The Seedlings are Grounded!

My seedlings, which I lovingly grew from seed were placed into the ground this past weekend. It was one week past my intended planting day of Mother's Day. My husband plants my garden every year with direction from me :-)  for Mother's Day. This year, while visiting his mom the day before Mother's Day (as is our tradition), he was trying to imitate some martial arts moves that his younger brother was showing him. While he impressed his brother with getting the moves right, I knew that the old guy was going to be in no condition to be planting the next day. I was right.... as usual :-)  As luck would have it, there was even a late snowfall on May 16th that my seedlings missed, not being in the ground. Talk about thankful!

It took all week to get the husband back to normal. We were excited to get things started. We have the back garden along our fence that used to be just all tomatoes. No tomatoes this year!! That garden is in 3 sections. The first section has my 3 brussels sprouts seedlings. First time ever trying to grow these.

The middle section has a poblano, habanero, cayenne then another poblano. The cayenne had already grown a flower on it before we even put it into the ground. I did pinch that flower off. Those plants have some growing to do before they are ready to flower!

 

In the third section of our back garden, we have my 3 cubanelle seedlings.

 

And here's the entire back garden

 

Then we moved on to the garden right behind our house.

 

To the far left, we planted our herbs. The only thing that survived this past winter were my 3 huge bunches of chives. Goes to show, not much can kill those suckers! Rosemary, thyme, parsley, etc... didn't make it. We had to buy basil, parsley, sage, thyme, tarragon and marjoram. For some reason, cilantro and rosemary were not at the garden center. I still have to get those, as well as mint. 

 

Last, but not least, we planted the giant jalapeno seedlings. This is the first year that we decided to go with less and spread out the jalapenos.  We have 13 (don't ask why 13, it just came out that way) this year, when we usually go for 20+. We've never had a problem crowding in the jalapenos before, but the husband wanted to experiment. So why not see if our jalapenos yield as much or more than the past. It would be real sweet if it's more!

While the husband was planting the garden, I made up a quick snack. When he was ready to sit down (all right, he took a shower first), I brought out a tray of cheese and crackers, with some of our chives from the garden. I gave him a little dish of ranch dressing on the side. And brought out his favorite chilled Lynfred Winery Sangria Rouge Wine. It was like a taste of summer. Perfect!

And here we played with designing our cheese and crackers.

 Time to sit back and watch our garden grow!

January 1 musings...

It's the first of the year. I'm tired of snow. I had put in my request for snow only on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but obviously my request was ignored. It is time to fight back and start thinking about the warmth and pleasures of springtime.

Is it too early to think about what I want to plant in my garden this year? I don't think so. This year we will do some more experimenting. We'll put in different veggies!

One thing is for sure, we won't be growing tomatoes this year. Basically, because we suck at it. We had great luck with tomatoes for about 2 years, then BAM, we suck. Blossom end rot all the time. We tested the soil and it's good. We watched our watering. We changed from roma types to regular round tomatoes. Bought plants instead of growing from seed. Nope, we just suck. So instead of wasting our time and money on growing tomatoes, we're going to change things around. Mix it up a bit.

Must haves in our garden are peppers. What kind? Large jalapenos, cubanelles, poblanos and a habanero. We had 2 habanero plants last year. This year, only 1 will suffice. We had so many habaneros from 2 plants that I ran out of things to make with them. I made habanero hot sauce which was a hit with my whole family. But an even bigger hit was my habanero mint jelly. Ok, I forgot to put the mint in there and the jelly didn't 'set', but I added red pepper flakes to give it an interesting texture and color. It's fabulous on meatballs and shrimp, probably on just about anything.

More herbs this year for sure. They did great in the ground. Better than in my deck pots. Maybe we'll try our hand at brussel sprouts or lettuce or beans. I received my big Burpee catalog and another catalog called Jung Seeds & Plants on New Years Eve. It's time to look through them and come up with my 2014 garden wish list.

Happy New Year!

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!

Everyone needs a little Thyme

Still impatiently waiting for my seeds to break ground in their little seed pots. It's been 3 days! Feels like forever though. So while we await... let's talk about another herb. Today, I choose thyme because that's another strong herb that my family loves. 

I grow thyme in a pot on my deck, in full sun. Usually I have it sharing the big pot with oregano. They co-exist very nicely!

Just like my rosemary, it loves a good soaking. It is a perennial, but usually I have to replant every year because they like to die on me over the winter. Last year was the first time it survived. And it's looking pretty good for this year as well. Time will tell soon enough!

As with rosemary, I tend to put thyme in everything I cook. Well, just about everything.  It's another strong tasting and scented herb. I don't have a specific recipe that I use with thyme, except my son's favorite, chicken noodle soup. He loves a lot of strong thyme flavor there. And don't forget to spice up the homemade bread to go with that soup, with thyme as well!

I'll leave you here again with some more "factoids" for thyme.

• Oil of thyme, the essential oil of common thyme (Thymus vulgaris), contains 20–54% thymol. Thymol, an antiseptic, is the main active ingredient in various commercially produced mouthwashes such as Listerine. Thymol can also be found as the active ingredient in some all-natural, alcohol-free hand sanitizers.
• A tea made by infusing the herb in water can be used for coughs and bronchitis.
• Also used for clairvoyance, cleansing, courage, healing, protection and purification.