Herbs (and critters) in the Garden
There is a long bed of peppermint on the South side of our house.
It’s 50′ long, keeps a lot of weeds at bay and cools the roots of several clematis I have growing up arbors. One of these clematis harbored a nest of little sparrows…until last night. Continue reading
Flowers, Veggies and Herbs in the Garden
It’s been really wet here,and some things are growing like mad. Before everything reverts to jungle, I thought I’d share a few photos of what’s blooming and thriving in the herb and kitchen gardens with all the rain! Continue reading
Growing Herbs With Grow Bags
Have you been seeing grow bags all over the place? I think they are a great idea -especially with so many people growing urban gardens.
For years gardeners have been slitting open bags of soil and using them as a small garden beds, and they worked very well. Appearance-wise they lean to the far side of ugly, but they work!
Then someone got smart. They invented growing bags. They are much more attractive than a ratty old bag of potting soil, and are said to have other benefits as well.
Continue reading
The Herb Greenhouse and Garden Shed
The longer permanent grow beds on the outside ‘walls’ are about 10′ x2′ and have 4″ of builders sand in them. Potted plants or seedling flats an be set inside. The grow beds can be covered with half hoops and plastic which bumps me up another zone or two. allows me to grow a few greens all winter. I can also use heating cables in them for root zone heat-providing we don’t lose power (that happens quite often actually). Continue reading
Gourds and Everlasting Herbs
We grow gourds and often pair them up with everlasting herbs in dried arrangements.
Gourds are simple to grow, but they do have a fairly long growing season-so if you live in Alaska and try to grow them, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I usually grow hard shell or Lagenarias, although luffas are pretty entertaining to grow, too.
Fertile soil, plenty of sun, somewhere to sprawl or climb, and enough water are all a gourd plant needs. After the plant is about 6 or 7 feet long I usually take off the growing tips and let the laterals -or side shoots- grow as long as they like. That keeps my vines shorter overall and seems to produce more gourds. Continue reading
The Blue Heron Rookery
We have a small river or creek (pronounced crick in these parts- and no, I don’t know why) and a large Blue Heron colony, or rookery, just down the road. We like to visit the rookery before the trees leaf out. Their nests are just awesome! Continue reading
Herbs in the Garden Waits for Spring
As the longest winter in the history of the world drags on I find myself craving greens…yellows…blues… and creamy peach. Oh, right those are all the colors of Spring around here! Evidently my frosty white world is getting to me. I’d go start some seeds but my greenhouse is still partially buried and the door is frozen to the ground. I can’t get in. Continue reading
More Chickens- but Really Funny!
Spoiler Alert: This post is totally unrelated to herb gardening.
A cyber pal and I were chatting on Facebook about roosters in the north getting frostbite, and the damage it can do to their combs. In reality their combs do freeze, with the tips on big combs turning black and falling off. It doesn’t seem to bother the roosters at all, they just don’t look quite as impressive with their new smooth combs.
Here is our solution to the problem… Continue reading
The Long and Messy Winter
Because the herb garden is currently frozen, useless and pretty darn boring, in my last post I talked about my compost making chickens.
Someone emailed and asked me why I kept the chickens hostage in the barn and didn’t just turn them loose in the yard to scratch around… Continue reading
Making Compost the Easy Way!
In the winter when the weather is bad the chickens hang out in the barn. With no cable or internet they get pretty bored and just sit around with their feathers all puffed up to keep warm. It’s kind of sad. Continue reading
