Gushing in the Garden and How’s It Growing?
I love this. I walk around my garden now with a big silly grin on my face. I feel like this is it – it’s really happening now. I waited all winter, dreaming of NOW – heading out first thing in the morning to pick ripe berries, harvest greens for breakfast, pull nasty weeds that weren’t there yesterday and see the brand new bloom that has finally opened up. I am so happy – SO happy in MyNJGarden. Here’s some of what’s happening out there.
Borage flowers are pretty and edible
I used some of the leaves in green smoothies while they were still young and small, before the flower stalks came up. Once they get bigger, the leaves get a weird, fuzzy (but pretty) texture and I don’t like the taste. The flowers are edible too, but I haven’t tried them yet this year. I’m just not much of a flower eater. I better dead head these things soon because they reseeded like CRAZY from last season. I didn’t plant any borage on purpose this year, but they are all over the place.
The spinach has bolted, but I’m not sure how/when to collect the seed from it. Gotta look that up and get on it before I miss my chance. The Swiss chard is really going strong now and it’s soooo yum.
Looky, looky! Makes me giddy to think that I’ll be having fresh tomato salad soon. Ahhhhh summer.
The garden peas never got very tall.
Turns out Lincoln is a dwarf variety. pfft. The bush beans look happy and the blue potatoes are hilled up against the board on the right side of the bed. Fingers crossed! I really hope the blue potatoes come out good. I want a LOT of them. I haven’t eaten one since high school (ahem, almost 20 years ago)
Egyptian Walking Onions are perennial and every part is edible
I got a bunch of bulbets from a seller on Ebay and planted them in November. I haven’t harvested any yet, but look at all the little bulbs on the top of the plant! The little ones are starting to grow already! Now, I’m not sure what to do here – do I chop off the bulbets now, even though they’ve started to sprout? I’ll leave a few on some of the plants so that they weight them down and reseed themselves, thus “walking” around the bed. Anyone ever grow these? What do you do at this point? Also, when do you dig them up to eat onions? How long until they are mature underground?
First garlic scapes
One day the garlic plants were just leaves and, I swear, the next day, SCAPES! Big curly ones! How did I not see THAT coming? haha. I cut a few off today and put them in some lentil soup. So, when you cut garlic scapes, do you cut them down as far as you can without cutting leaves, or do you just cut off the top “flower” part?
My driveway herb garden. It’s really coming along! The oregano really got HUGE this year. Last year it was just ground cover but this year they are like 2ft high shrubs.
This is milk thistle – over a foot in diameter with a cool, Eeyore treat, purple thistle on top! I know in supplement form, milk thistle is supposed to be awesome for liver support, but I honestly don’t know what the hell to do with this other than to enjoy how cool this plant looks! haha.
Harvested lots of mustard and spinach out of the keyhole garden. Today I planted Spinach Mustard in it’s place. I’m hoping that can handle the heat of high summer in New Jersey.
Welcome to “Kinder Garden”!
This is in shade most of the day, so I’m not sure how the harvest will be. The pole beans are climbing, but the leaves are tiny on the vines. The bush beans look more lush and they DO have flowers, so we’ll see how many beans the kids get to pick this year.
I planted these sweet william last year. I picked the plant up from the farmer’s market around the corner on Rt. 9. Call me crazy, but last year I SWEAR the flowers were magenta. Like /bright/ magenta. Now they are /white/? How the hell did THAT happen?
Three years ago I bought a predesigned garden from Spring Hill nursery that included butterfly blue scabiosa. The first year they were amazing – bloomed like crazy from early summer to frost – I LOVED that flower. The next year, I was spoiled and cocky and didn’t water them nearly as often. They all died. All except three. I replanted those here in this front garden and only one plant made it through the winter. It’s happy and I’m making sure to keep it that way. I hope it reseeds all over the place.
My squash and cucumber plants are small, much smaller than they should be. I planted in those damn cardboard containers and the roots have been struggling to break free. That’s one lone pole bean climbing up on the right side there…
Purple cone flower starting to bloom. Hooray! I love these…
Freecycled Dame’s Rocket (this was purple loosestrife and it spread like wildfire. I think this is considered an invasive plant) I planted in the fall. Can’t wait to see what this looks like when it blooms. (it blooms with yellow flowers)
