The peppers and tomatoes are in the ground!!

It's always exciting to get plants into the ground. My husband and I planted the peppers and tomatoes this Sunday morning. The herbs were already planted. We grew giant jalapeno, poblano, cubanelle and habanero plants from seeds. And couldn't wait to get them into the ground. 

Another view of our just planted pepper and herb patch.

Here's a closer picture of our herbs. The chives in the left hand corner have been there for 3 years now. We decided to cut down some tomato cages and place them around the chives (also the parsley and cilantro), so that the herbs don't lay on the ground. Keep them neat and tidy as well. We have thyme and rosemary behind the chives, then come parsley and cilantro in their cages. To the right from back to front, we have marjoram, tarragon, dill and basil. We've already harvested chives.And it's looking like harvest time again real soon!

The picture below show our giant jalapeno seedlings. We have a total of 14 planted. There is a very small seedling up front in the middle row. We shall see how that one grows.

The picture below shows 2 poblano plants in the back row. The next 2 rows we planted 10 cubanelle peppers. The two peppers up front are the habaneros we decided to try this year.

Against the fence of our backyard, we have a long, thin garden which we always just planted tomatoes in. We've always grown tomatoes from seed. But not this year. We ordered 3 Super Sauce Tomato plants from Burpee, which are brand new this year, and they were just delivered to us this week. Hopefully we'll have good results.

In each third of the "tomato" garden, we decided to try something new again. The Super Sauce tomatoes are supposed to grow 5 feet tall and 5 feet wide. So we only planted one tomato plant in the middle. We planted 2 cubanelle peppers towards the sides of each box. So 3 tomato plants and 6 cubanelles in the back garden. We want to see how the cubanelles grow out in full sun as well as the semi-shaded ones against the back of our house. Always experimenting, we are! We have a total of 16 cubanelle plants growing from both gardens.

Now the true growing season for us begins. Updates to follow. 

Happy gardening!

Herbs Herbs Herbs!

Over the weekend we visited Meijers. They have the certain cat food our big old cat loves for the cheapest around. But when we got to the store, they had no cat food left. Gone!! Feeling sorry for the cat and for ourselves, we checked out the gardening section at Meijers. The husband got himself a new rake, and I hit the mother lode on herbs. Who doesn't love to cook with fresh herbs? 

We bought rosemary, parsley, thyme, sweet basil, tarragon, dill, cilantro, mint and marjoram. There was no oregano out yet, and we already had sage (or so I thought). We went home happy enough... poor cat.

Herbs from Meijers

Herbs in our garden.

When we arrived home and decided to check out the garden, we found that the sage we had in the garden for years, had died. Probably when I asked the husband to clear out half of them since we had too much of it, last week. Ah well, maybe this year I'll plant some in a planter on the deck. Though I still have a lot of sage that I dried last year. 

You can see how well the chives (lower left corner) have grown this spring, in the picture above. This is the first year that we have planted rosemary, thyme, tarragon and marjoram in the ground. Growing them in planters has always been successful for us. The hubby and I love to experiment. Time will tell if we did the right thing for those herbs. 

We saved one rosemary plant for the deck planter, as well as the mint. Mint spreads like wild fire, so that definitely stays on the deck, contained in a planter. Can't wait to get oregano and perhaps the sage into a deck planter as well.

One thing is for sure, in the above picture, that row of herbs on the right is in the row we have always planted our first row of jalapenos. Hopefully, the jalapenos won't take offense like the sage did.

 ☺

Happy gardening!

Rosemary

One of my all time favorite herbs is rosemary. I grow it every year. I just can't believe that we have to pay the price of $2.99 for a couple of sprigs at the grocery store! This year, I had gotten a bigger bush. But for some reason, it instantly started wilting on me. Now, rosemary has never done that before to me. So I bought a little rosemary plant, just in case my big one died. Luckily, the weather got good and both of my rosemary plants took off! This past weekend, my daughter came by for Father's Day, and she had looked longingly at my smaller rosemary plant. I had to give it to her, of course!

Rosemary - just the smell is exhilarating! The flavor is wonderful. It's very strong, and recipes always call for just a pinch, because rosemary can overwhelm as a flavor. But I tend to like that taste. There is nothing better than fresh rosemary!

The smell of rosemary helps get rid of headaches. The smell is a natural "upper" - helps with getting you out of a little "funk". Rosemary is used in balms for aches and pains (pregnant women shouldn't use it). Even using a little water that has had rosemary steeped in it, helps with controlling dandruff. It's just an all round great herb!

~Mutti