June Garden Humor

My trowel has become one of my most useful garden tools…therefore:

New gardeners learn by by trowel and error.

SO TRUE! Holy crap, it’s July tomorrow! Where has the time gone?

June 30, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
Tags:  Â· Posted in: Garden Humor, Gardening Supplies

Herb of the Week – Dragon’s-Wort (Tarragon)

Ok, I was going to wait till Halloween season to use Tarragon (because seriously, it’s also called DRAGON’S-WORT!) but I realized I don’t have enough weekly herbs to make it that far into fall, and frankly, I’m a little disappointed in my tarragon overall, and I’m not sure it’s going to be around that much longer.

I can’t blame the Tarragon, it’s my fault. I didn’t do the research. I was watching a cooking show last year, and saw a recipe for Lemon Chicken Soup that called for tarragon. Maybe it was the garlic, maybe it was the lemons, but I HAD to try this soup, and instantly decided I needed to grow my own tarragon (I couldn’t just buy it from the store, like most normal people). I bought some seeds, and the tarragon popped out of the soil, no problem!

Of course, there was actually a problem. One I was not immediately aware of. Once it came out, the tarragon was not as fragrant and delicious smelling as I hoped it would be. I thought, ok, just needs to grow a little bigger. Then, it grew bigger… still not appetizing. Ok, it just needs to have a winter, and come back in the spring and it will be super fresh. Nope! This spring, it’s still kinda ‘eh’ & I finally looked it up to see what the problem was.

Apparently, I have the WRONG tarragon!  The really good tarragon (the kind you are supposed to use in cooking) is French Tarragon, and it’s very hard to get from seeds, and most often “real” tarragon you must get from cuttings or division of existing plants. Although you CAN eat the tarragon that I have (likely, Russian Tarragon), it’s definitely not something that I felt I wanted to do.

Here is my gross Tarragon that doesn’t look so healthy these days anyway. Maybe it feels my resentment.

Now, to get me some real tarragon (probably just from the grocery store this time) so I can finally make that soup, and see if it’s even worth all the effort! If it is, I’ll have to try to find some French Tarragon.

Happy Friday!

June 29, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
Posted in: Great Outdoors, Herbs

Hello Mr. Sunflower!

This is our first Mammoth Sunflower blooming.

It’s very cute, even though it didn’t turn out to be very ‘mammoth’, at about 3′ high (the seed packet said 8′ to 12′). I think it was in the transfer pot for too long. We have some others growing directly in the ground from seed that will hopefully grow to full height!

 

June 28, 2012 · Sheryl · One Comment
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Community Garden, Flowers

First Harvest!

1 italiano largo squash and 1 sure thing zucchini!

June 22, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Produce

Herb of the Week – Lavender

Over the past week, the pretty lavender flowers have bloomed in the garden. This is another gem leftover from the previous owners, with two lavender plants on the rocky hill in our backyard. The deer stay away from them, and they attract lots of bumble bees. The purple flowers grow on long spikes separate from the leaves.

Typically the flowers are used for culinary and scenting purposes as the most potent part of the plant, but fresh leaves can also occasionally be used (older leaves / branches are not very potent at all).

I really haven’t tried it in enough foods to decide if I like it to eat or not (I know it can be one of the herbs in a few variations of herbes de provence), but I know I love the aroma. One of my goals is to be able to us it for making homemade soap… someday. For now, I will need to  settle for having some in a bunch on my table in a cute little vase.

June 22, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Flowers, Herbs

Ok, maybe I should have named this site squashthis?

I’ve had so many posts about squash, it may be getting a bit out of control, but I love them. They are finally starting to look like the NJ squash I’ve come to know and love. Also, for those of you paying attention to detail (it’s OK if you missed this), I actually made a mistake in my garden map: I DID plant a golden squash! I only had 1 Largo that I planted though, not two (still 5 total squash plants). So, I do have all 4 types of the summer squash going strong in the garden. Even though some of them were looking a bit weak in the pots prior to the transplant, once they got into the ground and got some sunlight, they recovered in no time. That fungus issue seems to have been resolved after I cut off the infected fruits. All of them now have yummy (healthy) squash growing on them. It should only be a few more days until the first few are ready to harvest!

