Driveway Container Garden

We are still eagerly awaiting the arrival of the construction crew to backfill our yard and seed our lawn. Until then, construction of Gross Farms 2.0 is on hold.

However, I couldn't take another day without something edible growing outside our home. This morning we took a trip to the greenhouse and farmers market to get some things growing in pots. I was careful not to go overboard, but make sure we had all of the herbs we like to use fresh.

First, at the greenhouse we came across a beautiful clay planter planted with four different varieties of rosemary. For the cost of what we would normally pay for the empty planter, we have excellent starts of one of our favorite herbs that is very hard to grow here. Yes, I know rosemary grows like a weed in some climates, but it's mainly an annual for us so it's hard to get it growing to a size suitable for harvest until late in the season. From left to right, the varieties are Foxtail, Spice Island, Common Rosemary, and Gold Dust.

The next planter was rescued from the garden pile in our garage and filled with starts picked up at the farmers market. It includes chives in the middle, flanked by parsley and cilantro. There's a basil plant on each end, although the top of one broke off when I transplanted it. There are tiny leaves left below where the stem broke, so I'm cautiously optimistic that it will regenerate. 

While at the greenhouse I came across some attractive, yet affordable plastic circular planters. In the largest I planted Fernleaf Dill surrounded by sage, Italian Oregano, Hot & Spice Oregano (a variety I've never heard of but had to try) and thyme. Hopefully this plant will be overflowing with herbs in a few weeks.

We purchased three of the smaller version of this pot, and each holds its own pepper plant. We got Jimmy Nardello for a sweet pepper, Kung Pao for a medium pepper, and Thai Chili for a hot pepper. I may edge these containers with flowers (nasturtiums?) as the peppers get a bit bigger. Rounding out the driveway gang is another pot of basil (aquaponicly grown basil we got at a dinner last night—I hope it adapts to the soil) and a small pot of spearmint. 

We only get late morning/afternoon sun in the driveway and afternoon sun on the porch. These containers really belong in the back yard but we can't do that until the dirt pile is knocked down. Hopefully they'll do alright in their current location for a few weeks.

Our CSA should be starting any week now, so my need for greens should be fulfilled. I can't wait to start building the new garden.

Name That Fungus

For not getting started until about 2:00, I got a decent amount of work done in the garden today. I'll go through all of that before I give you that chance to "name that fungus."

First, I freed my tomato seedlings from the confines of the mini greenhouse and gave them an afternoon on the patio. Although a few are a bit leggy (mostly the cherry-type tomatoes), they're looking pretty good.

Next on the list was to prepare my mom's herb and flower pots. I started zinnias and a variety of herbs for her this spring. She's on vacation with dad for another week yet (they took a month-long cruise), but I want the pots to be ready for her when she gets back on Mother's Day. They're a little sad looking right now, but they'll definitely fill out. Each pot contains two genovese basil, one special basil (lemon in one pot and Thai in another), sage, parsley, oregano and thyme.

After potting up the zinnias (no pics - they're pretty boring without flowers), I used the leftover potting soil to put three of my tomatoes in hanging pots. I've never grown tomatoes in hanging pots before, but they're part of a special strategy.

When we expanded the garden last year, we gave my sister-in-law an open invitation to stop by whenever she wanted and take whatever she needed. Normally, she brought her kids (both under the age of 5) with her. Those kids LOVE vegetables, particularly tomatoes. They must think that cherry tomatoes are made just for them (because they're so tiny). I love to see my niece and nephew eating so many vegetables, but we noticed that we got a lot smaller harvest of our favorite cherry tomatoes, Blondkopfchen. I don't have room for extra cherry tomatoes in the garden, but I'm planting them in hanging pots along the driveway so as the kids come up towards the garden, they'll see those tomatoes first. As far as I'm concerned, they can eat every single tomato on these plants. That leaves more for me in the back :)

From front to back there's Matt's Wild Cherry, Blondkopfchen, and Currant. The currant tomatoes are tiny, and I usually don't have the patience to eat them except for snacking, but perhaps small children will. Also, the currant plant grew into an unmanageable bush the last time I grew it, so I can imagine it being kind of pretty as it cascades over the pot. My only concern is that the stems will snap as they lean over the pot, but I'll see how that goes as they develop.

If this experiment fails, that's ok. I have 50 more tomato seedlings, and room for less than half that in my garden.

Since I had the herbs out for my mom's pots, I also planted my herb box. I've been trying to find a place for a perennial herb garden in the back yard, but I don't think it's going to happen this year. The box will have to do.

Front Row (L to R): thyme, oregano, sage
Middle Row (L to R): mammoth basil, Thai basil, lime basil, lemon basil
Back Row (L to R): large rosemary from last year, parsley (2), smal rosemary from last year

That was the end of the fun stuff. Then, I finally had to start weeding out the back fence line. There's a lot of space to plant back there, but it's completely overrun with weeds. Many of them are terrible spreaders that come through the fence from our back and side neighbors. At some point we'll need to address this with some sort of permanent solution, but for now I just try to fight them. See how nice and green it is back there? Too bad it's nothing I want. You can see there's a tiny section on the right that has already been weeded. That was Mom's contribution 3 weeks ago and I haven't done anything since.

There's creeping charlie, but there is also some sort of weed that seems to be very fond of our arbor vitae stumps. It looks like this. Any idea what it is? The root system is crazy, and I swear it creates worms - they're everywhere wherever this weed grows.

After and hour and a half, I'd made some progress. I now have two clear areas in front of the trellises to plant. For sure, pole beans are growing up the trellis (there will be two more trellises to the left with more pole beans planted slightly later). I don't want to waste the space in front of the beans, but I also don't want to plant something I need to trample over to get my bean harvest (I'll harvest most of them as green beans). Any ideas?

Now, it's time for Name That Fungus. I think it's a fungus, anyway. When I got back towards the trellis, I found a couple of these things. They look like a mushroom from afar, but have the texture of candle wax. They only grew near the trellis, which is cedar. Any idea what it is? I was pretty disgusted by it, but I'm intrigued.

Windowsill Herb Garden

Back in November (we had a really mild fall) I salvaged some herbs from the garden to bring inside throughout the winter. As an experiment, I also direct seeded some basil, thyme, oregano, and cilantro to see if it would grow inside in the winter.

Of all the direct seeded herbs, only the cilantro grew enough for me to use it (so far - the thyme and oregano are fighting). I harvested all of the cilantro on Wednesday night for a black bean chili recipe. It's already coming back!

I also salvaged two rosemary plants - one that was growing in a container, and one that was in a too-shady space next to the house. The plant from the container is thriving, while the plant from the ground is limping along. Check out all the new growth on the container plant:

The blog may be light on updates for awhile. I'll post about my onions sometime this week, but then I'm off to South by Southwest and I won't be starting any more seeds until March 17.