Herb Garden Part Two

In the last post, I left off in early July.  I forgot to mention I also have herbs, such as rue, sweet woodruff, and winter savory in my flower beds.

July 20 I took a number of photos of the herb garden area.  There is a baptisia plant that volunteered in the oval pot.  It's behind the thyme, just to the left of the pot of rosemary.

There sure wasn't much dirt showing!

I forgot to mention in the last post that I dry my dill thinnings.  I also try to keep the dill cut back, and dry that, as well.  At some point, the dill gets away from me, and produces seeds, which will keep me in more dill for the next season.  The dill seeds are brown in this photo.

In the back, are 3 basil plants that I got at the farmer's market.  They were awesome, and did not keep trying to bloom.  I forgot what they were called, and when I asked, they said they were a kind you could only buy seeds for if you bought larger amounts, or something like that.

The sage was nice and bushy by now.  The tarragon didn't seem to grow too fast after I cut it back.  I see there are morning glory plants growing through the tarragon.  These were the pink and white kind, so I let some of them grow.  It's hard to see, but in the middle of the bottom of the photo, is the summer savory plant I cut back earlier.  It bushed out nicely, too.
 

I see some pots are in different spots than they were in some of the photos from the last post.  Larry and I move pots around from time to time.  Sometimes he moves one, and then, I put it back where I wanted it.  My mints didn't do as well this year as in the past, maybe because the pots weren't big enough.  I think I'll set aside some of my wash tubs for mints this year.  I leave them outside over the winter.  There is the pot with the baptisia growing in it.

The pineapple sage is to the left of the parsley in the white pot.  I got a different kind this year, but don't remember its name.  Here's a link to a post I did awhile back, showing how I make tea with lemon balm, pineapple sage, and the different kinds of mint I like to grow.

The basils in the pot grew very nicely, as did the ornamental sweet potatoes. 

Less than 2 weeks later, on August 2, I took another detailed set of photos.  There is something in here that for some reason, didn't make it into other photos.  It's in the  back corner near the rain barrel.  Do you know what it is?

I haven't been drying this oregano, because I decided I don't like the flavor of it dried.  I let it bloom usually, because I think the flowers are pretty.  It looks like violets have taken over the woodland phlox.  I hope the rabbits didn't set them back to the point they didn't survive the winter.  I don't remember if I got the violets pulled out.  I let them grow in a certain area of the veggie garden, but try to keep them out of pots that have flowers in them.  Oh, and I'm thinking I planted this sage in case the other one didn't make it, since it wasn't looking good the beginning of spring.
 

There isn't much different in this photo from what I've shown before.  I love the neighbor's black eyed Susans on the other side of the fence.

I don't use the tarragon as much as other herbs in cooking, but when I'm in the mood, I'm glad to have it here.  Plus, it's a perennial, and comes back reliably.  Look at all those dill seeds!  I should have a good crop this summer.
 

Now, you can see the volunteer oxheart tomato plant that somehow escaped the camera earlier in the season.  I have read one shouldn't let tomato plants volunteer because of disease problems, but I have cherry/grape tomatoes every summer.  Next year, if these reseed, I'll move them.  I imagine that what I read probably said not to do that, either, but I've tried lots of things, including crop rotations, but my tomato plants usually get diseases toward the end of summer.  They give up and die after I've gotten a crop.  Last year, though, the tomatoes were very late in ripening, and I didn't get as many as usual.  (I don't remember if this was before or after I cut back the basil plants to make pistou with.  It's like pesto, but without the nuts or cheese.)  I see more morning glory seedlings that I'm sure I pulled at some point.

I really like these mild tasting tomatoes.

Garlic chives bloom later in the season than regular chives.  They are budding up here.  I'm pretty sure I ended up pulling the baptisia.  It doesn't like to be transplanted, and I decided the pot was not going to be big enough for it.

Oh, I see there were a few flowers that had opened.

Not much had changed since the last photos.  I guess I was happy with these pots.  There's a scented geranium in the photo, too.

