Garden inspection on this sunny morning, after 10 days away - so much arugula!!!! Time for arugula pesto. My spinach looks particularly great, and my cukes are growing like crazy, finally!

Peonies are in full bloom - so gorgeous.

I guess it's all the rain we've had up here - everything is so lush and green and all the flowers are intensely colored and full. My roses are doing so well, too - all the varieties.

Quick question about your arugula.... did you plant seeds, or buy small plants?

I've got some extra room in the herb garden and I want to plant some lettuces. Arugula is one of my favorites and I'm pretty sure you mentioned mache at some point (which I LOVE!!!), but I feel like that might be more difficult to grow.

I have not had good luck with mache. Maybe GG Mora will chime in here...

I did the arugula from seed, sown right into the garden. It is doing very, very well. Almost too well - some of it bolted already. But I made a big container of arugula/walnut pesto today and it's delicious.

But at this point in the season - if you can buy small plants, why not? Same for lettuces.

But really - I am not the person you should be asking for gardening advice from.

Where are you located?

Arugula does have an unfortunate tendency to bolt. My first batch is gone; I'll plant another this weekend.

The mesclun is coming along nicely. We've had a few salads with nothing but lettuce, because the lettuce is so nice!

The only time I buy plants for greens is if I'm getting a late start on the garden and want a few heads of lettuce without waiting forever. Otherwise, seed is the way to go. None of the greens – lettuce, spinach, mache, arugula, mesclun (mix) is terribly difficult to grow. It just requires keeping the seeds and soil moist enough for germination, and keeping young plants watered well to get them on their way.

Mache is a little fussy at the germination stage – it can take several weeks, with constant moisture. And it grows rather slowly. But it's quite tolerant of temperature extremes, loves the cold, puts up with drought, and doesn't seem to be liked by many pests.

The others will germinate in 4 or 5 days (I've had arugula germinate in 1 day when the weather was very hot and humid).

So should I just pull out the arugula and re-seed?

Yep. If you're using a lot of it, I'd seed a fresh little patch every two or three weeks.

Thanks.

My broccoli is coming along so quickly!

On the other hand, my dill looks awful.

Damn! They've found the chervil seedlings. What to do? Mist/pick them off? Let them be and inspect while washing produce? Aarrgghh.

And how is it NOW, with four years under its bark? I want one so badly, but can't even have crepe myrtle up here. Watermelon crepe myrtle is the Fairy Princess of trees, and you can almost drink the color. They line every median in Alabama, and I always want to stop and just stand by one.

My spinach has white yucky stuff on it.

Should I stake my sunflowers? I staked my tomatoes today.

Spray with insecticidal soap, stat!

Of course. Thanks for upside-the-head slap. Should add that they've also found the young thyme. Bother. Again, many thanks.

I don't like using any extraneous chemicals on food, especially soft green plants like annual herbs, I'd dump the pots upside down in a bowl of water for a few minutes, and maybe use a water spray to knock them off, I'd also try using the vacuum cleaner to suck them up but you might do more damage to the plants. And some people find it therapeutic to pick them off, not me I admit.

Well, so far I've just been picking/brushing them off. But these guys are tough. I just found that they had migrated some 6 feet away and had made a new home among heads of garlic and a knob of ginger I store in a large open crock.

FWIW, when you crush one of these (sorry), they smudge (sorry) magenta like cochenille.

We're leaving town for a couple of weeks, so I guess these little guys will have their way with my kitchen. Will let you know what else they find enticing.

I need to post some pictures, I know, but schedule prohibits. Harvested some lovely spinach and thinned the heading lettuces, all for tonight's salad. Scaped the German Extra Hardy garlic and grilled the scapes (mmmmmmmmmmm); Russian Red will be next in a few days, then Marino, then Elmer's Topset. Everything kind of slow getting started, but all looking healthy and vigorous. Broccoli rabe close to harvest. Must seed more beets, turnips, carrots, rabe, cilantro, beans.

If I recall, your last snapshot was of snow!

WIth the volunteer tomatoes Bob found and planted, we are up to 25 plants in the garden, and about 10 of those have little tomatoes on them. On the Matina, I peeked in and saw two that are reddening up. The first bed of corn is "as high as a goat's eye," as a friend sang it yesterday, and the little corn is about 5" tall. Squashes are abundant, and we're eating them every day with no apparent side effects.

The biggest surprise to me is that the grapes, this early in the season, are already taller than they've been in August in prior years. We're going to top some of them, and then have to buy new netting for the extra growth.

It feels good out there. Modest, but happy.

Oh yes you do. People - her gardens are a sight to behold. We had the privilege of seeing them yesterday. And today I worked my garden extra hard after the inspiration.

They can fly, in my garden I have signs of damage on the plants they like best (mainly rocket/arugula) everywhere. No need to apologise for squidging the little bastards. Maybe a mist net covering would prevent them getting to the growing plants but if you're not going to be there then maybe the poison is the answer.

