herbs and dresses

Two years running now I have sown herb seeds and forgotten about them. My favourite culinary ones I watch out for and if I don't get success with seeds, I tend to buy a plant from the garden shop. Ditto with most vegetables - if I don't get seed success, then I buy seedlings.

Other herbs have fallen by the wayside. Astragalus, elecampane, anise hyssop, chervil to name a few. After the first unsuccessful sowing, I clean forgot about having another go. So come the next day before a full moon, I'm going to sow some more seeds and see what will grow in Autumn. Better do some research before then or I will guarantee another no show on the germination front.

I'm still knitting in the round without a pattern. I've done the skirt part of the planned pinafore (for my daughter who is two) in three different 10-12 ply wools and have now changed down in needle size and length to knit the bodice part in 8 ply. The bottom wool is the lovely home spun home dyed wool from Granity. Then some black boucle type wool leftover from my cardigan last year. Then some red boucle type wool which I bought to do the tension sample for the cardigan and then decided to swap to black. Now I'm knitting the rest in an army green colour which was once in my Grandma's knitting stash waiting for her to turn it into a jersey for Grandad. I'm thinking that when I get to the very top part, I will make long straps which can be buttoned up in more than one spot. Hopefully this means it will last longer.

Today I've harvested the last of the potatoes from our first potato patch and dug blood and bone, dolomite lime and sheep manure into the vacant patch. I've planted cavolo nero (lacinato kale) along the front where I can check for caterpillars and eggs easily. Later this week I will plant leeks along the back. I've also started to prepare the site for Fionn's garden. He has chosen to plant broccoli because he likes eating it now. Enough to warm a mother's heart.

I'm going to try my next batch of coriander in pots. The seedlings which came up from my last sowing have disappeared. Maybe slugs love coriander? I've been trying for all of spring and summer for coriander this year, to no avail.

Roses and parsley

I've been making grand plans in my head for draping roses all over fences around our section. This afternoon I decided that the best way to get going on these plans is to have a go at growing my own roses from cuttings. I found these instructions online and decided to take some cuttings from my next door neighbour's prolific rambling pink rose. Surely if it can grow so well for him under (I suspect) no special care, then it will suit our section as well. I used disprin for my rooting medium as a friend has recommended. I've bagged up three cuttings and put them in the window of the tool shed. This is a first for me on propogating anything from a cutting.

I tidied up the herb garden a bit, pulling out the parsley which had gone to seed and transplanting two self-sown parsley seedlings from out the front to the side herb garden which is much more convenient to the kitchen. I clipped away the dead part of the rosemary plant and admired the new growth from the part which didn't die.

I found slugs on the cavolo nero cabbage and fed them to the chooks. I admired my one head of broccoli and dug out a fast growing crop of clover in the corner of my thyme and onion bed. This is the bed which needs some more nutritional help. The clover end is the part which I didn't use the raised bed method for, hence more weed growth. I am going to transplant all the thyme elsewhere and use up the onions and then dig in blood and bone, seaweed and sheep based soil conditioner. Then it should be ready for growing more brassicas. I am having another go at brassicas, bouyed up by recent modest success.

A rethink on the watercress front

We cleaned the house yesterday. If you want more exciting details of this too rare event, then look no further.

Today I made something swanky. I punched some holes in the bottom of a used olive tin, just like the one in the picture (except empty so topless), and sowed basil in it. Why do I think this qualifies as swanky? Because in wannabe Italian restaurants but not, I suspect, in Italy, they are forever displaying large tins of olives and tomatoes. I did actually like the kiwi touch of a pizza place in Wakefield (Nelson, NZ) which added tins of peaches to the display.

So I thought as basil and olives go well together and as I increasingly choose to sow my basil direct into small pots and harvest from them, that it might even qualify as stylish to have basil growing in olive tins on my kitchen windowsill. Especially as I even cleaned the windowsill yesterday.

I've been inspecting the old chook run garden this afternoon as it has stopped raining for the first time all weekend. I have changed my mind about throwing lots of watercress to the chooks. Mine didn't eat the stems and the stems (of which there a large number) have all sprouted many new plants along the length of each stem. Other plants in the same plot are growing well.