I see the rosemary in the white pot is back where it had been.  ;o)

The next photos I found were from a month later than the last ones, September 4.  I don't remember how long the garlic chives had been in full bloom, but it must have been shortly after the previous photos. 

I'm glad a variety of insects enjoyed the flowers.

On September 15, the bush basil had gotten so bushy, it fell over the side of the pot.  Both of these were good for snipping to add to cooking, and they took awhile to start blooming.  I think there are blooms here on the bush one. 

These herbs continued to do well through the season.

These are the basil plants near the oxheart tomato plants.  They sure grew fast since the last photos were taken!

On October 5, the garlic chives were pretty much finished blooming.  This may have been the day I cut them back, like I do the other chives.  I do not let them go to seed, and will not plant them in the ground, because they tried to take over my garden in the place we lived before here.  

I'm thinking November 6 must have been our first frost or freeze.  Basils are one of the first to go when the nights get cold.

The perennial herbs were still doing fine.

I was hoping this kind of pineapple sage would bloom before the cold temps got to it, but alas, it was just in bud.  Look how pretty the bloom was going to be!

I ended up not doing much with the basil that went to seed.  I wonder if I'll have some volunteers come up this spring.

Poor basils, so sad!

I included this photo because it was taken from the driveway, a different angle.

The next two were taken the evening of November 12.

The next day, November 13, found some of the perennials defying the cold and snow.

This was taken November 25.  We had fresh herbs for Thanksgiving.

I don't remember when I moved these pots inside, but by December 16, I had bought a pot of mixed herbs, and was enjoying having these in the garden window in our dining room, which is really a bedroom.

By December 30, the outdoor herbs were finished for the season, covered in a blanket of snow.

On January 21, there was even more snow.

I wonder if there are any birds that eat basil seeds.

There is even more snow on the herbs now, but I haven't made it out to take more photos.  I decided that another photo was not needed, besides, it's a new year, 2011.   Much of the country has seen enough snow by now, more than what they are used to.  I myself, hope the rest of winter goes by quickly, because this is the point where I am really ready to be back out digging in the dirt.

Again, I hope you are safe and warm.  I have a Baker's Creek seed catalog that belongs to a co-worker that I plan on picking seeds out from this evening.

Herb Garden in 2010

 I'm not sure when in the summer I decided I was going to do a post on the herb garden through the season.  I never got around to doing it, but since I have enjoyed seeing some posts on gardens or areas of them through time, I decided today was the day I was going to do it.  Well, it took me awhile to start seeing the herb garden in my iphoto library, then I ended up exporting over 40 photos, and I didn't even get all the way through July.  I decided to post what I have, and finish up in another post.

The first one I found was from March 26, when the chives were coming up.

April 12, the woodland phlox were up in the tub.  The chives were up well, with salad burnet and a few kinds of thyme to the right of them.

 I thought this was the year I was going to have to replace the sage, but I cut it back to see what it would do.  The tarragon was coming up in the corner.

 
Here's a wider view.

I don't remember how long we'd had the rosemary plants outdoors, but they were looking a bit rough after being inside for the winter.

The next few photos were taken May 2. 

I don't show this part of the back yard often.  The deck is on the left, and the herb garden on the right. My father-in-law put lots of cement down, in an effort to stop water getting into the basement.  It still does, though. A few years ago, I tried to talk Larry into letting me hire someone to take out a couple of the squares, but he didn't like the idea. We had to put the fence around it to keep Heidi out when she was a puppy.  The reason the extra fencing is over the chain link is because Heidi used to jump the fence.  One of these days, I'd like to tear down the deck and build a smaller patio. 

I also grow herbs in pots.  The little area here is awkward to me.  I would still love to take out some of that cement.

I have shown this woodland phlox before.  I moved it from where we lived 13 years ago.  I plant some out of it in the ground from time to time.  It doesn't live more than a few years where I put it, but it thrives here in full sun, even though it's supposed to prefer some shade.

