but not store bought. Pooka was so happy to try new things and even happier to know she likes them.