None of my tomatoes look especially healthy. I don't know why.

I let the mulch on the strawberry and garlic bed get a bit thin and have been rewarded with weeds.

Herb garden relocated

Yesterday I was thinking that I would build (that translates to get FH to build) a structure to raise my smallest herb corner another 10-15cm above the lawn level. Today I thought that that would take ages to happen and there are things I can do in the meantime.

So I weeded, then pulled out the dead sage and thyme. I dug out the remaining thymes and the oregano and replanted them in the long herb garden. I used the gaps left by the marauding chooks after their home blew over a few weeks back. I had enough oregano to plant some in the old chook run as well.

Then I dug out the whole area down about 10 cm. It's only a small area, about 60cm x 70cm, so not hard to work with. I spread half a bucket of river sand in the base and then half a bucket of sheep poo. Then I piled the soil back in, broke the clods up and sowed radishes, rocket, coriander and mesclun salad mix. I'm hoping that although it is still likely to be quite a wet piece of garden, having fast maturing plants in will be easier than poor perennials being stuck with wet feet forever.

Finding room

Grandparents day at Fionn's school was yesterday. After a mad flurry of cleaning and tidying, my parents arrived on Tuesday evening to a house that was cleaner and tidier than usual. I couldn't make any grander claims. The grandparents' event was much enjoyed by all and a lovely community thing I think.

Yesterday I popped down to the garden centre to buy some spinach seedlings for Dad. Somehow I ended up buying a marjoram plant (my second lot of marjoram seed has failed to prosper and I can't wait forever to make marjoram toppings for our pizzas) and six cavolo nero plants. I love this name for what is also known as 'palm tree cabbage' and as 'lacinato kale'. My seeds still haven't arrived from Koanga so these fairly well established seedlings are very welcome. It's great to see our local garden centre branching out in the range of seedlings it offers.

Of course I only wondered afterwards where exactly I would put the cavolo nero. The idea was to put winter greens where the chook house currently is in Febuary. But I do need to home some more greens well before then. I guess the edges of the potatoes where I planned to put herbs and beans may also have to fit in some brassicas after all.

I bought the latest Organics NZ magazine this afternoon. I read the article on herbs for hormonal health with some interest. It is written by Sandra Clair who is the owner of the highly regarded herbal tea and creams business Artemis. She mentions in the Organics NZ article that calendula is a very good balancing herb for women. Which could mean almost anything and why I wonder about making this myself when I have yet to use any of our calendula for making eczema cream in the last two years I don't know. But indeed I do wonder. So I bought one of her teas at the health food shop today and maybe one day I'll get to experiment with my own concoctions.

I've started another bread experiment (yesterday) after reading up a link on on of Joanna's recent posts. I hope this no knead bread lark is forgiving as I forgot to go home and make it this afternoon and it is now going to wait until tomorrow before I do the final steps. I'm interested in the recommendation to use standard (weak gluten) flour rather than bread grade. From one angle, standard grade bread is cheaper than bread grade. From another, I could use this recipe for making bread from low gluten flours like the ones I've found from a grower called Terrace Farm.

I should go and be a parent now.

carrots amd banks

I have some carrot seedlings.

This is progress.

I also have radish seedlings but they are easy peasy. Carrots are both yummy and difficult to grow. Fingers crossed.

I transplanted chamomile seedlings this morning.

The chook run has indeed dried out and lost its boggy aspect. Big rain predicted for tonight but hopefully the cover will suffice to keep the run mostly dry.

I think I should read The Grapes of Wrath. Still have my head in a spin over the bailouts.
My socialist mate tonight reckons that the current events are healthy and that renationalisation of banks is a good outcome. I'm adding his thoughts to my pondering bowl.

Zantedeschia Majestic Red

I had a splurge at the Garden Centre today. I came home with a new feijoa called "Kaiteri", two pots of comfrey, a bag of potting mix, a bag of tomato growing mix, rocket seeds and a Calla Lily bulb known more formally as Zantedeschia Majestic Red. I've planted the calla lily in a pot beside the punga raised bed. It is shaping up that the courtyard (not remotely as grand as it sounds, but it is where we have lunch and barbecues in summer) will be the red garden space, as I have my Dublin Rose at the other end of the punga raised bed. The packet actually showed a much deeper red than the internet picture I've copied above.