The chives were getting ready to bloom here, and the sage leafed out nicely.  It's hard to see, but I think the salad burnet was getting ready to bloom, too.

On May 8, the sage was full of flower buds, too.

Here's the salad burnet.

The chive blooms were closer to opening up.

When I was a girl, we used to eat the green seed heads of this clover. I still do once in awhile, but they are more sour than I remember.  There was lots of this in the herb garden this spring.  Can you see the dill coming up?

Here it is.

May 15, the chives and salad burnet were looking quite lovely.  The ones on the left, that are more of a purple, are onion, or giant chives.  The blades are larger than other chives.

The sage was still holding its buds.  That's a mint of some kind on the other side of the fence.

I tend to take care of other areas of the garden before tackling the herb garden.  On May 22, I stopped to document the mess here.

By May 24, the sage had joined in with its flowers.

Oregano was coming up nicely, and rabbits decided they wanted to eat the woodland phlox.

The tarragon grows pretty fast once it comes up.

The dill plants that weren't as crowded were larger.

I did some thinning and weeding this day and the next.  I don't remember if I ate the lamb's quarters that was growing in the corner.

 May 25, I went ahead and cut back the salad burnet and chives before they went to seed.  I usually don't get it done this soon, but wanted to go ahead so they could regrow and I could use them for cooking. 

I used to use thyme more often in cooking than I have been lately.  There are salad burnet seedlings coming up in the thyme here.  I don't remember which kinds of thyme I have here.  I know there are some citrus, variegated, English, and silver thymes.

I used to pull parsley plants that came up in the spring, because, as a biennial, they bloom the second year, and the flavor isn't as good, but lately, I've been leaving them for the swallowtail caterpillars.  But, this summer, I read that one shouldn't let them bloom because the wasps that eat caterpillars are attracted to them.  I already have flowers that the wasps love, so I don't know if parsley blooms are going to cause any more to show up.  I'll have to look into it some more and decide what to do.

I have summer savory come up from last year's plants going to seed each year.  Sometimes it gets a bit leggy.  I cut this one back so it will bush out more.

Oh, I see I didn't eat the lamb's quarters.   I did munch on the lambs quarters from my garden across the street from time to time.   Here's what ended up on the compost pile.

I don't remember when I planted these basils with the chives that lived in the pot over the winter.  This is from May 29.

The thyme in this pot also lived there over the winter.  I added a different kind of sage, parsley, and I think the little plant in the back is a lemon verbena, which I used fresh to make tea with.

Look how nicely the chives regrew by June 8.  The thymes were blooming at this time.

The salad burnet was coming back up, too.

I planted more basil in the corner.  The oregano that I cut back the days I was tending the herb garden was bushing back a bit here. 
 

The summer savory straightened up and started bushing out.

I wanted to include a photo of what was in this container covered with the "pretty" silver tarp.  On June 19, I got some photos of our grandson playing in the sandbox we provided him.

On July 8, the garden was looking pretty full.  Look, the chives bloomed again a bit!  I'm thinking it was because I cut them back before they had a chance to produce seeds.

By July 20, the dill was blooming, and the sage was looking like it never had any problems over the winter.

The 2 oregano plants are blooming.  It looks like I didn't keep up with the deadheading on the basil by the fence.  The pretty black eyed Susans are in our next door neighbors yard.  They look nice with the herbs.

 

Even after finding the photos, it took me a long time to do this post, because I accidentally put duplicates in it, and then, when I tried to do the dates, got so confused, that I had to start over, and do a few at a time, putting the dates in as I went.  I was glad to hear we were having a snow day today, so I could finish up.  Even though it took so long, I look forward to finishing up the rest of the season.

This winter storm is covering a lot of the U.S.  Wherever you are, I hope you are safe and warm.  I always say that I don't mind this kind of weather in the winter, but once April gets here, I want 60s and 70s, with rain, but not too much for planting, and no snow.