I got up early this morning because it’s going to be 88 degrees again today with ridiculous humidity. I had a list of priorities to attack and by gum, I got most of them done the 90 minutes labor I put in. I started out mounding up potatoes and retraining strawberry runners in the raised beds, and I pulled a few weeds. That task could use a little more time, but given that the heat has pretty much ruined everything in the raised beds except tomatoes, I’m not in a rush to get that done.
My big priority today, after mounding up potatoes, was to tackle the herb bed. I haven’t spent any real time out there since Memorial Day and yeah, it definitely shows. The first thing I wanted to check on was my garlic! I planted two pounds of cloves last fall and they have scapes and topsets up. When those die back, I’ll pull it and put it on screens in my cold frame to cure and then I’ll store it in onion bags in my basement.
I also checked in on my “it’s hot and sweaty and I’m over this project” garlic! a couple years back I was spreading seed garlic from the garlic in my front perennial bed. There was A LOT of it I’d saved up in a jar over the season, and I was sowing it in random spots. It was a muggy, warm day and I finally got tired of it and threw it into the back corner of the herb bed and went inside for some iced tea. Here it is a couple years later, and this is about half of what’s back there. If you’re looking for seed garlic, I got you!
The herbs are going nuts. I have lavender, sage, thyme, borage, comfrey, anise hyssop, oregano, lemon balm. Please enjoy this gallery of herbaceous bounty!
I also tried garlic chives this year. I bought them at, you guessed it, Schuring Greenhouse in Portage, MI. I bought them because they’re a frequent ingredient in Asian cooking, most notably in the recipes I see in Omnivore’s Cookbook and The Woks of Life, two of my go-to cooking sites. They’re wider and flatter than regular chives and have a much stronger flavor.
I wish I’d thought to do before and after photos but the difference is striking. Here’s my finished long bed, home to the anise hyssop, oregano, and lemon balm. Behold the absolute carpet of weeds I pulled from those beds. I’m thinking oregano on a pizza later on.
This is my sitting and thinking area, and believe me, I enjoyed quite a lot of sitting and thinking and enjoying the scents of my beautiful herb bed between bouts of working.
Walking back up to the house I stopped and took some photos of my rampant sweet peas. My friend Jen’s husband Josh, a good dude for sure, is really keen on getting seeds from these plants, and even though I warned him they are a pernicious weed of deceptive allure, he still wants them. He shall have them, and it will beautify their Holland hideaway. I joke, but they are indeed handsome and tenacious.
Nex time the heat breaks I’ll go out and finish the weeding in the raised beds, but for right now, I’m calling it a job well done and jumping in the shower. I hope your July 4 weekend has been outstanding!
