Showing posts with label herbs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label herbs. Show all posts

Friday, May 8, 2015

Time for gardening

The garden is finally planted. All the doctor visits are out of the way for at least six more months, John is doing well at physical therapy, and my energy level is picking up a tad. Rarely do I wait until May to plant my vegetable garden, but this has been the year from hell. Hopefully, things will turn around.

I always start my gardening tasks with the highest of hopes only to have them dashed when one or more of a gazillion things defeats my efforts and deflates my dreams.

Perhaps this will be the year that all my efforts pay off. I hope to so many tomatoes that I exhaust myself cooking and stirring and canning and eating a bounty of delicious, juicy, heirloom tomatoes. I hope to have so many that I get so sick of fresh salsa and the sweet fragrance of basil mixing with tomato juice that runs all the way up to my elbows.

vege garden
I know it doesn't look like much right now, but this little raised vege bed holds all the promise I can muster. It still needs a little fencing around it, but since Mother Nature is watering this morning, the fence will have to wait. I doubt the neighborhood critters have even noticed yet. I must get to that chore soon, however because the animals have no mercy when they are hungry. In addition to several heirloom varieties of tomatoes, I've planted my favorite Serrano peppers, yellow squash and cukes along with green bean seeds.

Gardening in the Ozarks is not easy, but I am determined. 

herb garden


I also planted the herb garden. What a mess that was. Note the pile of leaves and 'vinca that ate Arkansas' at the top of the pic. I'm growing lots of basil, rosemary, sage, thyme, lemon verbena, lemon balm, last year's chives, one lone garlic plant that popped up out of nowhere, and the yummy asparagus that I enjoyed earlier this Spring from seeds I planted three years ago.

While these are not great photos, I suspect they will get better as the plants grow. Even at this early stage, they do represent high hopes. There can be no bigger thrill than growing, nurturing, and consuming fresh, wholesome home grown food.

I used to have a green thumb, but I never realized how easy it was to grow a garden in the rich topsoil I became accustomed to in Illinois. A bountiful harvest was nearly effortless. But that was before moving to the Ozarks. Things here are a little more labor intensive. Admittedly, I've had little success since living here. Whether it is soil, water, drought, too many bugs, plants too close together, the deer, rabbits, squirrels, skunks, raccoons, possums, and armadillos, eat that the plants, each year has been a learning experience. Perhaps this will be the year!





Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Herbs, herbs, herbs

This is my new and improved herb garden. The picture was taken a few weeks ago and already the plants are beginning to fill in the empty spaces.

Normally, I love the unkempt look, but there is something really nice about a new, neat, tidy, new garden. It is all about hope for the future.

This garden used to contain huge plants; lavender, oregano, sage, and rosemary, but winter took its toll. Not only that, but I didn't do much pruning, so the lavender and rosemary were like small trees. My husband John, who has been a gardening trouper of late, dug them out and replaced them. The new rosemary is so small, it is hardly visible. Its growth with all the luscious rain we have received this Spring, however, is measurable. I will be diligent with my pruning this year.

I love gardening because it is such a learning experience. This is the second revision of my first-ever herb garden. It has been great fun to watch the plants grow and to use them in cooking.

This garden now contains chives, garlic, lemon balm, basil, oregano, cilantro, dill, rosemary and thyme. Since the picture, I've added flat-leaf parsley. In the perennial garden, I've added lemon-thyme, lemon-mint, and lavender. My hope is that the herbs will take over the entire yard.

Now if only we could find an herb that eats chiggers, I'd be a really happy Ozark gardener.