Welcome Rain

I was very happy to see the rain come in last night. The last rain we had was on the 10th and we have seen some hot weather for May. We had three days in the 80Fs (over 27C). The plants were feeling the stress. I hand watered some of the beds, but not enough and not all of them.

It is amazing what rain will do for a garden. My lettuce grew by leaps and bounds overnight. I swear the Fun Jen doubled in size. It was struggling before. I wasn't worried about it as it has gone out of favor in my kitchen. Plants come into and out of favor at the drop of a hat. One year it was my favorite. Now I wonder if my townhouse mates will eat it. Sometimes I'm fickle that way.

The spinach that just wasn't growing has sped up overnight. The soil is warm. The weather is wet. Maybe it will produce this year after all.

Yesterday my onions were looking a little yellow. But they are all green again. They look so healthy now.

The cabbage bed is looking a lot healthier too. Sadly my little choy sum along the end of the bed died from lack of water. I didn't even notice them or I would have watered them. I did get two nice stalks out of the plants before they died.

And the early planted Asian greens look so lush right now. They are in their prime. I picked one of those bok choys for lunch today.

And the rubarita was pretty good last night as I listened to the rain start. Right now the rain is starting to clear out and the weekend looks lovely.

Last week

Well I've been remiss in blogging. But I did get out to the garden to do a few chores last week. Wednesday I got out and put in my zinnias. First I had to pull out the lemon balm and the yarrow that I no longer wanted. I haven't been using the lemon balm and it self seeds here like crazy. The yarrow just isn't happy and the flowers flop all over. In addition multiple of the plants die every winter. They do self seed to a certain extent and I've used that to replace them. But they just aren't blooming enough. So I'm switching to just doing zinnias along this edge. I do have some herbs at the right edge. I've got a couple of French tarragon and some very very small winter savory. One of the zinnias is dying too so I think I'll put some basil in that spot when the basil get big enough (right not it hasn't even germinated yet).

The other section is by my neighbor's fence. He grows tomatoes on his side of the fence every year. And I grow zinnias and sweet alyssum to edge the bed. Previously they were full size zinnias that get about 3' high and need support or the wind blows them over. They are beautiful and put on quite a show, but it does block my neighbor's sun and is a pain to keep supported. This year I'm trying some new ones that only get to 18". Maybe that will be short enough so they can support themselves.

Friday I got out and finally put the netting row covers on some of the beds. This is the chard. The leaf miners start to come out around Mother's Day so I wanted to make sure I got the netting on before that.

I also covered the onions and carrots. Onion root maggots hit the peak of the first flight at 700 base 40F GDD. But that is the peak. I've hard the first ones can come out around 300-400. I use a spreadsheet and my weather station info to calculate the GDD. On Friday it was 410. So They needed to be covered. Also the carrots which are above the garlic. I've tried to find a number for the GDD for carrot maggots but can't. I know from my own experience that there is damage around the middle to end of June. It takes the maggot at least a month in the soil before you see any damage. The row cover probably needs to be up by the middle of May. So all three of these pests start to come out about the same time. But now they are safe.

On Saturday I went out and weeded the garden a bit. I really didn't NEED to do anything in the garden, but it was such a beautiful day. I just wanted to be out.

I noticed that my rosemary in the circle garden had definitely died. One more is hanging in there, but barely. And one survived and is nice and green, if a bit small. So I layered a couple of branches from that rosemary. Once they are rooted I'll scatter them around the garden. I want to keep my Arp alive at least somewhere. And different winters kill off different ones. Rosemary really isn't hardy here. Our lowest lows for the year tend to be around -3F to -5F (-20C). And really hard years like this tend to kill even the hardiest rosemary plants. Having different locations gives them an extra chance to live. I think the winter winds killed the one in the circle garden. But the one that lived was protected from those winds. But that section dries out a lot since it is near the foundation of the house and can be in a rain shadow. So sometimes that one dies and other ones live. It just depends upon the year.

I probably won't replace the rosemary in the circle garden though. I think the circle will look better if I put the winter savory there. It is shorter like the other plants in the circle. I'm not sure where they will go, but I'll find a couple good spots somewhere. Maybe one along the fence where the zinnias are growing.

I did a lot of weeding on Saturday. Some of those weeds were little tiny lettuce plants. I decided to transplant about 12 of them. I can tell which ones are Red Sails, but the other ones could be anything as they are just nondescript green leaves.

I had two beds that needed cleaning out. I cleaned out one and put on the bone char which I'm using in place of compost this year. I'll see how it works. I still need to buy two bags of compost for the last bed. I should have done that last week when I was at the store buying more rebar, but didn't even think of it. Oh well. My husband ought to be traveling again sometime so I can have the car. I'm not about to bring home heavy bags on the bus.

Strawberries and Peas

No photos today. I was rushed to get some gardening in yesterday and I never even thought about photos.

