Monday, March 14, 2011

A Harvest Monday of a Sort...

It's been a long time since I've pulled anything out of the garden to eat. A few days ago I did pull an onion, but that's not much. This weekend, while the weather was beautiful, I decided to cut back the rosemary tree that was growing in the zucchini box and got over a grocery bag full of rosemary cuttings.
I really let that bush get out of hand. I put the entire bag in the mailroom and sent out a come and get it email. Some of it was gone by the end of the day, but not much. I have more rosemary than I can use in a lifetime, that's for sure. Sadly, I didn't keep it and it went to waste, but we've got so much rosemary growing still AND...there's that thing I did in the other corner yard which I'll get to in a moment, but rosemary here doesn't die in the winter, so I now am really going to be drowning in rosemary.

The squash, zucchini and the new zephyr that I'm trying this year are growing nicely and basking in the warm weather we've had.
The tomatoes have finally decided to sprout. I don't baby these. I plant them in the cell packs outside and just sit them out there. When they sprout, they sprout and then if the weather turns south I bring them in for the night, but this way I don't have to worry about hardening off which I'm too durn impatient to do. It was about time as well. I was getting crazed that there would be no Cherokee Purple plants this year. Oh no. That would certainly not do. Yesterday, 14 cells had germinated. Today, 24 have so I'm feeling a lot better. Some, however, seem to be growing upside down which is rather odd, but I remember happening last year as well. Should I flip them or just let them go?
Now, my friends, here it is. The proof of my weakness. I planted the herb garden. I haven't been able to do much with this other corner yard because it doesn't get a lot of sun, so I figured an herb garden would work well, but the problem there is that we don't use many herbs....so I put in the ones we'll use. I put in rosemary, oregano and two kinds of basil. I could really plant the whole thing in basil and freeze pesto for the rest of my life, but the one rosemary plant I have in the corner yard is amazing and now I have three! It's overkill, but hopefully I can do something with it, or if nothing else, put it on the corner to give to neighbors.
It looks pretty now and there's plenty of room for the plants to grow and for me to add more basil from cuttings of these. Hopefully my gamble will pay off. If not, I tried. It just feels good to see green again! I'm thinking those squash will go in before you know it. I've just got to beat the first SVB invasion like I did last year.

The morning comes early. Especially now with the time change which, in my opinion, is totally un-American. Sweet herb gardening dreams.

9 comments:

  1. Yay for new seedlings! I absolutely hate hardening my plants off too, but don't have the luxury of such a long growing season like you do! Your herb garden looks beautiful!

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  2. My rosemary winter killed :-( I kept it in a pot and took it to Arizona for the winter of 2009-10, but planted it out last spring. Of course, we had one of the coldest winters ever. My first rosemary lived for years and years, but my last three have all winter killed. I give up.

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  3. Your seedlings and herb garden are looking good! My rosemary dies every winter, no matter what I do. It's just too cold here for it to survive the winter.

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  4. I can't believe how far ahead you are down there. It will be a while before our soil is warm enough to work.

    I have rosemary envy! That's a lot of rosemary!

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  5. Something tells me you don't need more rosemary. LOL. Looks like a great start!

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  6. I'm just hoping that I can get rosemary to overwinter. I'm thinking of planting three so I can test them out. I'll put them in three places. They really don't overwinter here often, but I've been told that there used to be a huge rosemary growing here. I can only hope.

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  7. Ours is hardy here, too- we have almost a hedge of it LOL!

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  8. Oh that rosemary looks nice. That is one thing I find terribly disappointing about my zone, the inability to grow a rosemary plant of substantial size that won't die back every winter.

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  9. I get impatient just thinking of hardening off the plants.

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