Tag: herbs

Herbal indulgences

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 5 Comments

Now get your minds out of the gutter I’m not talking about that.

I’m talking about basil though.

Everyone knows my favorite basil is the incomparable African blue bush basil.

Both of my bush basils are growing great. So great I think I’m going to try and root cuttings from them.

But African blue bush basil has a more camphor flavor then the Genovese basil and that’s not to everyone’s taste. I like it- but sometimes you just want a more classic basil flavor.

Problem is, green basils just do not grow well in San Francisco.

Well… there’s this one.

This is Greek basil. It smells and tastes (to me at least) just about the same as the Italian stuff, but it’s a hell of a lot heartier than the really picky Italian basil.

So I put the basil in front of the tomatoes in the color bed.

Got to love a mixed bed!

In other herb news all the oregano I put in a bit back has done alright- except for the Greek oregano which beefed it.

So I replaced that.

Now I forget which nursery the first Greek oregano came from, but it was not my favorite. This one came from sweetwater and I think their herbs are pretty high quality.

The borage is just going hog wild, doubled in size already and flowering everyday. And look at all those buds! I keep getting the pink variation too which is nice to look at.

The other herb (well kind of an herb more like a small tree…) that is doing well is my lemon verbena.

It likes it’s home in a pot and stinks real pretty. I’m not even sure I’ll ever use this- though I’m pretty sure you can. I just like the idea of a small herb tree in a pot. Hopefully in a few months it will be a medium herb tree in a pot!

Herbs are nice.

Flowers, fruit, and almost fruit.

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 8 Comments

Summer is almost here, but it feels like it’s already here, with a day this weekend that hit 100 degrees. Some absolutely frantic watering and mulching took place, and as today is a much more sedate 76, I think I managed to save most everything.

Well, except for the turnips- once again cabbage fly screws with my hopes and dreams.

Don’t talk to me about cauliflower.

But, as we move into the warmer months, quite a lot in the garden is beginning to flower.

Including my new borage plant. Borage is one of my favorite plants, such delicate flowers on such a robust plant.

I even got the rarer pink variation on one of the blooms. If the heat doesn’t chase off the bees, they’ll have a treat in my garden.

In other flower news, I put in new sunflowers.

There’s this great nursery company called Annie’s, that specializes in rarer and heirloom varieties of plants. Their flowers are always great, but for allergy reasons I can’t grow most of them.

But no one in my house is allergic to sunflowers!

I got a big bear, a claret, and a shock-o-lat. I put them next to my existing sunflowers in what used to be the cauliflower bed.

Still don’t want to talk about it.

I also sowed some of the multi-colored poppy seeds in front in the mulch, we’ll see if they come up.

The heat wave has just fried my last Bok Choy- and it’s throwing in the towel and bolting. Oh well. All the cabbage family flowers are really pretty and largely identical. It’s amazing how much this Bok Choy looks like a wild mustard.

Here’s a dark horse, my Yerba Buena is flowering! Just little trumpets hiding among the leaves. I cannot get over this mint, to the point where I bought a second. It just smells so good, and as a native it will thrive in our climate, and feed our local pollinators.

The French thyme has started flowering, which should be appreciated by the bees. Thyme flowers are also very pretty.

What’s this? A pumpkin flower peeking out behind some leaves?

Surprise! It’s *three* pumpkin flowers behind some leaves! I have visions of October pumpkins dancing in my head, and isn’t that exciting.

The tomato news is mixed. On the one hand the black krim looks great.

Now that’s a nice baby tomato.

On the other hand the sun gold looks like this.

At least the ladybugs are having a feast.

I did get one ripe sun gold today- which went right into my mouth. That’s where most of the purple peas have been going too. Between last year and this year the sun gold seems to be an aphid magnet more than the other tomatoes. I wonder if that’s a problem with the plant variety itself.

The fake romanesco saga drew to a close.

Judging by how it tastes once I cooked it- it wasn’t even a purple cauliflower, it was a purple broccoli. It was delicious of course- but hardly what was advertised on the seed packet.