I've dreamt of an herb garden for YEARS. When we bought this house, it came with a horrid AG pool, which sat just in my kitchen-window view like a big old blue tuna can. One November, I'd had enough. I grabbed gloves, stripped off the pool cover, and started removing all the supports. Many hours later, it was sectioned off into neatly-twined bundles, laid out by the curb.

THEN, the menfolks of the family started speaking of tomatoes and cucumbers and patches of snap beans and okra. So we planted those. We bought a neat little 18" TroyBilt and made that never-used sandy soil into a paradise for plants. BUT. The tomatoes would grow six feet tall, load up with pounds and pounds of juicy red globes, then start dying from the bottom up.

I'd plan a tomato-tasting party, out in the shade of the arbor, and the wilty, rusty pantalettes a-hanging off the tomato plants were a discouraging sight to behold, though the plant was still lush with life three feet up. We were just mystified---we talked to farmers and farm agents and online experts, and were told blight and mildew and Too Much MiracleGro in the holes they were planted in. But it never started til two months into the crop.

THEN, I happened to pick up an old MSL magazine to take outdoors for an iced-tea afternoon, and an article said that you must NEVER plant tomatoes or broccoli within forty feet of a walnut tree---some gas given off by the roots will rot the plants from the ground up. Mystery solved---I took a look around the fenceline, and there was a big ole forty-footer, just big as life, wearing millions of little green walnuts. Never really noticed it before. The plants would get a wonderful growth, from the long-fallow soil and all the goodies we'd tilled in, then when they were up nice and strong, the roots would have gone deep enough to hit that walnut poison, and there they'd go, without a chance.

So, this year, Son has his own home and garden, plus he and his tiller make the rounds of several friends who have large expanses of lawn, and so he's planting tomatoes and beans right and left. And it's been so wet and stormy here, we were lucky to get into the garden YESTERDAY to plant it. Son tilled it Monday afternoon, the soil rolling up from a foot deep like graham cracker crumbs. It lay in tidy little flat-topped rows in that big circle, all bare and ready, so we waded in (wade is an apt word; we sank into that soft downy soil like into a marsh) and planted twenty-four herb plants, all spaced to come back next year if they're willing.

Four big lavenders around the front arc of the circle, just because, and we've got dill and thyme and lovage and salad burnet and several kinds of basil, oregano, marjoram, chives, a big bed of cilantro and parsley, and one tiny start of mint for back in the shade of that pesky walnut. Mint grows great under Southern shadetrees, so I hope it will take hold and spread out over the entire back fenceline, as the twelve sprigs of ivy planted on the front one several years ago did, and now are a carpet for four feet from the fence and still rolling.

We planted, covered, then watered them in. I went back and heaped fresh dirt over the wet, tamping it in to conserve the drink. Caro swept us out with the yard broom, leaving little inscriptions of wavy lines to cover our heavy tracks.

We went out with coffee this a.m., and every plant is standing happy, even the tiny volunteer dill rescued from the grass under last years' herb pots, planted in three faded-yellow bottomless wrought-iron yard chairs. The green stands out against the soil in the sunlight, and the whole thing looks like Mr. Miyagi's Zen tray with the little teensy rake.

And you can already smell the lavender.

What a happy post. Thanks for it.

Do you by any chance have a drawl? (Former Georgia girl here, askin'.)

Thank you, Hon. Guilty. Or Blessed, take your pick.

Why, bless her heart! (The preface to many, many outrageous slanders, eh?)

I love being from the South!

I got all my Raising there, a lot of my adulthood, my children, our family home, my love of lush gardens and shrubbery gone wild, as well as setting out all those generations-old Southern dishes. Being from the South is a vast percentage of who I AM. How I speak and consider things, how I write them down, how I react to and treat things and people---all those were formed far from here, in another, different place.

But considering my love of the climate here, I think that for me, being from is better than being in.

This morning's stroll out through the ivy tangles to the herb garden was cooler than yesterday---we were gone all day, returning about 11 p.m., with just a fleeting glance early to see that all the little guys were still standing proud. We ran into a lot of lowery clouds on our trip, and thought that perhaps our still-crumbly dirt would be beaten back into flat rows, with the little plants still sprinkled with their shower.

Nothing seems to have happened here, save for a brisk wind, which sprinkled clusters of maple leaves into green trompe l'oeil over the rows. It seemed that we had WAY more greenery planted than was real. And I hesitated to step into that giving earth to retrieve the ones far from the edges.

We moved an ancient rattan love-seat thing from its perch on the rickety wooden floor where the woodpile rests. It had been there just because---its strands are broken and the weaving is in sorry state---the whole thing has taken on the effect of Fieri's hairdo, with bristly bits all porcupined out, making it hard to grasp and move, but we did. We set it way over under the South overhang of the fenceline trees, sitting amongst all the spread of ivy and the little volunteer Rose of Sharon forest that has sprung up in our Fairy Dell.

