As promised, I’m here to give you some more info about what I’ve done in the garden this year. I’m really focusing on it and hoping that everything is productive and healthy.
We had family planting day a few weeks ago, when I asked the entire family to help me plant some edibles I had purchased. I won’t lie, there was some resistance, mostly in the form of “do we HAVE to?” and “are we done planting yet?” The answers were yes and no, respectively.
In reassessing the garden this year, I decided to rip out a whole area that had been planted with various bushes and such and really wasn’t doing us much good. It was kind of taking up a lot of space for virtually no return. So I had a small path installed, a little area for sitting, and decided I was going to plant it myself, little by little, with edibles and flowers. So we got started on that during family planting day.
RD Husband does not mess around with his sun protection.
I started close to the path/seating area with a bunch of herbs. I got RD husband and the 9 year old to work on planting those. I bought English thyme, Italian oregano, a bunch of basil, flat leafed and curly parsley, Berggarten sage, French tarragon, cilantro, and a mint variety called “Mojito.” It’s like the UN up in my herb garden.
In front of the herbs, really close to the patio area, I transplanted a bunch of bulbs that I had haphazardly stuck in the garden over some years. You know what works pretty well? I buy some hyacinths or daffodils in the spring at Trader Joe’s, because I love, love, love the smell of hyacinths and daffodils are just so pretty. I have them in the house for a week or two, as long as they last, and then once they are pretty much dead I plant them in the garden. And they keep coming up every year! So it feels to me like the floral bouquet that keeps on giving. I’ve accumulated enough over the years that now I have a little early spring bulb area right in front of the herbs, and once they are all completely done for the season, I’m anticipating the herbs will spread a little and kind of cover the bare ground they’ve left behind.
Around the herbs, I planted a bunch of perennials mixed with a few annuals. I try not to plant too many annuals because I really don’t want to have to plant them again next year, and I want them to fill out and grow in so I have something of a cottage garden effect, with plants packed tightly together.
Gotta get that dog butt in the background. He helped, too. Mostly by grabbing empty plastic pots and tearing around the yard with them.
We planted some edibles in pots, too, since my idea is that I’ll have a bunch of pots around this new path area, with more plants tucked into the ground. Once we had them planted, the 6 year old made sure to water them well.
You have to get really close to make sure the water is going in properly.
So here’s what I have for now, with many plans to plant more things and mess around and generally trial and error it until I have what I want.
