Monthly Archives: February 2014

A Garden Learning Curve

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Marjoram DSC01757 This marjoram plant is a real survivor.  Planted last fall, most of its sibling plants did not grow, or started to grow, and died.  I tasted a bit of its leaf, and this plant has a definite herbal flavor.  A few other plants may have survived, but the true marjoram is rather difficult to distinguish from a certain weed which is right now about the same size.  Lesson learned:  Plant marjoram in the early spring.

The fall planted plants which did not fare very well were chives, short dill, short radishes, dill which was lower lying right next to the back edge, carrots, beets, onions, sage, basil, sorrell, marjoram, oregano.

Oregano and either weeds or marjoram DSC01758 The shorter, more bluish plants are oregano.  They also have an herbal taste.  but the taller plants might be weeds, or they might be marjoram.  I cannot tell yet.

So I have to learn to tell some weeds from seedlings.  When I have just planted seeds, and a lot of them sprout soon afterward, this is easy.  When I have planted a lot of seeds, and they do not grow well, it is hard to tell if a plant is a weed or a sprout.

I need to learn to plant the seeds of different kinds at the right time to maximize their growth.   The plants which eventually grew fairly well were large radishes, larger dill, lettuce, parsley, cilantro.

I need to learn which plants are annual, and which are perennial.  For example, I understand that most vegetables are annual, and may even be planted several time a year.  But herbs can vary in this respect.  For example, sorrel is perennial, parsley is biannual, and cilantro is annual.

I need to learn how much of the different kinds of plants we like to eat.   Perhaps, though we may not get very much sage, we may not need very much sage.

 

Kitchen Garden, FEB 15, 16, 2014

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  • Garden, February 15, 2014 DSC01756An overview of the kitchen garden in the late afternoon on FEB 15, 2014.  Because this garden is now a “going concern” in that several items have a present and/or future harvest, I am blogging this by date of photos.   In summary of the first few months of this garden:
  • The soil in this circumscribed patch, about 215 square feet, was replaced down to one foot deep, to be able to grow plants without lead.
  • Lots of plants sprouted quickly, but seem to have been eaten by bugs.  The plants did better even in the cold beginnings of the new year.    It has been rather cold until now, when I was  able to tend to it without my jacket.
  • I am able to harvest lettuce, radishes, parsley, cilantro, oregano, and the mixed greens of mesclun mix.  I will get small harvests of beets, carrots, broccoli, sorrel (one plant), marjoram.
  • I may get some red and white cabbage, sage.
  • It looks like a garden.
  • Some plants, such as lettuce and parsley can be harvested from the outer edges of the  plants, leaving the centers to continue to  produce.
  • Other plants, such as radishes, carrots and beets, are pulled up in their entirety, and the soil is left bare.
  • To fill in these bare places left by either harvesting, or poor initial growth, I am simply going to re-dig the garden in patches, amend the soil with potting soil,  topsoil, and/ or compost, as I get it, and plant something else which promises to grow in the coming months.
  • I have already started doing so, and therefore I am going to write about this garden by the date, not time after planting, because parts of it will be at different stages at any given time.