Had to hose off all the cabbage aphids though, growing broccoli comes with some grossness.

I got my first cuke a few days ago too- a fine Boston pickle. The vines got a little scorched during the heatwave, so we’ll see how they perform later in the month.

I’ll leave you with some baby apples, growing precariously over my upper zucchini patch’s sunflower.

Nice.

Mixed beds and new plants

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 5 Comments

I had a lot of work to do yesterday, the carrots and potatoes weren’t even the half of it.

I had to wrestle the sun herb bed into shape for one.

That sage is super overgrown. And the chamomile is no longer viable. Well for me anyways. I had a few cups of chamomile tea from this plant. They were delicious. And I got super sick. Turns out chamomile doesn’t agree with me.

Out it goes!

After ripping out the poison flower and hacking away at the sage, it was time to plant.

I got a marjoram, and three types of oregano to add to my extant Italian variety. Mexican oregano, Greek oregano, and the exquisite smelling Syrian oregano.

I like oregano.

After planting I put down a top dressing of compost and dressed that with the mulch.

The most fun mixed bed is yet to come.

I got two late season tomatoes on a whim.

The first is a Lemon Boy,

Nice yellow guy- nothing wrong with that.

I’ll let the label of the second one speak for itself.

Dancing with smurfs!

A blue cherry tomato!

I had to try it.

They’re in the purple pea bed, and to help with the inevitable bugs I sowed a few borage seeds along with every last one of my chive seeds.

I’m gonna have to get tomato cages at work soon.

But this is nice.

What’s also nice is blueberries. But what about a pink blueberry?

(Of course this raises a few ontological questions on whether a pink blueberry could be considered a *blue*berry but I’m just going to think happy thoughts about berries)

To grow any kind of berry you need acidic soil, so I chucked a bag of azalea mix into a 10 gallon fabric pot and potted it up all pretty.

It should really be on a milk crate for better air circulation to the roots, but an old basket was all I could find.

The final job was to plant my tree collard.

This presented an issue. Collards, tree or otherwise, are brassicas. Aka cabbage maggot bait. I want perpetual collard greens, and I’m not about to let some silly flies get it my way.

So I decided to try out an old wives tale.

You wrap the roots in aluminum foil. They can grow out the base, but the sides and top are protected from flies.

Hopefully.

Anyways he’s a pretty tree-to-be and at least I’ve done my due diligence with regards to my eternal fly issue.

Don’t talk to me about cauliflower I will cry.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 7 Comments

Got two late season tomatoes and a funny blueberry and an absolute crap-ton of herbs… and a freaking tree collard!

and that’s not even the half of it.

Gonna rip out the carrot bed and fill up the potato bags…

Gonna amend all the beds…

And start some new seeds for my friends…

Yeah.

Tomorrow is going to be nuts.

Captain’s log: June 3rd 2019

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 11 Comments

I had a very busy day today and only a few scant morning hours to work in the garden. But I got a lot done.

I didn’t have to do much in the way of watering, as one can see from the rain water on my Tokyo market turnips.

It rained in the night which is… really stressing my tomatoes.

What I did today was rip out most of the plants that had gone to seed, and fertilize.

And weed. So. Much. Weeding.

The pea plants are completely taking over the fence- and they’re starting to bear peas.

I probably should have put in a proper trellis instead of relying on stakes and the fence and the eyelets and wire I put on the fence. Either way the purple peas are a huge success.

Speaking of purple produce- in a few days it will be time to pick my not-a-romanesco.

I’ve had quite a bit of harvests lately- All the viable romaine were eaten, as well as the Bok Choy from the fabric bed.

In the place of the Bok Choy I sowed some beets, which are starting to come up. Beets are interesting- the seeds you get are actually like a little ball of seeds- so you always have to thin them, no matter how far apart you sow them.

I made a start on ripping out the carrot bed. I definitely sowed it too thickly, lots of big woody inedible carrots mixed with little squashed babies.

I got one last viable one though.

The stem hadn’t gone to seed so it’s probably a good one.

