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 MorePermaculture Summer
To create your own permaculture summer:
Start with a good variety of fruits, berries and herbs that pretty much take care of themselves year after year.
Add to that background of growth, some tender green leaves (lettuce and spinach will do nicely) and one hungry rabbit.
Voila! You are back to your permaculture staple of fruits, berries and herbs with no pesky greens to worry about.
This, in a nutshell, is my summer.The herbs bolted and are setting seed now. The strawberries are producing well but I haven't covered the bed so the birds are beating me to many of the berries.The tower of asparagus is holding up very nicely under the accumulating mass of growth and the asparagus themselves are inexplicably sending up sporadic spears (3 in the pic below).The figs are plentiful and beginning to ripen. The birds also beat me to the first fig of the year but they don't seem to have seen the one on the other side yet.The blackberries are ripening by the handful daily and the blueberries are plentiful, but stubbornly green.The rabbit problem appears to be solved so now I am just patiently waiting for August when I can plant more greens for fall.
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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.