I took a root bound and beginning to be unhappy rosemary out of the big pot to make room for the calla lily. I have tried plonking one fresh growth new piece in the garden with a bare piece of stalk in the ground to see if I can propogate it by the layering method. I've replanted the rest of the rosemary in the herb strip by the kitchen. I use it often and don't want it anywhere where I have to cross grass to get to it at cooking time.

I've transplanted 11 tomato plants and numerous basil plants. I don't have room for anything else on the sunny windowsills in the study, the kitchen, the back porch or the tool shed. Starting tomorrow I'll be giving some away to friends as I need the space to grow some more zucchinis, pumpkins, beans and corn. Even as I write that list I know there is more!!

Favourite Handyman stacked the last of the wood pile which had been waiting patiently for a very long time. He raked up two barrowloads of bark and sawdust afterwards and threw it all into Poultry Palace. This has reduced the wetness in parts for the time being. I think the mix will be good for the soil as it has some slow decomposers in it which should help the soil structure.

The last of the celery has bolted. I've pulled it out and thrown it to the chooks but now it occurs to me that if I'd let it actually run to seed, the chooks may have enjoyed that more.

I pulled the roofing iron away from my horse poo and pea straw experiment. A few months ago I put cardboard down on an area (about 1 x 1.5m) near my pumpkin plot and then layered horse poo and pea straw and a few other bits of compost material on top and topped it all with roofing iron. The idea was the heat would speed the decomposition up. The lack of sun has not deterred all activity and I see worms in there. I put the iron back on. I think I'll plant straight into the mound in about a month's time - either a pumpkin or a zucchini.

I've planted the comfrey near the invasive garden. I'd love it to grow rampantly. Two plants wasn't enough for my compost ambitions. Even four might not be enough.

I also planted some more rocket this afternoon. But my chief gardening assistant reinterpreted it as sandpit fun.

Piccy time

Out the front. The beginnings of my yellow garden.
The herb and flowers strip near the kitchen. Chives, pansies, aloe vera, parsley and freesias.

You wanna be our neighbours? I abandoned the potatoes in tyres project and piled all these up to take to a friend's. Only they haven't quite got there yet. There is a lot growing around the chaos though - bay trees, a lemon, garlic, strawberries, miner's lettuce, spinach, calendula, onions, borage, silverbeet and chamomile.
Mint good, silverbeet good, wandering dew not so good. Getting there though. This area was overgrown invasive trees two years ago. At the top of the photo you can see the wandering dew peeking over from the neighbours. That source of roots and seeds isn't going to disappear any time soon. Lovely neighbours though.

choices choices

Supermarket prices are through the roof, organic veges are either unavailable physically or eye-wateringly pricey, so self-sufficiency is totally attractive.

But there isn't room. I'm adding more garden space every year, sometimes every week, but we're still on a suburban sized section and have to be dependent on other growers to some extent.

So I mull over my choices rather obsessively often.

Garlic is health food par excellence in my world. I've planted garlic again this year but resisted the temptation to plant even more. The good news on the garlic front is I have a source of organic West Coast grown garlic which I can buy in and store. I bought three kilograms at the end of last summer and we're still eating it now. I may buy even more next summer. As the garlic starts to sprout, I'm thinking that next year I need to play round with preserving garlic so we have local grown garlic for our daily meals all year round.

Onions. Another food where we eat a paddock's-worth each year and so rather impossible to grow enough ourselves. But then again, they are a heavily sprayed crop from memory (you know the articles where you freak out and declare no non-organic food ever again and then you go to the supermarket and realise organic prices are gold-plated and money doesn't grow on trees) and even when the money is there, organic onions are very hard to find. Last year I tried but had no success. This year I'm having another go with red brunswick onions, trying welsh bunching onions, and have shallots already growing well in the garden.

