This and That

Not a lot has been going on in the garden the last few days. I've gotten some weeding in. I dug out some gooseberry plants. If I let them (which I did last year), any branch that touches the ground will root. I offered them to Connie and she picked them up today. Then when I was in the garden I noticed I have a sage plant that self seeded and lots of oregano. And I still have anise hyssop and lemon balm seedlings coming up. I should have offered them to her as I'm just going to yank them out. And of course I can always split chives, garlic chives, and mint. She has a new yard that needs filling and they are certainly things to fill it with.

Today I planted out my basil. I had five plants and put them in two spots. Last year I lost all of mine to basil downy mildew for the first time. I'm hoping they live this year.

I also put a row of pole bean seeds out. They are between the chard and the onions.

This year I planted three kinds - Kentucky Wonder, Golden Gate Pole, and Yard Long. I'm not making my typical bamboo trellis for them. I'm hoping the 6' T-posts will be tall enough. But I don't know if they will stand up to the really nasty winds we have. I think I'll have to put in some angled poles later to give them more support.

None of that was real work as the ground had already been fertilized and prepared. I just had to plop them in. Tomorrow and Monday I'll have to prepare the cucumber/zucchini bed and the sweet potato bed then plant them up. Those might actually take some time and involve a little sweat.

I've also been playing around with gluten free bread. I've found baking gluten free to be much harder than using gluten. If you are off be a little the muffin/bread will be either dry as a bone when cooked, or it won't really cook right at all and be gluey. Ick. Gluten is such a magical substance. The bread above though came out fabulous. It is a very eggy yeast bread. At least with gluten free breads making bread is fast. They only need one short rise before cooking.