In the Garden & Woods

Strawberries are coming on like gangbusters, we picked upwards of 5 gallons yesterday. Our Fort Laramie everbearing plants come on strong in the spring with smaller berries that gradually increase in size as the season progresses....and they are sooo sweet. The benefit of selling strawberry plants is that there are always a lot of strawberries left for us.

Finally some peas, it took a little longer than usual but our Tacoma Afila peas are looking nice - quick, reliable, and they taste pretty darn good too.

Cabbage and fava beans aren't looking too shabby either.

All our storage onion varieties seem to be on track and the best news is that with a cool spring we are still eating off last season's onion and garlic harvest...still nice and cool in the root cellar.

Foxglove (Digitalis) growing around our fruit trees. It is said of foxglove that it helps to stimulate neighboring plants by making them more disease resistant and improving the storage quality of fruits and vegetables due to gaseous secretions and minute hormones that the plants supposedly emit. (?)

Every morning of late we have been going for an early run, just before sunrise, in the mountains, stopping to pick various herbs as we go along. This week we have been focusing on gathering Prunella (self-heal/heal-all), yellow clover, and elderberry flowers. We also have a patch of Prunella growing in the garden this year from seeds saved from the wild. Fascinating plant.

Soon the native St. John's Wort, now starting to flower, will be abundant enough to harvest.

The sage is flowering, purple.

And the Rowdy dog...just being rowdy. He is not allowed to dig in the yard so he takes every advantage while we are out in the woods.

South Chilco Peak and Stinging Nettles

Each year, sometime in June, we make our annual pilgrimage to the top of South Chilco Peak. It's always interesting to see how much snow is still up in them thar hills...there was a lot this year. Most of the trail was still under 5-6' of snow which was kind of nice as we were able to make our own route without too much bushwhacking as the dense vegetation and fallen trees were still buried under a dirty white. The little compass in my head was functioning properly so we managed to make it to the top without incident and it was simply a matter of following our own tracks on the way down.

The shaded side of the top was under a good 40' of snow but on the south facing side wildflowers were starting to poke through, some even blooming. The view is spectacular.

At the base of the mountain, off the beaten path, and up a small tributary I found a clearing a few years back that is full of stinging nettles, we returned the next day to fill our bags and the nettles are now drying in the greenhouse. My wife uses them in her tea concoctions. Nettles are a pretty amazing plant.

June 13th Garden Pictures

Things are looking up in our gardens. Salad bowls are overflowing with green goodness, seeding and re-seeding has taken place, all of the core crops are growing fairly well, and the weeding has been keeping us very busy this past week. All the rain has washed away my wit so pictures will have to replace so many words in this post.

Dave's Spotted Trout Lettuce is growing splendidly, a nice addition to our salad selection.

Red Oak leaf and Black Seeded Simpson I believe.

RedBor kale and more lettuce lines the walkway to our greenhouse. I thought the Redbor would be more frilly leafed?

An intent little brown face in the oregano patch.:) He is thinking "Is that cat supposed to be in our garden?"

I like this mint, I planted it a decade ago and while it doesn't spread very fast it manages to come back every year. The name slips me but my wife suggests perhaps it was "Orange Mint"...doesn't taste very orangy though.

The kale in the foreground of this picture is a bit of an experiment as the seed was a cross between Gigante kohlrabi, White Russian kale, and Blue Curled kale. Time will tell how well this new creation suits our garden and palate, so far so good though as the plants are vigorous and the leaves impart a nice flavor to our salads. I'm hoping most don't bulb up like kohlrabi as it is the greens I am after. Anyway, more about this in another post.

The spinach is liking our extremely rainy spring.

Tomatoes not so much, but they are hanging in there and if it ever warms up for good they should take...might be another "ripen the green tomatoes on the porch" year again.

One of the few plants that thrives directly under our fir trees, once established, is rhubarb. Its impressive tap root allows it to delve deep for water. Notice that black cherry tree to the left, now almost 20' tall and grown from a seed maybe 6 or 7 years ago, it looks to be fruiting for the first time this year and will be the first of my many direct seeded fruit trees to produce.

Potato plants are starting to leaf out...we planted lots and lots of potatoes this year.

Carrots, beets, parsnips, and other direct seeded root veggies will soon need to be thinned.

Hesperis brightens up the garden with its pretty flowers and edible leaves...and I'll leave it at that as I'm at my wits end.:)

Perennial Arugula

In keeping with our annual tradition of yearly experimentation we have once again planted numerous "new to us" varieties of edible plants this season. Ranging from various herbs and lettuces to bushes and trees, we are looking forward to seeing how they all perform and hopefully I will be able post my thoughts on them as spring and summer begin to unfold.