Here they are:

Sure Thing Zucchini

 

 

 

 

 

Golden Squash

 

 

 

 

 

Greyzini

 

 

 

 

 

Largo

June 21, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
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Happy Longest Day!

I love spring. I do not love summer. In fact, some might say I despise it. It’s hot, and humid, and bugs tend to get a little ridiculous. I don’t get the summers off anymore, so what good are they? The seasons should just go from Spring to Fall.

Therefore, I’m not celebrating summer itself (especially since today kicks off a heat wave in NJ), but the best thing about the first day of summer: the longest amount of daylight in a 24 hour period! I do enjoy daylight (more time to garden). So…

Happy Longest day! Only 93 days to go until the fall equinox!

June 20, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Great Outdoors

Peonies!

Peonies. Peonies. I think ‘peonies’ is one of the words you only have to say a few times and it starts to sound funny. Either way, the flowers themselves are GORGEOUS (well, when they first bloom, not when they are puddle of petals, like they are now). We have a few peony bushes in our garden. We even acquired one in the community garden from the previous plot resident. We have dark pink and light pink varieties. The flowers are big balls of beauty. I’ve tried a few times to bring the flowers inside for a vase, but you need to cut them in the right spot, and make sure there are no ants lingering inside (ants & peonies are bffs, you know). You probably want to cut right when it looks like the picture below.

My only complaint of the plant itself is that these can get a little droopy looking because the flowers are so heavy. In the fall, you need to leave them as long as possible, and then cut them to the ground right before winter, so they can bloom again in the spring. Peonies are supposed to last 99 seasons, but I really wonder how good of a study that is, because how many people really get to see a peony plant for that long?

June 18, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Flowers

Happy Father’s Day!

I have a pretty great Dad, so I couldn’t neglect him on my blog for Father’s day (even though he doesn’t read my blog, but hopefully, my Mom will at least mention it to him). He isn’t a herb or flower kind of guy, so I need to get a little creative on what I could do here…

I got it!

Of course, my dad is a Sports Dad. At least he was until my sister & I grew up and stopped playing sports. But while growing up, he never missed a game or meet, ever. Although basketball was our the main sport, there was a brief number of years where we played softball, too! I remember using his childhood baseball mitt once I grew out of my first softball mitt. It was cooler and way more broken in. What do they have at baseball games? Sunflower seeds! Yes, this year, we are growing our own sunflowers to hopefully harvest hundreds of seeds!

I tried growing a few indoors, but only 1 made it through the attack of the critters while waiting to get in the garden. The rest, we just planted from seeds last weekend directly inside the fence. Hopefully we’ll get at least a few full size sunflowers before the summer is over.

Ok, I guess that was a little bit of a reach, but seriously, couldn’t get much else from what is in the garden. Oh well. Happy Father’s day to all the great Dad’s out there! Even the ones who aren’t into gardening!

June 17, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
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Poppies! Poppies will put them to sleeeeep…

The wicked witch knew what she was talking about. Poppies are known in many cultures to symbolize sleep or death (or can make you high I guess, I’m sure you’ve heard of opium, right?). It might be because these pretty flowers are poisonous. However, I have lots of herbs and veggies to keep our household nourished, so I don’t plan on consuming our pretty poppies in our front yard any time soon. I like to have them to look at, and the deer don’t eat them.

It seems like some varieties are annuals, some biennials, and some perennials, but since we’ve been in the house 3 years now, and they have come up each year, it seems our pretty pink ones are perennials. I really love these flowers, even though their darker counterparts are associated with death, I think they look really fun and summery. They started to bloom a few weeks ago, and will continue to bloom well into the summer. If there isn’t a regular rain (read: you are in a drought), you need to water them every once & awhile, but overall these have been really low maintenance.

June 16, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Flowers