Much in the garden 30 May 2009

After a string of days of rain and cool temperatures, it was finally sunny and warm and windy today, and the garden responded quite strongly to the difference.  The baby blue eyes, which had been budded for at least a couple of days, opened today (they’d been seeded in), and heirloom iris ‘Wabash’ opened its first two blooms.  Scarlet runner bean (the species, not a cultivar) had two big healthy shoots coming up, and several of the edamames (soybeans) were sprouting, as well as at least one more runner bean, ‘Four Corners.’ The comfrey, which had been budding up for weeks, is finally blooming, and I imagine the also-budded-for-weeks peach-leaved bellflower will be next, as another nearby garden’s finally opened after the rain stopped late last night. The chives (also budded for weeks!) opened one bloom just before the rain started, and now several more slowly started opening over the course of today.  Several more garden pea buds also opened, and critter activity was crazy after all the days of rain – I saw so many tiny bees and tiny spiders and one of the back garden’s squirrels crawled down the nearest tree and stared cheekily at me while pointedly flicking its tail, as if I were the intruder for daring to be out in the yard.  Squirrels are so funny!

I did so much carrying today that my back is so very sore.  I’ve now got four half-barrels all set up, and have partially planted one of them with tomato ‘Polish Linguisa’ and purple basil.  I’d actually planned to plant the other three today, but I got so tired.  Hopefully tomorrow.  I even got the seeds all organized and the labels written out, so all I need to do now is that actual sowing.

I also planted tomato ‘Sioux,’ “Japanese” cucumber ‘Toyko’ (so the little label calls it, though the only cultivar with that in the title seems to be ‘Tokyo Long’) – a third seed sprouted after I bought the little pot, so I have three plants from one small nursery pot!, summer savory, and most of the plants from this week’s farmers’ market – sunflowers ‘Velvet Queen’ and ‘Big Smile, the rosemary,’ the two cardinal vines, the six-packs of calendula ‘Flashback Mix’ and marigold ‘Tangerine Gem,’ and lavenders ‘Lady’ and ‘French Fringed.’   (I compared the tarragon I got there with the tarragon I already have, and I think the new one is Russian taragon.  I don’t blame the farm, since Russian tarragon seed is often mistakenly sold as French tarragon seed [intentionally or not, you be the judge] – depending on the source, French tarragon either “cannot” set seed or “rarely” does so – but now I don’t know what to do with the plant.  Russian tarragon tastes like crap [to me, anyhow] and, as I understand it, can be quite aggressive in gardens.)  I also sowed bean ‘Caseknife’ (simply the best producer in this garden!) and resowed the lentils with abysmal germination (even though it’s probably too close to summer now for the plants to survive till seed-setting stage (since lentil is a cool-weather legume like peas and fava/broad beans), there are so many seeds in the seed packs that I figured it was worth trying again to see if it’s a germination problem or some other issue (maybe birds ate the first ones? – or whatever else).  Yes, today is a ‘fruit day’ in biodynamic growing parlance.  So’s tomorrow.

Herbs and veggies 4 July 2008

Cuban oregano (large plant on left) with culantro (below) and Aztec sweet herb (winding around on top/right)

In this shot are three herbs I’ve never grown before.  I’ve talked about Aztec sweet herb in another entry.  Cuban oregano (also known as Spanish thyme) is a very popular Latin American plant, so much so that according to Ethnic Culinary Herbs you can’t find plants of it for sale at markets in rural Latin America because every single garden already has one.  This shot is from a couple weeks ago.  It has been happy as a clam beside one of the largest rocks in the rock border, the heat radiating back to it.  Culantro, also known as recao, spiny coriander, and Mexican coriander, amongst other things, has been harder to situate here.  I first planted it at the front of the border beside the retaining wall, thinking the heat would please it, but instead it merely tried to bolt a second time (it was already trying to bolt when I bought it; I cut off the bud stalks, as recommended).  In retrospect, I think it may have been in too little sun for its liking in that spot.  I moved it up beside the Cuban oregano and it’s been happier, putting out new leaves instead of trying to bloom a third time. A nice article on culantro/recao is over here.  I have two other Eryngium species in the front garden, sea holly and rattlesnake master.  The genus members tend to be great for hot, windy sites.  (At the very top, in the center, you can also see a little bit of the sweet marjoram.  Like the Aztec sweet herb, it’s been winding its way around other plants.  I have them closer to the beans because they like more compost than the others.  Near the bottom, on the right, you can see one branch of the French tarragon.)

• Cuban Oregano – Plectranthus amboinicus
• Culantro – Eryngium foetidum
• Aztec sweet herb – Lippia dulcis
• Sweet marjoram – Origanum majorana
• French tarragon – Artemisia dracunculus var. sativa

Winter savory (Satureja montana)

Hollyhock leaf on the left.

Peas forming

Baby’s breath bloom

Retaining wall in the foreground.

Bean climbing a pole

Pea plants and fava/broad bean plants behind it.

Silver thyme, blooming, in front of Small’s penstemon and variegated catmint:

Creepers galore:  Creeping snapdragon and creeping thyme

This is the creeping spandragon that survived the winter!  The creeping thyme (AKA ‘mother of thyme’) is wandering around everywhere.  There are seeded annuals growing up out of the snapdragon – stalks of a poppy and some sweet alyssums. That’s a viola bloom on the far right.

Sedum, budded

This is an unknown sedum I bought (untagged) from a stall at the farmers’ market last year.  Oddly, it is the only sedum that survived the wintertime trampling of the garden by workmen, even though numerous other perennials survived.

Agastache ‘Apricot Sprite’

With lamb’s ears ‘Silver Carpet’ (fuzzy silvery leaves) and a cranesbill/hardy geranium I got at this year’s estate sale (pink blooms in background) and foliage of California poppies (at the edges on the left, right, and bottom).  Some sources say ‘Apricot Sprite’ is hardy in our average winters (USDA hardiness zone 6B) and others say it’s not, so we’ll see!

[Photos are from mid-June; camera/computer issue still not resolved]