Carrots. Ditto the onions in every sense. Fingers crossed for some carrot success this year. I've got Nantes and White Belgian in the seed box ready.

Potatoes. Bought 3 kg of Red Rascal seed potatoes today. They should give us some lovely early potatoes, or that's what I'm hoping. We're not huge potato eaters, but the eating local challenge suggests that we need to eat more potatoes and less rice or pasta. There is a local commercial potato grower on the (West) coast.

Pumpkins. I love pumpkins and my favourite is Buttercup. Had pumpkin soup for three meals over the last three days. Pumpkins were a flop crop for me last year but I've been putting a lot of effort into getting the garden ready for a much improved crop this coming summer.

Leeks. Got some growing. Won't ever be enough, but I can live with that. I do want to keep 1-2 each year to go to seed simply because leek seed heads are so very beautiful.

Beetroot. Have some, not hard to grow, not a food I hanker for hugely.

Lettuce. I think we can probably do self-sufficiency on the lettuce front, mostly because they grow sufficiently quickly to re-use the ground multiple times in one season. Last year the garden looked very pretty as I planted out seedlings from my packet of mesclun lettuce mix seed. But this year we want crunch again, and it will be iceberg types all the way.

Radishes. Can grow. But who cares? How many radishes exactly do I want to eat?

Zucchini. Certainly can do self-sufficiency on this in season. Last year I made pickle which has gone on sandwiches often since and we still have some left.

Greens. Broccoli I need to keep trying with. I'm sure I can make significant gains on having this most of the year round with a bit more learning and practise. Silverbeet/Swiss Chard I haven't bought for absolutely ever, possibly not since we moved back to New Zealand. So that's an achievement. Kale has been a good success this winter and I plan to plant a lot more of it next Autumn. Self-sufficiency in winter greens is a big priority for winter physical and financial health.

Peas and beans. Flop crops last year. Toes crossed for this coming season.

Tomatoes. I'll be planting again this spring. We were really pleased on the tomato front last season. There is a local commercial tomato grower near us so happy to buy in from them to make sauces.

Herbs. Only use our own mint, parsley, sage and rosemary. I don't buy thyme in but I would like more than we currently have. I still have the packet of mixed herbs out on occasion but much less often now and I've started to play round with drying my own herbs for winter use. I love the versatility of coriander in that the leaves are lovely fresh but if it bolts, then the seeds dry up nicely for winter use. If I could grow cumin successfully, that would be very wonderful as I cook with it a lot. I've got two bay trees growing in pots from tiny cuttings and once I have used up the very large bag of dried leaves I bought at the Chinese warehouse/supermarket last year in Christchurch, my wee plants may be ready for picking a little. In winter, I can use more than ten leaves per week, so I may need to buy a couple more plants. I use celery as a herb and have achieved self-sufficiency with just six plants.

Big day in the garden

Firstly, compost. A good day in my garden almost always involves compost. Brighid and I went down to the beach and collected a bucket and a box full of pine needles. Then we grabbed a suitable log from the beach for a garden project. Lots of lots of logs wash up on our beach, especially in the stormy weather we've had lately.

Back home I layered the pine needles and wood ash from the fire in one corner where I am building a wee compost heap in readiness to grow pumpkins on it in Summer. I also used some wood ash and pine needles to create another garden patch. It is the patch I had initially thought of for the asparagus as it is in one of the higher spots on our section so should offer good drainage. But I didn't prepare it in time for asparagus and I've since thought that the perennial weed free requirement of an asparagus patch means an older garden patch would be more suitable for those gorgeous green spears.

The latest garden patch does not yet have a name but it does have four sides marked by wood I've collected from the beach or been gifted by friends leaving town. I have buried bokashi in it and then layered pine needles and wood ash on top and then pea straw on top of that. I'm not sure what will go in it but there are many, too many, contenders competing for the spot in my head.

I am considering using the new patch for medicinal herbs, as I figure I don't need them super close to the house (and I had such trouble squeezing them into my last garden plan that I had to knock heaps of them off my seed ordering list). I am moving, or have moved, my culinary herbs to the garden closest to the kitchen door.