I went to the "pot yard" (the home of dozens of various shapes and sizes, with all the bottoms to hand---it's kind of a sculptural effect in itself, in a corner behind a tiny weathered fence, with all the rosy curves and the dusty, mossy verdigris on some of the old-timers---and selected two terra cotta bottoms, flat enough for bird-sipping, and we set them onto the unkempt seat, like the ole two-seaters down South before we all got indoor facilities. (I, personally, don't know ANYONE that well).

I filled them with a cold stream from the hose, then gave a good drink to all the little herb plants. All are green and I do believe there are tiny two-leafers sprouting up all around the lone "bought" cilantro---we scattered seeds for about two feet around it, and then made a nice loblolly for their cradle.

I find it hard to go and wrestle the gread handful I want from the parsley, the dill, the cilantro---it's like they're there for just being, somehow, until they're up and bushy and tough enough to hold their own against a quick grab for pesto or pickles.

Late in the Summer, I get ruthless with the plucking, and scatter whatever will go on platters and plates and into dishes with the abandon of a flowergirl who's already been at the wedding sweets. And with great handfuls nestled into damp paper towels in fridge baggies, instead of looking into the freezer and thinking "What vegetables do I have to go with the lamb?" I tend to think, "Now what can I make to use up that dill?"

Now they're just for looking, and incubating, and tending like crisp green babies. But their time will come.

Next clueless gardening question: How will I know when the rutabagas are ready? Will they start to peek above the ground like the radishes did?

My experience with root vegetables is that when there's a root big enough to eat, it's big enough to harvest. Certain of them – carrots, and parsnips in particular – benefit from some frosty weather at the end of the season (it sweetens them). That may also be true of rutabaga – never grown them.

So I can just leave them - and the carrots which seem to be doing well - in all summer and pull 'em out after the first frost?

I haven't grown them either, but I wouldn't leave them to get too big; carrots and other root veggies like this will get gnarly if left too long. The thing is to time them so they are ready at frost time.

Harvest Rutabagas as they get larger than a tennis ball. The younger roots will be more tender than older roots.

They'll be better after a few frosts, but by all means start eatin' em as soon as they're big enough! Per Fly's comment on timing – maybe you should sow some new ones in a few weeks for cold weather harvest?

Napa update:



The pot experiment continues




In the ground


The purple plant is Hopi Amaranth, a;; volunteers from a planting 7 years ago. I like to leave it because the beans will climb up the stalks and it's purty.


Runner beans. I think these are Tarahumara beans

I know this doesn't really belong here but I couldn't resist it:

I Arlo

What, you couldn't find Raffi?

Not that I don't like seeing a guy with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth while he sings a song about growing marijuana.

would love to get some advice - apparently i'm totally clueless.
here's my playground - a patio enclosure that currently features a daisy and a rose bush, and some lovage; there were also marjoram and tarragon until recently but lawn guys cut them out, along with the rest of the weeds.



so what i would love to do is to put some flowers and herbs that won't require a lot of maintenance and can thrive together.
My understanding is that i need first to weed out all the imposter grasses, add topsoil up to the rim and then plant whatever - is is not too late to do this mid July?

Any ideas are very welcomed - thanks much!

I'm not sure where in this wide land you are located - but down here in hot Austin - already 20+ days of 100 degrees or over - we can plant in the middle of summer just so long as we don't go away for a couple of weeks. Any new planting will require sufficient water to make it through the dog days of summer.

As for what to plant, check your local extension service, organic growers club, herb gardeners club, and native plant society for suggestions.

As to creating the bed, be warned that any general disturbance of the soil will bring to germination any weed seeds that have fallen over the last thousand years or so - you will still have a problem with weeds later on.

Two green hornworms ate an entire eggplant plant overnight. Even after seeing the obviously eaten remains and some green worm shit, it took me a few minutes to actually see the camouflaged bastards. Fortunately they didn't touch the super successful tomato plant we got from a fellow MFer.

Thyme is on your side. There are so many lovely varieties! I am also a big fan of ground phlox.

Be vigilant about checking your plants – if you've had two, you'll have more. Maybe lots more. You might consider spraying with Bt (bacillus thuringiensis).

However do these things make it to Manhattan?

After reading about them I now realize that:

1. I could have cooked them.
2. The hornet that was flying around the plant was probably after them...

And up two flights of stairs?

And those are steep stairs.

I imagine either from the neighbor of they came with one of the plants. Oh well, at least this year's squirrels are very tame.

Handy Hint: Feed 'em to the chickens. They love them!

Thanks, now I know what to bring to Orik and Sivan's next soiree.

Lovely yard. You and Stone aquaintenances?

The beans have been looking healthy and happy and as a worried parent, that's always a relief.



But wait! I spy with my little eye something that begins with "B"!!!



The first beans have arrived, a little ahead of schedule. I think it's going tobe a very good yield.



Why does my mind drift to Mongo Jones when I see these precious little pods of life, so eager to please and yet so oddly tiny and vulnerable?

I envy your green thumb. Those are some healthy looking plants.

I no longer go to the zoo. I just watch the critters that sink to the bottom of my herb and veggie rinse water. Amazing.

That's not his thumb.