Spring Dinner Salad

A combination of spinach, romaine, mixed greens, and chard. Chive flowers aren't just a garnish... they have a fresh chives taste when you first bite into them with a spicy onion kick at the end. Yum! :)

Chamomile

Last year I built a garden path that I wanted to fill with flowers between paver stones (something to attract more bees)... but I planted a bunch of annuals, and then this spring it had over grown with weeds. I had to weed it and effectively start all over. That's not exactly what I was going for. I decided I needed a perennial - so I wouldn't have to do this again.

I discovered Roman chamomile (also called English chamomile). It has an cousin, German chamomile, which is an annual and favored by tea makers for it's robust flower production. But Roman chamomile has a long tradition of being a ground cover for paths in English gardens! :)

I discovered that chamomile seeds are *small*; too small to easily manage by hand. I ordered 5000 seeds from outsidepride.com and you can see in the bowl picture, 5000 chamomile seeds doesn't look like much. I read a posting on gardenweb.com that suggested mixing the seeds with sand in order to make them easy to manage by hand. I thought this was a great idea. Once they were mixed, the kids were able to help me plant them. "We're planting flowers with seed-sand."

I'm looking forward to having the path covered with a nice looking perennial... but having an herb that has been recognized for centuries as having medicinal qualities is definitely a bonus.

"The Camomile; The more it is trodden on, the faster it grows."

- Shakespeare's Henry IV, part 1

Spring Sage

The sage is among the herbs that have come through from last season looking just beautiful.

I love the taste of sage... saute it in butter and serve on top of fresh pasta or pork chops - yum!

I plan to experiment a bit more with it this year....

There's a couple ideas I've found that look promising:

Fried Sage Leaves look delicious and easy to do.

Another idea is to try to create a sage pesto. My personal favorite right now is a 3/4 parsley, 1/4 basil pesto. It seems the sage could bring some pizazz to the flavor, but I'm not sure if I'd want it to be the dominant leaf.

The Chives Forest

In my ongoing quest to have too much of everything, we split up the chive plants (dug them up and sliced them apart with a spade) and re-planted them underneath the grapes.

The bed directly underneath the grapes were proving to be a challenge... last year I realized (when I accidentally dug up a root) that the grapes had become so large that their root system had spread throughout the bed (duh- out of sight, out of mind.) So that effectively takes those beds out of action. What to do? Herbs is the answer. Once planted, if the herb stays healthy there no need to disrupt that section of bed every again. It's easy access from the kitchen, so it's a good spot for them anyways. Once all the split mature, we'll have *allot* of chives.

New Year! Try again...

Well last year the postings became few and far between as the weather turned nicer..... but it's a new year!

Other than a couple of weeks in the middle of December, our winter has been mild. We started planting about half way through February, and we have some lovely sprouts to show for it at the end of March.

Amber and the kids started the ball rolling in our 'triangle bed' with some radishes and carrots. I finished off the bed with some broccoli, bok choi, and salad greens. I also added some fennel and marigold seeds to the mix to see if we can do better work with complementary plantings that attract some beneficial insects.

We had some stuff planted in this area last year... but this year we built up the bed and amended the soil.

Amaya and Cyrus helped me plant some flowers, more carrots, swiss chard, and (I think) some romaine. We still have half the bed to amend and plant.

The potato boxes have been planted as well. Last year the potato crop was... unsatisfying. I've since learned that you really can't let the greens shoot up more than 3 inches before you mound up the dirt. The thing is- once potatoes start growing up, they grow super fast. I'm resolved to be much more attentive (and aggressive) with getting them mounded up this year. I'd really like the fingerling crop to be good....