Or I could put a bush tomato and basil and other companions to tomatoes in it. Now that I've made more garden space out the front, I don't feel the need to give this new garden over to pumpkins or zucchini.

Next up, the chook home. The shelter part is all built and fabulous and today Favourite Handyman was working on the run part. Unfortunately the alkathene pipe turned out not to be strong enough for his initial plans. Have to try something else. I felt his pain and decided to go buy him some beer as a treat/solace.

When I left he was considering turning the pipe lengths into mini tunnel houses and when I got back he had made one for my January raised bed. It looks fabulous to me. Just need to buy some plastic now. My goal with this one (and we may make others yet) is to improve warmth in Spring and Autumn and give a growth boost to plants we would grow anyway. When we get the big glass house built not this summer but hopefully the one after, I'll start playing round with capsicums and chilli peppers and the like then.

I pruned as much as the secataurs would allow me off an ugly fern at the front of the house and threw the leaves over one of my compost projects as mulch. I'd like to dig it out but it looks like two dwarf trees are very well established there and they may not give up without a fight. The photo below is before I got cutting.

Then Favourite Handyman pulled out the posts and windcloth from the dead lemon tree and used it to start off the shelter fence which I'd asked for at the front of the house. The afternoon sun is good there but in order for my pumpkins and zucchinis to do well out there, we need quite a bit of shelter from the wind ripping in off the sea.

To top off a fabulous day, we all went down to the beach just before dusk and played in the foam which the surf had brought up. I am grateful for this wonderful life.

seed list, compost

Especially for Nova.

Webbs Wonderful Lettuce
Greenfeast peas
Buttercup squash
Russian red tomato
dark green zucchini

borage
German chamomile
chervil
wild thyme

That is what I'm allowing myself to purchase for Spring. The list of my wants is much much longer. Today's attempt to plant onion seeds went bellyup with my daughter breaking the propagator.

I now have four large feed bags of horse manure at home and plenty waiting for me to collect tomorrow. I also have two bales of peastraw waiting for me at the feed shop in town. I've speculated on several ways of organising the horse manure and given the quantities I have available, I expect I'll be able to use all ideas.

Optimally, I want to add a good chunk of carbon heavy materials to the horse manure to aid good composting. So I got out my wee paper shredder this morning to turn some waste paper into shreds for the compost. And broke it. Just like that. Then I realised that I could rip up the paper into strips fairly quickly without any machine to assist me. I've binned the electric paper shredder. One less thing to have in the house.

Speaking of which, we just have far too many things in our house. I collected about 313 shoes to go to the Sallies this morning, 287 of them not matching. Then there is the soft toy menace. If you like someone, then do not buy his or her child a soft toy. They are the world's worst cluttering objects.

seed control

So there I was, making my seed order list from the Kings seed catalogue. Oops, I have 23 packets on my list. And that is on top of over 25 seed packets which I already own. And the cost comes to $60. And we don't have that much ground in cultivation.

hmmmmmm.

So tonight I printed off the Ecoseeds catalogue so I could properly pore over it. Before I pored in top gear earnest, I made a plan of the house and gardens and labelled what vege/herb was to go where. That put the brakes on me much more effectively. So now I have a list of nine seed packets I want from Ecoseeds, who grow their own seed organically, by open pollination, here in NZ (Kings Seeds import the bulk if not the entirety of their products). The total cost is about $35. Much better.

Potatoes and yams I will source locally later this year.

garden planning

Today I buried the innards of the roosters and a bucket of bokashi in the old tobacco patch. There were worms, but only a fraction of the volume of worms I found in the blueberry patch a few days ago. The difference is that the blueberry patch has had bokashi buried in it mere weeks ago and it has had compost (a mix I made comprising mostly horse poo and pea straw) layered over top with pine needles for the final layer. So I'm expecting that today's bokashi will do good things for the worm numbers.