I’m gonna re seed the carrot bed once I pick some neem seed fertilizer from work, along with some more soil.

And I’m going to re seed a little thinner so I don’t end up with dodgy carrots.

In other fantastic news- looks like I’m getting a blackberry! Not only are the blackberry plants growing like mad- I looks like the first flower I got is turning into an actual fruit! The smaller vine will probably not bear fruit until next year but it looks like the larger vine is going to bear this year.

The plants in between the two blackberries are comfrey. I put them in a week ago or so. They’re an old style herb that like a lot of the herbs grown by our ancestors for medicine, are super duper toxic. But! It’s a documented if odd fact that comfrey salves used topically can help heal bruises. I… could use that. Not to mention supposedly comfrey can be used as a green compost- it has a lot of nitrogen in its leaves and when steeped you can water other plants with the comfrey tea to help them grow.

Sounds good to me.

The sun gold is looking more than a little rough. The ladybugs definitely are going to help- but it looks like the infestation in the sun gold tomato particularly was so heavy I’m going to have to move the few ladybugs that remain in the plant and spray the crap out of the sun gold with neem oil.

It’s got so many baby tomatoes- I’m just waiting for summer and the heat that will hopefully ripen them into beautiful gold goodness.

As much as I’m loving the ladybugs in the garden…

As you can see on my baby basil- they’ve brought quite a few flies. The problem is- out of 1,500 ladybugs- yeah a few were dead. Maybe more than a few. Dead bugs equal flies.

So. Many. Flies.

Ugh.

My cucumber seedlings were absolutely gasping to be planted so I obliged.

Just around the stake trellis. This picture was taken before I mulched it. As you can see the radishes in the center are almost ready to pick.

Speaking of radishes-

So this is where the romaine was. There’s one left as you can see- but the rest were eaten either eaten or pulled as icky. In its place I sowed some extra big radishes. Crimson giants to be precise. They’ll grow quick enough so that in a month I can put something else there- maybe some more green or bunching onions.

The borage is starting to flower. This is nothing- borage flowers are some of the most beautiful herb flowers you can grow. Honestly they’re one of the most beautiful flowers period.

Of course- also a contender for best flower…

Yay! It’s the most perfect little sunflower! The best part is it faces my window. Summer is coming!

The sunflowers demand it!

Captain’s log: sometime this week

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 2 Comments

I never have enough time these days, but now thanks to my job, I have plenty of thyme!

(BOOOOOOOOOOO)

Specifically lemon and English thyme, which I added to my French and big leaf thyme.

Soon they’ll be trying to take over the herb bed too. The other herbs I put in are doing well thanks to the wacko May downpour we’ve suddenly got.

More on that later.

The purple peas are vigorously trying to scale my neighbor’s fence, and they’re putting out gorgeous flowers.

Nice. Snap peas here I come.

In other flowering news- my biggest sunflower has gotten gigantic.

No closer to making a flower head- though it’s neighbor’s the zucchini’s look nice and bushy. And wet. Squash is prone to molds and mildews on the leaves- but if it’s going to keep raining I’m not sure what I can do to stop it.

The cucumbers are soaking it up though. They are obediently growing vertically and soon I can train them up the tripod.

I got more herbs then thyme however- a lemon verbena, a really fancy cilantro, and a lonely apple mint that I’ve seen languishing on the herb table at work for longer than I’ve actually been working there- getting bigger and bigger while nobody bought it.

I’ll buy you you beautiful gigantic apple mint.

But first I had to plant my lemon verbena. That meant getting rid of my sorrel.

Look- I like sorrel, but it’s toxic in large quantities and it was refusing to play nice in its pot- to the point where it was growing its roots through its drainage holes trying to take over the garden yet again. There’s a reason I call all my sorrels Audrey II.

So I put my Verbena in my newly empty rainy grey pot.

Lemon verbena is actually a small shrub or tree. Or it will be. That’s why I put it in a larger pot. It’s deciduous like an oak tree- and will be bare twigs in winter- but it will come back into lemon scented magnificence in spring.

