It has rained all day, every day for a week now and the sky has run itself out of water! I stole this break in the rain to check on sown seeds and the herbs and berries.The back half of this box is mixed lettuces and the front left is daikon radishes. The front right is leftover bibb lettuce from a Victory Garden project at my son's school.The tomatoes and peppers are hardened off and ready to be planted in the beds. I have my own saved seed serranos as well as an heirloom yellow pepper this year and for tomatoes I am growing an heirloom grape tomato and trying my first F1 hybrid for a red slicing to improve yield.The blueberries are trying to live up to their names with a hint of purple starting to stand out against the green.The sage flowers have been a favorite of visiting bees but are ready for their spring pruning now.The chives are also sporting lovely dead head flowers and at last they seem to be truly established in my garden.Soggy but smiling!
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First Day of Last Frost
The last frost date for this area passed without incident on April 9th and today was my first day home to survey the perennials and sow some annuals.I'm just going to say it, my over-wintered herb garden is just darned pretty this spring. And I am beside myself that the chives are not just alive but thriving! After years of refusing to grow for me, they are vigorous and even blooming.I was also ecstatic to see the blueberries bountifully in bloom!Last year the blueberries were conned into blooming by the false spring and a hard, late frost killed most of the flowers. A feeble second bloom happened after the last frost but didn't amount to much.The strawberries were also a pleasant surprise, not just sporting a healthy head of blooms but some hard green strawberries already just waiting for the warmth of the sun to make them blush.I threw caution to the wind a few weeks ago and mixed up the assorted lettuce seeds I had on hand and sowed them thickly in 1/2 of a bed. I love the mix of the reds, greens and the little ones already wearing speckles.And lastly I laid down 18 rows of spinach in the front 3/4ths of these beds that will also host 2 tomato plants each in a few weeks.Ahhhhh...the gardener's Spring has finally sprung!
Read MoreFallow Season
Winter is a quiet time for the garden. The cooler temperatures and shorter days signal a change and the earth changes orientation from growth to conservation. The plants that continue to grow through the changing of the calendar year do so at a pace that resembles drowsy, hibernating animals. It is a necessary fallow season. A time to rest and restore between the endeavors of growing seasons. This is true for both garden and gardener.These were the thoughts turning over in my head yesterday as I tidied up the asparagus and herb beds, tucking them in for winter.
The herbs had overgrown in the last flush of fall so I corralled them to their respective sections with clippers and kept some nice sprigs of thyme, oregano and parsley for tonight's soup. Visually the thyme and the rosemary blend together both in person and photos so I think I will swap out the fast growing parsley and thyme next spring and let the rosemary continue to grow in the center of the bed.All that remains to close out my 2017 garden is to give the figs a much needed pruning and trim back the blueberry bushes a bit. It has been a quiet time for my garden and blog with the time normally spent growing, cooking and writing instead going to other endeavors this year. There is a little more time between now and spring temps here in the south. The last bit of the fallow season, with weeks that can be counted on hands now. My 2018 seed catalog has arrived and I am beginning to plan for the renewal.
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Spring Again (Maybe)
The average last frost date for this area passed on April 4th but it has been an unusual spring with early season warming trends in February that encouraged strawberries and blueberries to bloom early followed by unsurprising freezes in early March that played havoc with the plants.My strawberry blooms mostly survived the hard freezes in March and these June Bearers are already showing off green fruits.The permaculture herb garden did very well over the winter, only dill and tarragon did not survive. The thyme is already blooming and the sage is just a step behind.Several asparagus spears were harvested in February then several more killed by one of the hard freezes, but they are loving the current weather and I am harvesting 5-7 spears every 2 days right now.I lost some blueberry blooms with the freezes, but they also seem to have rebounded more or less with new blooms coming in, though I anticipate a diminished harvest this year over last.Spring seems to be here to stay at last so it is time to start planting some annuals too!
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Mid November Harvest
Autumn Recess
Autumn has arrived in North Carolina, bringing with it the final harvest of bell peppers, roma tomatoes and serrano peppers.The herb garden has brushed off the first few light freezes and stands ready to make meals fragrant and savory for months to come. I am confident that the thyme, oregano and sage will over winter well and hope that the french tarragon and parsley will also.Parsley is such a staple of fall and winter dishes that I have more growing on my deck. I have been poaching from the deck parsley for a few weeks thinking that it would not handle the frosts as well, but so far it is also doing wonderfully.In previous years I have repeatedly removed pine needles from the garden beds only to replace it with a different mulch. This year I have come to my senses and am embracing the pine trees taking care of mulching for me.Collards, carrots, cabbage and parsnips are tucked into their naturally (and effortlessly) mulched beds.The fall planting of sugar snap peas has been supplying tender pea shoots and now has peas forming as well.The hydroponic herbs were changed over 10 days ago to the varieties I know and love to cook with and are already doing quite well. I am growing 2 plantings each of my favorite basils and cilantros, 3 of the flat leaf parsley and just for fun I am trying to grow 2 red kales hydroponically.With the Super Bowl and attendant tomato starts almost 2 months away, this cozy, fall garden that is mostly taking care of itself feels like a recess.
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Herb Box
Herbal Remedy
My experiment with the front yard herb garden has come to a close.On Sunday I thinned my 150+ strawberry plants that were spread over two beds down to 32 first-year runners in one bed. Back in April I wrote about a New Zealand farmer that said first-year plants produce larger quantities of bigger berries and determined that I would try to save enough runners to have a fresh bed for 2017. This opened up a whole 4'x4' box to overwinter herbs in.Overall the herbs did fairly well in the front, though the bunnies enjoyed the french tarragon for a while this spring and the chives were eaten down to nubs repeatedly. I did a little research and it seems that the tarragon may over winter in my zone, and I am sure the sage and oregano will do fine. The rosemary is a maybe and I have no idea about the thyme or dill, but I planted everyone in a checkerboard pattern to allow for some sprawling and hopefully some self sowing for a perpetual herb garden.Once established, I will trim back the herbs and dry the cuttings for my fall/winter use and mulch the plants with leaves to retain heat, moisture and feed the soil.
Read MoreFarmin' the Front
For years I have been sporting an agricultural mullet - suburban-nice in the front and a garden-party in the back, but no more.Yesterday I ripped out the low growing juniper bush that was taking up half of the space between my sidewalk and front porch to make room for my 2016 herb garden.
Soon this space will be growing french tarragon, rosemary, parsley, oregano, thyme, sage and if I am lucky, chives*. I will also be sprinkling in some Mother of Pearl Poppy flowers between my herb plantings to maximize the planting space for me and add visual interest for my suburban neighbors.I left the viburnum and nandina landscaping bushes in the back 1/2 of the space alone for now...* Does every gardener have a plant nemesis? Some varietal that stubbornly refuses to thrive despite trying year after year in different conditions? Mine is chives.