The old tobacco patch is 1.0 x 4.0 metres. The one metre width seemed a perfect size at the time that I created the bed, but I forgot that due to the boundary fence on one side, I would only be able to access the bed from one side. So today I found I had to stand on the actual garden in order to do some of the digging. Which is really really bad according to almost every organic gardening text I have ever read. I think one way of minimising the soil compaction risk is to plant perennial herbs against the fence and then have annual vegetables at the front. I believe lady flower gardeners would turn such a spot into a herbaceous border. Sniff and snort.

I've got a few options of herbs to put along the fence and then I'll plant potatoes in front. This is where the glass house will go eventually but for the moment I'm not letting that shape my planning. We're prioritising building a lean-to for the firewood this summer and completing some more insualtion tasks. I don't think we'll have a functional glass house until 2010. We will have chooks by this Spring though, so all is coming along beautifully I think.

onion weed

Today as I was weeding out the front, pulling out big bunches of onion weed as per local protocol. I've been warned that it is a terrible pest and we have big patches although to be honest it has never been a pest in the way that docks have.

Then it occurred to me that the bulb I was lifting was very similar to a spring onion and as it smelled strongly of onions, perhaps it is an onion.

and therefore edible.

So tonight I did a little googling and indeed we can eat them and tomorrow I am going to start doing exactly that. Whether it is too delicate for the slow cooker or not I don't know, but it is going in there with the bacon bone, the chickpea cooking water as stock and every vegetable I notice in the fridge and the root vegetables storage cupboard in the morning. Tonight was a bought fish and chips night and tomorrow is looking excessively full of antics involving trying to be a good mother, so the slow cooker can be part of the endeavour.

My googling brought up this lovely site. Welcome to New Zealand Brigitte!

preparing for herbs

Today I dug some more Bokashi in. I have no photographs so unlikely to be of interest as anything more than my gardening notes for next year.

When we moved in there were huge ugly overgrown bushes which had probably been planted 30 years before and never well managed. They blocked out lots of light along the side garden near the kitchen. We cut the down and put the punga raised bed on top of the site. Since then the tropicanna lilies which looked all but dead along the fence line have started to bloom. I buried bokashi on one side of them last year which must also have helped.

So today I buried bokashi on the other side of the lilies and was pleased to see good fat healthy worms already processing the soil. This spot will be for some of my herbs - as I want no less than 12 new ones next year, I'm always on the lookout for more easy gardening options to site them.

Sewing night

I finished all of my refashioned dress-into-skirt except I have to sew the elastic ends together. And I yacked a lot. We shared stories of what we've done with the placentas of our children, which prompted one lovely woman to move to the other end of the room. We finalised the details of our local event for the International Knit in Public Day. Except we're having ours at night, at a local venue of our affections where the coffee, wine, beer and food are superb.

My head has spilled over with thoughts and information about food. I spent another while at the doctor's talking about immune systems this afternoon. I have been dimly aware that I put a lot of energy into making sure the children get lots of nutritional goodies and frequently forget or forgo myself, which is something which I'm changing. So I'll be into the aloe vera juice shortly. We have our own aloe vera plants in pots, but for the meantime, I'll buy the juice from the health food shop and keep ours for dealing with burns. Or to keep looking at and imagining that I'll remember about our aloe vera pot plants next time I burn myself cooking.

So next week at sewing I could do sensible things like learn to replace a zip in my son's jacket. I'm not reaaaaalllllly feeling like being sensible though. I fancy making something sumptuous, with sumptuous material. Easy-to-make kind of sumptuous garment, because I wouldn't want complexity to get in the way of having fun with my sewing friends. Maybe I'll find some pictures of inspiration on the net and share.

Twelve herbs

Best loved magazine in my life, the Kings Seeds catalogue. Tonight I picked out 12 herbs which I've never grown before and would like to grow this coming summer.

Here they are, with aspects which appealed:
Anise Hyssop (perennial) - bees love it, grows in light shade as well as full sun. Looks pretty.

Astragalus Milk Vetch (perennial) - Chinese medicinal herb. a legume. Roots harvested 3rd or 4th year. So I'm thinking that as a legume, it could nitrogen fix and leave the soil in nice condition as well as provide roots to stimulate the immune system.

Bergamot Lemon (annual) - bees love it, pretty, the lemon flavouring will be useful in cooking.

