Every day I walk outside to the garden. Between writing copious amounts of what I want to think is somehow productive work, I walk to the garden to see how things are going. For lunch and dinner, I pick leaves, thus looking at how things are going again. Even if it is only a small garden, I am still giving it all my attention, in order to stay sane. Or so I tell myself.
In any case, it has been almost two weeks since my last garden update and things have been growing very well. My rosemary plants and rosemary cuttings have been growing at a rapid pace. Both the cuttings and the plants seem to have been established. I have harvested from them slowly, so as not to overharvest.
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Most of my plants are also bolting, seeding, or already beginning to drop seeds, as in the case of the amaranthus or marog. It is almost ready to harvest, as I saw some of the seed heads are already dropping seeds. This is usually my time to harvest them.
Most of the rocket plants are also flowering but some are still producing loads of leaves. This season was one of the best in terms of salad rocket for me. I harvested so much the last three weeks, it is staggering (see the photograph below of my recent harvest).
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Various seed pods are already forming. It will be soon then I will harvest them. To my surprise, the mustard plant made some really big seed pods. If I am lucky, I will have many seeds that I can plant again soon. It will be interesting to see how well they will grow in the summer heat.
The wild rocket is also making seed pods. Once these plants begin their seeding, you will never run out of plants. They are so prolific and grow in increasing abundance. Self-seeding is always a worry because their seed pods are so sensitive. If they break open, there will be seedlings everywhere.
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And then the humble salad rocket is also producing so many new seed pods. Soon I will have thousands of seeds again! It is amazing how quickly you can gain so much.
And then the lovely surprise that I got with the purslane growing between my rosemary plants. I am so glad about this because I just love their slight citrusy taste. It was such a wonderful surprise when I saw the first little seedling pop its head through the ground. Now, there is plenty to go around!
Then there is the sad situation of my pepper plants. Every day I check to see if there might still be something growing. I am not sure if these are the last two survivors of the attack on my seedlings, or maybe these are different plants. But of all twenty or so, only these two survived.
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And the last update, the slow-growing garlic chives are also on their way to becoming strong-growing plants. They are growing so slowly that I hope that their taste will be beyond this world. They are also hiding safely behind the rocket leaves that just took over. In hindsight, I needed to plant them elsewhere. But I can do nothing about that now!
And that is all from my garden this week. It keeps me sane in between the writing and cooking and trying to make sense of everything that goes on around us. Crazy times we live in. Luckily, we gardeners have a way to escape reality even if only for a brief moment.
Happy gardening, and keep well!
All of the writings and musings in this post are my own. The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D300.
I cannot grow peppers where I am now. I suspect the pH is not right for them. One of these days, I'll actually test the soil and see. At least this year I got a few peppers - last year they plants didn't even bloom. I love how you let "weeds" take hold, such as purslane. The surprises are the best part of gardening. I got Melissa coming up this year, I have no idea how. But I love the stuff. Maybe love is the answer.
Love is always the answer! I have always wanted to grow certain things and always dictated nature, but recently I have been trying to just let things grow where they want to and whatever wants to. At least the edible things. Self sowing plants as well, like rocket and amaranth that just regrows every year.
I let dandelion come up in my raised beds wherever it wants to - it's so easy to harvest the roots from a raised bed! And so many surprises come up, I get to switch up my ways for them. Often, I find an herb I didn't know about that happens to be exactly what I need at the time. And it's all so very pretty! Not to all eyes, I'll bet my garden looks messy to many others, but to mine for sure.
Same here. I think the neighbours and people who see my garden must think I am going crazy. Every season new plants come up which becomes new opportunities to learn and gain knowledge.
Have you ever tried to make coffee substitute from dandelion root? Or what do you do with them?
I love the deep green of these pictures and am a bit jealous of how well you rocket and mustard plants have taken off. Best of luck with the baby rosemary and pepper plants. And I am glad to hear that your garden is a place of refuge during these times.
Unfortunately, the peppers all got eaten by some crickets or slugs. But the rest is doing fine. Thank you so much! I really appreciate it. With luck, the baby rosemary cuttings will be ready to plant in the next couple of weeks!