The chives were an early favorite this year, as they were the very first edibles to reappear in the early spring. Immediately we put them to work sprucing up our weekend brunches.
We added one or two new herbs into the mix this year. Here is Anise Hyssop. It’s used as a digestive tea by some. Did fairly well out there, although we only used it rarely. Behind it is some Chamomile. This did less well, and the flowers used in tea only lasted a few days. Continue reading 2015 Herbs
By the middle of August, we were getting regular harvests of a wide variety of veggies. Although we got a few Green Zebras in the mix (one shown here), the plant had been diseased for a few weeks and we were losing the battle. Its fruit were few and small. Cucumbers were coming in great and we were careful this year not to let any grow too large to pickle in a pint jar. This was one of our goals for the year—to keep harvesting regularly and not let any fruit get overly large, so as to encourage our plants to produce new fruit. Also in this day’s harvest was a lone asparagus spear—many of his buddies’ first-year roots had not survived the harsh winter.
Once we had our transplants and direct-sown seeds in the ground, we could shift our attention from indoors to the garden itself. The bare soil was starting to look a little brighter by the end of May. Here, a beet enjoys its own spot. Note the clover in the background… that’s remnants of the cover crop which have reappeared and would soon spread to all areas of the beds.
Herbs have a way of becoming overlooked in the garden. Totally necessary, totally delicious, they are the first things people gravitate to due to their familiar form and their evocative scents. But at some point in one’s gardening life, they become relegated to supporting roles, humdrum foils to the Brandos and Streeps that are heirloom Brandywine tomatoes and Japanese eggplant. But you still gotta have ’em, you’re still gonna have to make dinner in June, and anyone starting out in gardening will have at some point in their tenure started with a windowsill full of these tasty gems.