Thursday my strawberry plants showed up on my doorstep. I had ordered Surecrop strawberries. I have some disease in the strawberry bed. Last year I got barely any strawberries. I figured Surecrop might be able to out grow the disease. Sadly most of the strawberry diseases that it might be will stick in the soil for years (a decade even). So removing them and waiting isn't an option. If I can't find a variety that will grow here, then I can't have strawberries. That would be so sad. I love strawberries. One variety that I have - Earliglow - has decent resistance. We will see if they do OK this year. They produced a bit last year. Sadly the Sparkle is susceptible to a lot of things. I still have a few plants of that which seem to be doing OK. I'm not going to rip them out, but if they fail again this year, I will.

I also prepared one more 4'x 8' bed. This has peas along the back foot of the bed and mixed herbs and greens in the front. I planted 4 Ventura celery, 4 Tango celery, 4 celeriac, 6 fennel, 12 lettuces (Red sails, Deer Tongue, Little Gem, and Paris Island), 4 parsley plants, and 4 marjoram. I also scattered some winter savory around the garden. I hope some of it tastes like it is supposed to. Last year the one plant that survived tasted like lemons. I suppose that isn't a terrible thing, but it wasn't what I was going for.

I'm running out of transplants. I have three things left that I grew from seed. I have chard, broccoli, and zinnias. I'm going to try to get to them on Sunday and Monday. I also have to start my basil plants. Basil is the only summer plant that I grow inside as a transplant. Though I suppose the zinnias probably count too. I never really noticed it before but all my summer plants (corn, beans, cucumbers, melons, squash, sweet potatoes) I either direct seed or they don't grow from seeds. OK only the sweet potatoes don't grow from seeds. I know a lot of people start the summer crops indoors, but I've never done that. Sometimes I chit the seed, but that is far as I go for those seeds anymore. They are just too easy to direct seed and I've found that getting the early start really doesn't help them all that much.

Planting the Cabbages

Last fall I sifted through my compost and prepared as many beds as I could. Sadly six of the beds didn't get covered in compost. I just didn't have enough. i will have to buy some more this year. But I decided to try something else too. I'm experimenting with biochar which I got through the Northeast Organic Farmers Association bulk buy that they have every year. Biochar does a lot of what compost does. It help prevent leeching of nutrients and helps retain water in the soil. It also makes the soil more alkaline. Which here in the northeast with our acidic soils, is a good thing. Hopefully I'm not raising the pH too much. I tried to look up application rates and people are all over the board on how much you ought to apply.

Interestingly enough I've used a kind of biochar in the past (and still do). I don't use regular bone meal. I use bone char. It is a slower source of phosphate than most fertilizers and doesn't leach out as much as most phosphate fertilizers do. When I tested my soil when the garden was first put in, it was very low in phosphates. I wanted to be able to put something on the garden that would last and not leach out to contaminate our local water sources. But I wanted the plants to have plenty of phosphorus. Bone char fills both needs.

I usually don't turn the soil over much, but I wanted to incorporate the char into the top 6" of soil. So I mixed it up pretty well. In addition I added a little high nitrogen fertilizer as cabbages are heavy feeders.

Every year I remake my measuring stick. I put in marks at 4" and 6". The stick is 3' long. Since I keep it outside in the garden the marks fade every year and have to be reapplied. I measured out the sections that I was going to plant.

And then planted them all. I planted three michihili Chinese cabbages (2 Green Rockets and one from old seed from Mac). These each got a section that was 2'x3'. The plants are huge. I wish I could find a slightly smaller michihili cabbage, but they all just seem to grow big. I planted three Optiko Napa Chinese cabbage, five Early Jersey cabbage, and five winner kohlrabi. I swore last year I'd grow more kohlrabi, but somehow that didn't happen. The row of choy sum in the foreground was an afterthought. I had the seedlings and didn't have a space to put them. I think they will produce before the big michihilis will need the space.

Then I put on my row cover. I noticed the first cabbage butterfly out yesterday. I hope it didn't lay any eggs on my plants. I had them just sitting out uncovered while they were getting hardened off.

Gardening for Granny and the First Plants Go in the Ground

Many of you may know Carol from Annie's Kitchen Garden. Those that do, know her affectionately as Granny. She is one of my oldest garden blogging friends. We both started blogging in 2008, though I think I didn't find her until early in 2009. Most people stop blogging after a few years, but Granny is still going strong. You can just tell how much she loves blogging and loves her blogging friends. Personally I'm thankful she has blogged for so long as she is filled with humor and gardening wisdom. I've been gardening for several decades now, but she has even taught me a few tricks. So when she blogged about being diagnosed with metastatic cancer, my heart just broke. In addition she lost the use of her hand and arm for a while so typing was hard. She thought she wouldn't have a garden at all this year. But her family rallied around her and are coming over once a week to help out so she can have the garden she loves so much.

In addition 1st Man thought it would wonderful if all of Granny's gardening friends could come together and garden for granny on their own blogs. He asked for someone to make a banner so everyone joining in would have a way of showing their support. Gammy Tammy made a beautiful banner which I now have on my sidebar. So this gardening post if for you Granny. I'm sure it will be obvious why I picked this one.

