Mother's day weekend means gardening for me. I spent most of Sunday putting in my tomatoes and beans, as well as planting the radish and carrot seeds. The peppers take a long time to get estabished from seed, it seems to me, so I'll have to put them in next weekend.
The perennials have come back in force, however. The raspberries have taken over their alotted spots and are spreading rapidly, as are the blackberries. The strawberries are loaded with li'l green berries too. I picked all the cherries off of the cherry tree, since I just planted it last year; apparently that makes it branch out more and produce more fruit in the future. We'll see.
The herbs on the deck are exploding, too. The chives are in beautiful (edible) flower, see above. The sage, tarragon and thyme all came back as well. The rosemary died over the winter even though I brought it in, so I got a new one for Mother's day. I'll pick up some annual herbs this week to fill in the gaps.
There's nothing like walking outside and picking our food fresh. Deciding what to have for dinner based on what's ripe, or adding a handful of truly fresh herbs to any sauce or dish. Why bother even bringing it inside- sometimes we'll just stand in the garden eating tomatoes or throwing down raspberries with abandon. I know what went into the growing of this stuff; no pesticides, no herbicides, no waxes to keep it looking "fresh".
Not even a farmer's market can equal the taste of growing your own.
3 comments:
I keep trying blackberries,strawberries and blueberries but for some reason I haven't gotten the hang of them yet ... maybe this year.
I don't know about cherry trees but I do know that with our lemon and satsuma trees it really helped to trim back the branches, kind of clear them out a bit. Trim the longer branches and the older woody stems.
I trimmed back in december , they looked so bare afterward, but now you can't even tell, and the trees are full of fruit.
I wish I could put a lemon tree in the ground. Up here, I have to go with one in a pot; I want one.
My aunt who lives in Florida has a giant lemon tree/bush. The lemons are as big as a child's head. I've never been there when they are ripe but she says they're amazing.
Our peach tree is starting to get little fuzzy green nubs - if we can keep the groundhogs away from it, maybe this year we'll get peaches from it.
We froze our chives from last year and had enough to last a long time. Even frozen, they're better than the freeze dried stuff from the supermarket....
I'm sure other herbs would do OK as well!
--*Rob
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