I had more planting to do… but…

Sudden rain attack.

Come on San Francisco it’s May! And I planted your namesake! Give me a break!

I had to wait a bit to plant the rest.

Mister big mint had to go into a plastic pot that once held my blackberry- as I’ve run out of proper pots. Oh well my employee discount will be doing some work in June I suspect. Mister fancy cilantro went into the old pennyroyal pot. the reason my pennyroyal pot was empty was that it had become majorly pot-bound.

Oof. I saved it and put in in my next biggest pot- but it will soon need another repotting. Again… I have some shopping to do.

You may have noticed that I cut the apple mint down to size- And he wasn’t the only one.

My red-stemmed peppermint that I grew from a cutting has gotten gigantic- so I cut him down to size too. And then took the cuttings and put them into pots!

I’m just going to be drowning in mint soon and I’m loving every second of it.

I’m going to have to throw a meet-up in a month to give away plants. That’s a great problem to have.

I’ll leave you all with the poppy the birds sowed this year- blooming away with a bee in one of its flowers.

Wait I lied- I’ll leave you with the most beautiful image a gardener can have in May.

Hell yeah baby tomato!

Planting the spring herb beds

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 1 Comment

I had a great day today in the garden working my herb beds.

Here’s a previous shot of the shadier herb bed. As you can see the thyme is heavily overgrown. First task was cutting it back, along with the lemon balm, and weeding as best as I could.

Thyme is a great herb, I grow two types, big-leaf and French. Problem is, a little thyme goes a long way, even fresh, so the growth I had wasn’t helpful.

The thyme conquered- it was time to place the four new plants that go into this bed.

I have a few interesting survivors in this bed, some chives that refused to die, a lone parsley seedling that sprouted when all the others wouldn’t, and a shiso that refused to die.

That’s the bi-colored shiso that I ripped out last year. As you can see- it has returned. Oh well.

Next to the thyme is the culantro- next to the octopus is the anise hyssop- next to the lemon balm is the lemongrass, and up in the corner is the borage. I gave everything a deep watering, and then in the next couple of days I’ll put down some mulch.

The sunny herb bed was also overgrown. I trimmed the oregano, and hacked away at the hyssop and sage. Then it was just a matter of placing my plants.

I put the purple basil next to the Thai basil, and the lemon grass next to the oregano. Yes I have two lemongrasses. I like the taste, but it also has a way of repelling pests (not unlike the borage) and I hope by having one in each bed I can have less pest problems as it gets warmer.

There are absolutely no guarantees when it comes to basil in San Francisco I’m afraid. As you can see the Thai basil is a chewed up mess- but it’s alive so I’ll take it. The purple basil will also be a gamble- but much less of one then Italian or sweet basil which is iffy at the best of times. Sadly the local garden center is not stocking African blue bush basil this year- or at least not yet. That’s the only basil that I’ve had very good luck with.

I’m not screwing around with the shiso. In my garden at least it has a tendency to get really buggy, and I’d like to have more for eating so pots it is! And the pots can go on the new herb tables!

I have resown the mitsuba, I have two parsley’s- one of which is going to seed, so I have to work on that. The two shiso, the chervil, the tarragon, and the two chive pots. The other herb I had to wrestle with today was my dill.

As you can see, it was a mess. So I pulled it and sowed some more.

It’s a beautiful pot of dirt. Dill is a pain in the ass, as it doesn’t transplant well. So I can buy dill seedlings but unless I keep them in the original pot I won’t get much dill, as once transplanted it tends to swiftly die. Growing dill from seed isn’t difficult, but you have to tenderly press the seeds into the soil because they need light to germinate. Not to mention it tends to get really buggy, and it attracts scale insects and aphids. Like I said, a pain. But it will work, and I use a lot of dill when I pickle so I guess I’ll just have to keep re-seeding it.

I’m looking forward to the lovely blue flowers of the borage, bees love them, but other bugs don’t.

It can also get really gigantic and I’m looking forward to my dad making triffid jokes again.

I am a Neanderthal of simple pleasures.