Anyway, this year's salad and herb garden is starting to take shape, albeit very slowly as the weather has only recently started to moderate a bit. In this section of the garden, nestled in amongst the oregano and lettuce are a couple patches of a plant whose seeds were graciously shared with me back in 2009 or early 2010 I believe...thanks Mavis.

Perennial Wild Grazia arugula (Diplotaxis tenuifolia)


Unlike regular arugula that normally behaves as an annual, often bolting to seed much sooner than the gardener would like, perennial Grazia seems to grow somewhat slower and is apparently much more heat and cold tolerant than common arugula...leastwise that has been our limited experience with this particular variety. The plant has deeply lobed leaves and yellow flowers with a much stronger flavor than its quick growing counterpart and we are excited to continue adding this pungent green to our spring and summer salads as the new growth continues to emerge.

While I did not have much luck collecting seeds from Grazia last fall it nonetheless took matters into it's own hands and readily self-sowed. I was surprised at how long it held in the garden before finally flowering and setting seed on it's woody branches sometime in late August. Unlike lettuce and other greens the mature plants seem to have a sturdy root system and woody stems more in line with certain herbs and small bushes.

There is not a lot of information available online regarding this type of arugula but it would appear that perennial Grazia can be sourced from either Siegers Seed Company in the US or Mr. Fothergills in the UK, neither of whom I have ever purchased seed from. There is also another variety of perennial wild arugula (Diplotaxis muralis) available through Heirloom Seeds.

Anyone else have experience growing perennial arugula?

Ho Ho Ho...

....and to think I was considering planting potatoes today.

The Tantrums of Spring

...and this morning (April 22) looks even worse.:)

Just a Few Pictures

It's been a typically temperamental North Idaho spring so far...snow, rain, more rain, wind, sleet, sun, and repeat. Nonetheless our garden is alive and growing both indoors and out. We awoke to a good inch of snow on Thursday...

...but by mid-afternoon it had dissipated and the sun even managed a brief appearance.

Boy was busy inspecting the remnants of last year's corn as he cut it up into little pieces that will eventually be tilled back into the soil (a chore I didn't quite finish last fall).

These turnip greens have found their way into our salads almost every day since last November...definitely one of our hardiest greens.

Kale is finally staging a nice comeback, it was a rough winter for kale...a few too many freeze and thaw cycles.

In the greenhouse a pot of Hamburg parsley held over from last year puts on new green growth. You are supposed to eat the root but we find ourselves enjoying the greens too.

Onions seedlings are alive and well, growing oh so slowly.

With no room in the house I had to kick the just germinated basil out to the greenhouse...fingers crossed that it survives the cold, so far so good. I must admit to cheating a bit though as I have an oil heater that I turn on when necessary. Even so, I am tempting fate as the heater only graces me with a difference of 6 or 7 degrees, if it falls under 25°F outside my basil will freeze inside.

Comfrey needs to be planted out in the next day or so.

These little spinach and turnip seedlings were planted outside last night, more spinach will be direct seeded into the garden once it warms up a bit more. Normally we plant turnips in the late summer/early fall to avoid root maggots, but I thought I would take another shot at spring turnips this year.

Various other herbs, flowers, and salad greens are alive and well in the greenhouse.

Tomatoes will have to stay in the house for at least another week before we can get around to potting them up at which time the plants in our little arboretum will be set out under a covered row to make room for their less hardy brethren. Hopefully my next post will show us potting up tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants.

Waltz of the Seedlings

The majority of our tomatoes, tomatillos, ground cherries, herbs, peppers, eggplants, and other seedlings have all germinated and are growing well. The onions, celery, brassicas, lettuce, and other hardy greens have been moved outside to the greenhouse but as the nighttime temperatures are still very cold at times I will be forced to babysit the less hardy plants indoors for some time to come.

Purple Coban Tomatillos (can you see where the cat put her foot just as they were coming up?)

So today, and much to the chagrin of poor Mrs. H, I have classical music playing in the background...for the plants. I have been reading about how musical vibrations might help encourage the growth of plants. There are any number of theories on this ranging anywhere from how stimulating the leaves stomata (microscopic openings or pores found on the plant leaf) helps with the intake of CO2 and absorption of other nutrients to theories on how vibration can positively affect the growth of a plant's roots. Some say limited musical vibrations might even help a plant synthesize the hormone ethylene which in turn speeds up seed germination and helps to create stockier plants. So I figured why not give it a shot. The plants are dancing to the Northstar Chamber Orchestra's renditions of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky for a few hours this evening.:)

These "refashioned" milk jugs make excellent starter containers for our pepper and eggplant seedlings. Thanks for saving them for us Dorothy.:)