Suburban agriculture
I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of pouring rain. Dumping rain. It has been really mild this spring, and I guess it is payback time. Nevertheless, I had made plans weeks ago to go out to the nursery with Megan and Heidi, so I got dressed and went to meet them. We headed to Flower World out in Maltby, WA, near Snohomish, basically BFE as far as I'm concerned.
Flower World is, by my estimate, roughly 100,000 square miles of nothing but plants, and we were there for a while. The order of the day, for me at least, was to get an herb garden going again. My true #1 concern was to get my hands on a shiso plant, but I guess it is still a little early, so despite also going to Swanson's Nursery in north Seattle on the way home, I returned home without one.
I did, however, get a whole bunch of herbs: thyme, lemon thyme, oregano, sage, Italian parsley, dill, chives, basil, apple mint, and orange mint.
Herbs aplenty
Last year in California, I had an herb garden, and one of the things I had wanted to try but never got around to was doing a "salad box" by filling a planter with a bunch of different salad greens. Well, sometimes dreams do come true. I got 2 red Lollo Rosa plants, a Red Giant mustard green, a "Merveille du Quatre Saisons" (French for "salad"), a Speckled Somethingorother, and six small "deer tongue lettuce" plants. And a big box.
Salad box
I didn't get home until late afternoon, and it was both sopping wet and starting to get dark outside, so I had to hope the rain would calm down enough for me to plant on Sunday without my planting soil turning into a giant mud pit.
It didn't seem too bad today, so I decided to hop to it. There is a little raised bed built inside the front fence of my house, but it had sprouted a lot of grass and weeds. I pulled out what I could, and dug the rest of it up and turned it over. Why do I have the feeling I'm going to regret not putting all of this stuff in boxes full of pristine, untarnished potting soil?
Anyway, first up to bat was the salad box. I dumped a bunch of dirt into it and tried to be gentle seating the plants, but I got dirt all over the leaves I didn't break. Well, this is why the good Lord gave us the salad spinner, I guess.
Lettuces planted and in their habitat
I planted all of the herbs except for the basil and mint in the ground. I tried to give them a good amount of space, 7-8 inches of radius around each plant. I particularly want to give the thyme a lot of room to get big.
Herbs planted
I put the mint in a separate pot I bought specifically for that purpose. This is because if you put mint in the ground, it will expand to fit whatever ground there is, usually killing everything else in the process. Heidi, who is a botanical genius, told me that unless I keep these two guys trimmed, the stronger one will eventually take over the pot. It should be all right -- I have a plan for keeping them down to size.
Apple mint and orange mint, in solitary confinement
It was still pretty wet outside and my gardening gloves are looking nastier all the time.
Gross Gardening Gloves
Megan told me she has never had much success growing basil in Seattle, so I'm going to try doing it in the greenhouse window of my kitchen. As insurance, I bought three plants. The way I see it, they will all probably die anyway, and if they are all very healthy, I'd have to have many pounds of basil before I ran out of things to do with it. Sure enough, this morning they were already looking a little wilted. I gave them some water, and I need to get them a container or two.
Basil, basil, basil
Also, violating my usual 100% utilitarian approach to gardening, I picked up a few houseplants. There is a hook in the kitchen for a hanger, so naturally I bought two hanging plants. I need to put another hook somewhere.
Plant life for the kitchen
Another hanging plant
I also got a really cool potted plant to keep in the greenhouse window called a "scarlet skullcap".
Scarlet skullcap
I have a friend coming to visit next weekend, so nothing will happen then. The house meteorologist says there is a slight chance of plaster work happening this week, but there is a laziness front off the Sound that we may have to contend with.
Flower World is, by my estimate, roughly 100,000 square miles of nothing but plants, and we were there for a while. The order of the day, for me at least, was to get an herb garden going again. My true #1 concern was to get my hands on a shiso plant, but I guess it is still a little early, so despite also going to Swanson's Nursery in north Seattle on the way home, I returned home without one.
I did, however, get a whole bunch of herbs: thyme, lemon thyme, oregano, sage, Italian parsley, dill, chives, basil, apple mint, and orange mint.
Herbs aplenty
Last year in California, I had an herb garden, and one of the things I had wanted to try but never got around to was doing a "salad box" by filling a planter with a bunch of different salad greens. Well, sometimes dreams do come true. I got 2 red Lollo Rosa plants, a Red Giant mustard green, a "Merveille du Quatre Saisons" (French for "salad"), a Speckled Somethingorother, and six small "deer tongue lettuce" plants. And a big box.
Salad box
I didn't get home until late afternoon, and it was both sopping wet and starting to get dark outside, so I had to hope the rain would calm down enough for me to plant on Sunday without my planting soil turning into a giant mud pit.
It didn't seem too bad today, so I decided to hop to it. There is a little raised bed built inside the front fence of my house, but it had sprouted a lot of grass and weeds. I pulled out what I could, and dug the rest of it up and turned it over. Why do I have the feeling I'm going to regret not putting all of this stuff in boxes full of pristine, untarnished potting soil?
Anyway, first up to bat was the salad box. I dumped a bunch of dirt into it and tried to be gentle seating the plants, but I got dirt all over the leaves I didn't break. Well, this is why the good Lord gave us the salad spinner, I guess.
Lettuces planted and in their habitat
I planted all of the herbs except for the basil and mint in the ground. I tried to give them a good amount of space, 7-8 inches of radius around each plant. I particularly want to give the thyme a lot of room to get big.
Herbs planted
I put the mint in a separate pot I bought specifically for that purpose. This is because if you put mint in the ground, it will expand to fit whatever ground there is, usually killing everything else in the process. Heidi, who is a botanical genius, told me that unless I keep these two guys trimmed, the stronger one will eventually take over the pot. It should be all right -- I have a plan for keeping them down to size.
Apple mint and orange mint, in solitary confinement
It was still pretty wet outside and my gardening gloves are looking nastier all the time.
Gross Gardening Gloves
Megan told me she has never had much success growing basil in Seattle, so I'm going to try doing it in the greenhouse window of my kitchen. As insurance, I bought three plants. The way I see it, they will all probably die anyway, and if they are all very healthy, I'd have to have many pounds of basil before I ran out of things to do with it. Sure enough, this morning they were already looking a little wilted. I gave them some water, and I need to get them a container or two.
Basil, basil, basil
Also, violating my usual 100% utilitarian approach to gardening, I picked up a few houseplants. There is a hook in the kitchen for a hanger, so naturally I bought two hanging plants. I need to put another hook somewhere.
Plant life for the kitchen
Another hanging plant
I also got a really cool potted plant to keep in the greenhouse window called a "scarlet skullcap".
Scarlet skullcap
I have a friend coming to visit next weekend, so nothing will happen then. The house meteorologist says there is a slight chance of plaster work happening this week, but there is a laziness front off the Sound that we may have to contend with.
posted by Ficus at 8:49 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home