kitchenMage's Herb Garden

Looks Like an Early Spring Coming

Chives a foot tall bear tiny, tight onion dome buds of deep-purple; florid green mint spikes pop up along the backs of beds; the first leaves unfurl on blueberry and cherry, hydrangea and rose while the forsythia is in flower. I have to remind myself it is only ten days into February.

While I luxuriate in the unseasonably warm days that are behind this early bloom, it is not without a frisson of concern: we always get a cold snap in March. Hard freeze kind of cold snap. Killing cold snap. Hasn't snowed this year, either; not yet. Always does.

Yes, this early spring is leaving me a bit conflicted. 

I am not, however, conflicted about the herb garden in late spring. This is one of my favorite corners: a bed of herbs and flowers tucked under a lovingly pruned Fullmoon Maple. I've tucked a desktop sized copy of it here for you to download if you'd like a bit of early spring yourself: The sage bed in May

Resources for seeds, plants and organic gardening supplies

When I was a kid, Mother Earth News was a regular fixture in our household. One of my favorite things to read was always the Land for sale section, where I could dream of one day owning many acres of my own, where I would plant my multi-acre organic garden, tend several greenhouses, then go visit the various critters before whiling away a lazy afternoon on the porch with a tall glass of iced tea and a good book. As if that's how it worked in real life. Funny how those ads never explained exactly how much work your own little slice of paradise can be.

The intervening years have pared a few things off that dream farm. Chickens, yes. Cows, not so much Although I am contemplating a pig. One pig. Named Bacon. Okay, maybe two so we can also have his brother Ham. Acres of garden became a handful of raised beds and those greenhouses...well, we're planning the first one.

Sigh.

The Mother Earth News is still here, however. And they are waking those dreams of gardens as far as the eye can see, although I'd like some minions to weed and harvest, please.

They have two new tools that I am planning on making heavy use of as we wend our way towards summer:

• Seed and Plant Finder
• Organic Pest Control and Garden Products

Each of these searches a collection of mail-order catalogs (over 500 for the seeds!) and returns results from across the entire collection. I have found quite a few seeds and plants that I want; Enough to fill that unbuilt greenhouse, in fact.

Half-price Aerogarden, today only!

Fresh herbs are an essential ingredient of my cooking, which makes me lucky to have an herb garden of my own. Even here in theOtherCity, where my tenure is anything but permanent, I someoneElse replanted the front swath of an overgrown strawberry bed with herbs. More telling, as the moving van was being loaded,  I someoneElse dug up my favorite dwarf sweet bay tree, which I could not bear to abandon and brought it along in a pot. Then someoneElse I bought another one. (hi, my name is kitchenMage and I am an herbaholic...)

Sadly, not everyone is fortunate enough to have the space or sunlight for any sort of outdoor herb gardening, and the indoor herb growing methods have been limited and expensive. This has left apartment dwellers at the mercy of the market. The one with the five buck clamshells of suboptimal herbs.

But I thought she said "Golden Gardens Shower party!"

Swamped. Busy writing. Company's coming.

Then there's my miserably small gardening space - which has gotten better (there will be photos soon, I promise).

Yes, I have excuses for not posting here. Lots of excuses.

What I truly seem to be missing is that critical mix of time and motivation and it leaves me with dozens of half-written posts and a feeling that nothing is momentous to be the first post after all this time. So I have been reading other people's blogs and looking for inspiration.

*this* is my herb garden?

Moves are always traumatic. You discover that you are missing all sorts of stuff at the new house and spend a chunk of time chasing down all those things you need: decent grocery stores, farmer's markets, fishmongers, and, in my case at least, fresh herbs.

Seriously, that tiny little bed up there is my new herb garden. (pause for a moment of silent mourning)

A couple of rosemary, a small creeping thyme, a munchkin-sized fistful of oregano (at least it's the good kind), and a sage that is, truth be told, more ornamental than culinary.

No wait! I lied. (hangs head in shame) There's more to it than that.

whb: one last flower before fall

Weekend Herb Blogging
What started as a whimsical answer to weekend cat blogging is now a weekly excuse to play in the herb garden. Oh gee, how awful - not the herb garden! Kalyn has nurtured little whb, and now it's all grown up, with its very own set of rules, and Kalyn lets it escape the confines of her kitchen every other week to be guest hosted somewhere on the tubes of the 'net.
Weekend herb blogging is hosted by Ulrike of Kuchenlatein this week, so get yourself over there to check out the roundup.

Some days you think you have it all together and know exactly what to expect from life, and your herb garden.

Then you turn around and those boxes the cat is sleeping on take on a new meaning...and the sage plant defies the fall chill to give me one last benedictory flower.

I am taking this as a good sign, which I could use right about now.  ...and yes this is cryptic, more soon. 

whb: two years in the life of the sage bed

Today I offer a retrospective of sorts: Two years of progress in the sage bed, which was once a big green blob, then a rather sparse little spot, as shown above.

Well, that was then and this is now...

whb: harvesting marjoram, a study in pictures

 

I see in the gloaming that dusk is once again summoning the fog. This is my cue to get out in the garden with my pruners and get to cutting. The herbs are all huge with summer growth and ready to be harvested and dried for winter use. Weekend Herb Blogging
What started as a whimsical answer to weekend cat blogging is now a weekly excuse to play in the herb garden. Oh gee, how awful - not the herb garden! Kalyn has nurtured little whb, and now it's all grown up, with its very own set of rules, and Kalyn lets it escape the confines of her kitchen every other week to be guest hosted somewhere on the tubes of the 'net.
Weekend herb blogging is at Daily unadventures in Cooking this week so get yourself over there to check out the roundup. By harvesting now, while I still have at least six weeks before we can expect any sort of freeze, I am giving plants a chance to recover a bit before the harsh weather sets in and freezes the new growth.

Moving here three years ago, I brought one tiny handful of a lovely variegated marjoram with us. I knew from experience that it would happily colonize any area I let it loose in and it proved me right. In fact, this marjoram had been one of the more prolific plants this year as it has crept beyond the edges of the bed onto the sidewalk where it forms a thick mat with runners forever seeking ground in which to take root. Now marjoram stalks, heavy with flowers and eager bees, tumble across the walkway and present a serious obstacle to a barefooted mage.

just buzzin' around a technical problem

Hey! Are you looking at that bee's butt? Is that polite? Yeah, I know I put it out there, well, actually the bee did, butt still.

I'm having publishing issues this week and this is really a test.

But it's a cute little bee behind, isn't it?

I promise you an herb garden

 

Once upon a time, the kitchenMage had the herb garden of her dreams. Wisteria draped the entrance arbor, opening onto a herringbone path interplanted with thyme and moss and edged with lavender and a plethora of mints. Herbs, both common and rare, filled this garden and new finds were constantly finding their way there. Rare thymes and more mints than she could name filled the beds, and the air, with intoxicating scents. A few choice trees also lived there: the prized sweet bay, a pink dogwood bent near horizontal from its attempts to survive its old home, and the maples (no two the same) that defined the border.

Oh, I'm sorry! I was daydreaming there for a minute.

While I would love to have that herb garden again (and it is worth a look, although I apologize for the old, not so great photos) the sad fact is that I don't. Worse, I won't have anything like it for a few more years to come. A few summers from now, I expect to once again walk through a garden like that, although not too much like that.