Tag Archives: Dill

Garden, July 10 2014

DSC03521 Garden, July 10.  No new plantings since last spring.  I got a garlic, newly growing from cloves I planted last spring.  I pulled it up because I thought it was a weedy piece of grass.

DSC03518 It looks like a small onion, but it smells like garlic.  We CAN grow garlic.

DSC03520 And plantains.  They need attention, but they grow really well here.

DSC03505 The little feathery seedlings are dill, which self-seeded from such seed bearing flowers (below).

DSC03517 The flowers are at the upper left, and the skimpy roots are at the lower right.  After they have gone to seed, dill dries up and is refreshed by the baby plants from its seeds.  A possible project would be to see where the dill from the seeds I saved could grow in our yard in different times and places.  Dill and plantains have completed the life cycle by dying back and propagating for future crops.  These are self sustaining.

Garlic could become self-sustaining.

DSC03510 Basil (right of center)is growing well here, but not a few feet away, where it could not sink its roots in.

DSC03509 Carrots are taking off now.DSC03511 Parsnips are growing well.

DSC03514 Kohrabi (light green in front) with a tomato plant behind it.

DSC03513 More tomatoes are visible among the plants in the upper left quadrant.  The newly planted tomatoes, which had sprouted in June among the front yard plants,  have all disappeared.  I wonder if snails eat young tomato plants.

DSC03512 Cabbage has not done too well here.  Here is a barely growing cabbage.

DSC03503 Lettuce grows, and I am going to see if I can get some seeds from these plants.  Some of it may have seeded itself.  The trouble with lettuce here, is that after snails become active, I am afraid they may pass on dangerous parasites that they leave on the lettuce leaves, unless I cook it.

 

 

 

Garden, April 4, 2014

DSC02178 After a bit over a week nursing this cold, I was happy to see the progress in the garden.  Several items have continued their bolting.  The cabbage flowers are blooming on two plants.   There seem to be small heads on a couple of plants, and I suspect that these will not bolt, because they may have been too undeveloped when the cold snap hit about a month ago.   The broccoli flowers look great.    One of the mesclun mix is blooming a nice white flower.  The cilantro is blooming white. Some lettuce flowers will open within a week.  The taller dill is budded in a green Queen Ann’s lace pattern.

It seems that there are several kinds of new plants that are growing together very well, providing each other with shelter from the warm afternoon sun.  It is a balmy 76 degrees on the shaded front porch, so one can imagine that the backyard plants may relish a bit of each other’s shade as they grow.

The plantains have started to grow again, though the dead parts look worse than ever.  I can probably cut them down, and separate off the stems for chipping more easily now!  It is time for me to get weeding in order to keep ahead of it.

 

 

 

A Satisfying Book Find

DSC01797 I found this little treasure of a book in an antique store, and purchased it.  A few thousand copies were published in 1992, 1993, and 1994.  The author, originally from Michigan, lived in East Texas for awhile.

DSC01798  I was extremely happy that I had purchased it, because it contains many unusual culinary recipes with herbs (even sorrel, an herb, vegetable which we have recently had a hard time locating), and edible flowers (for example Stuffed Squash Flowers).  It also contains ways to cultivate the herbs including  sorrel.   It also tells which herbs are annual and which are perennial.

DSC01799 Written by this lady, the book contains quite a few uses of herbs for health.  For example, did you know that dill tea can help hiccups?  In Hungary, they use caraway tea for this purpose to help a hiccuping infant.

This book will be a useful resource for our kitchen garden.