Borage (annual) - edible flowers and leaves, pretty, bees like it. Contains GLA (gamma linoleic acid) which is good stuff.

Chamomile German (annual) - I'll make tea with this.

Chervil (annual) - on the list of must have herbs in several books so will give it a try. I have loved a lot of foods without once knowingly trying chervil so life obviously has more pleasure in store for me.

Garlic chives (perennial) - I've had these before, but resent paying shop prices for a whole plant so I'll try them from scratch instead

Cumin (annual) - I love cumin in lots of dishes. Not sure I can grow pungent cumin in our climate, but I'm confident it will be fun to try.

Lavender (perennial) - I was loathe to grow this last year as I associated it with pretentious gardens in Christchurch's leafier suburbs. But really, no herb garden is complete without some.

Motherwort (perennial) - apparently this relieves stress, regulates a woman's menstrual cycle and calms the nervious system. How could I not have it in the garden then?

Self Heal (perennial) - another medicinal herb for stimulating the immune system. My catalogue also says it is easy to grow, which adds to it's appeal.

Sorrel (perennial) - isn't this a weed in some places? Anyway, I'd like to try eating it - I've seen it in a few English recipes.

Half of my choices are perennials which I'm pleased about. I'd like to increase the plants which are permanent in my garden and thus reduce the time spent putting in new crops in every garden patch.

driveway weeds

The photo above is about six weeks old but nothing significant has changed for the purpose of today's post.To the right of the new garden patch, you can see a thin concrete verge and then lots of weeds growing up through the gravel driveway. Before we lived here, these weeds were controlled by 'Round Up', or glyco-phosphate. We don't do weed spraying and as the weeds haven't grown horribly high, we've not been much bothered.

But today we stopped from our trip to the letterbox (highlight of the chickenpoxed day for Fionn - at least it seems I don't have chickenpox and my flu has receded to a cold) and had another good look. The weeds and weed seeds from the gravel are going to jump into my new garden patch at ridiculous rates if I don't control them. So I started to rip them out - quite easy when they are growing in gravel. I have plenty more weeding to do but have an idea about longer term management.

Competition. The weeds need something else using up their space. My idea for cheap, easy, fragrant and usable is creeping herbs. Thyme would grow amongst the stones no problem, and I think oregano would as well. And I have seeds for both already. So if I can keep weeding over winter and then raise herbs in seedling pots, then in Summer we'll see how experiment 185 goes.

herbs

I was weeding the herb patch this afternoon when it occurred to me I could make my own mixed herbs. So I've snipped oregano, rosemary, thyme and sage and they are now in paper bags, pegged to a tiny line in the hot water cupboard.

Then I thought I'd make peppermint tea. I bought peppermint seeds two years ago and today was the first tea day. It wasn't really strong enough before the water got cold, so I think I need to dry some of that so I can fit more potency into one cup.

Using up the cupboard. Popcorn. I found four different bags/containers of the stuff last week. A fairly pleasant project, using up popcorn. I use the pressure cooker saucepan to make it as it has a suitably heavy base.

Eight minutes in the garden

Better than no minutes in the garden. And this is what I did in that eight minutes, today. Killed four white butterfly caterpillars and one slug. Moved a container of thyme and feverfew into the porch where I'm expecting it will be protected from frost. I want to fill the empty end of the container with coriander, plus plant a pot of coriander on the kitchen windowsill and see which, if any, works at this time of year.

I moved two of the logs which were once trees in front of the garage and then logs in front of the garage awaiting a new life. The area which had one of the zucchini plants over summer is partly dug up and I've used the two logs to square the space off from the lawn. It is bordered on the other sides by the fence and by my summer 07-08 raised bed. The photo above, taken about a fortnight ago, shows the area - it's the corner made by Fionn's head and elbow. I need to do some digging and weeding and then I'll put garlic and shallots in this space. It already has some bokashi buried in it.

My main garden goals for next summer are to do with carrots and onions, neither of which were successful for me last year. We eat huge quantities of carrots and onions and would really benefit from growing our own, thus reducing pesticide load and financial costs.