Sunday was just a beautiful day. Usually my family plays MMORPG games together every Sunday. We take an hour lunch break, but last Sunday I requested an extra hour. The weather was great and I needed to turn over more soil and plant. My garden plan has the eastern part of the circle garden only having radishes in it in the spring (transitioning to melons come June 1st). But I found when I did a more detailed plan that my space for lettuce was pretty meager. And I hardly needed the whole bed for radishes. So I figured I could put the earliest lettuce in this bed. I'm pretty sure I can get it out by June 1st.

I grew four types of lettuce for transplanting. The Red Sails I bought myself so that is pretty boring. But one year I was doing lettuce trials and gardening bloggers from all over sent me seeds to try. One of them was Granny. She sent me Paris Island seeds. I've grown them every year since. And collected seeds from them and grown them again. Two other seeds, Deer Tongue and Little Gem came from Dan in Canada. I've also grown them every year and collected seeds. Well this year both Dan and Granny didn't have seeds for Little Gem and wanted to grow it. So I mailed some off to them earlier this year. I'll be happy knowing each time she has a salad with Little Gem this year she will be eating seeds I collected.

So I fertilized the soil and loosened it up. I don't really turn my soil over, but I do aerate it with a garden fork. Then I planted out three plants from each of the ones mentioned above. On the other side of the bed I planted radishes and salad turnips. The turnips are an experiment. I usually plant them under my Michihili cabbage and pick them over time. They don't all come ready at once like radishes tend to. But will they be ready to be picked by June 1st?. We will see. If not maybe I can work around them.

You may have noticed the netting over the beds. I use row covers of different kinds extensively in my garden. But the first person I ever saw using netting that you would find at a fabric store as a row cover was Granny. I tried it last year with the typical white netting that you can get anywhere. It is about as strong as Agribon (so not very strong), but you can see through it. When I was looking for netting this year in bulk I figured I would get a brown netting as darker colors blend in more, but the green offered was a little too dark. At less than $1 a yard, it is cheaper than Agribon. It also doesn't hold heat like Agribon will, which is a positive or negative depending on the use. It also more easily lets rain through(a positive) and wind through(a negative) . When it rips it is much much easier to sew shut again. However it does stretch weirdly over time. And yes I do need a row cover over the radishes as otherwise the root maggots destroy them.

This is the view out of my kitchen door. Doesn't it look so much nicer than Agribon? Thanks for the idea Granny. The netting is so see through I wasn't sure the dog would notice it fast enough to avoid it when running around the garden. So I left up the string (which I have on all my beds) to remind him the beds are off limits.

Before

I wasn't sure if I had time to get another bed done, so instead I cleaned up my herb circle in the middle of the circle garden (and why I call it the circle garden).

After

OK so you can't see a lot of difference. But I trimmed back a lot of the dead parts on my rosemary. I trimmed back the oregano and both of the thymes. The English thyme fared pretty well, but the French theme is mostly dead. When new growth starts up, I'll probably have to trim even more off of it. French thyme is my favorite thyme, but English thyme is more reliable. This is why I have another patch of French thyme elsewhere in the garden. As with my rosemary I like more than one just in case my main plant dies on me over the winter.

First Chores in the Garden

Yesterday was supposed to be a beautiful sunny day just shy of 60F. So of course it was cloudy most of the day. I know we had onshore winds predicted, so I'm guessing our clouds were courtesy of the ocean moisture. Inland it was probably sunny. I don't live too close to the ocean. Maybe seven miles (11 km) as the crow flies. Closer if you count Boston's inner harbor. But that is close enough for the ocean to change our weather. Usually it means we are cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. Since it was cloudy, I didn't feel like going out to garden. I was really hoping for sun. So I decided to start making more soil blocks. I could get some more plants seeded. I poured some hot water into the dry soil mix to wet it down and as I was doing that the sun burst out. The blocks could wait. I had sunshine outside.

Though the ground was still frozen it won't be much longer. And there were plenty of chores to do that didn't require turning over the soil. The main chore was cleaning up the paths. Sweet alyssum lines the paths in the summer. They grow pretty thickly into the paths. I wanted to clear them out and get them composted.

Ripping them out was easy. But I never did get the dirt and cruft totally cleaned up. My broom is in very sad shape. It is an old straw broom and most of it has worn or rotted away over time. There isn't much left to it. I really need to get a new one. It was a lot of work to do the little cleaning I did, and it isn't all that clean. A good rainstorm will clean up a lot of it though.

The next chore was to clean up that sad looking kale that I showed you yesterday. I got all the old dying leaves off. The patch still looks pretty sad, but it looks a lot better than it did.

While I was out sweeping, I noticed my apple tree. I had a couple of crossed branches that I trimmed off. But the photo above showes my major issue. On the right side I had three branches, all one right on top of the other, each only 9" from the one below it. This is way too close for my main branches. I really wanted the lower and upper ones. The middle one was the most vigorous one. I wish I could have kept it, but I figured I ought to pick the best branch location. And I really needed that upper branch. There isn't a branch above it. It is the highest one on that side of the tree right now.

I really appreciated the late afternoon sun, but I think my plants loved it more. I've been hardening off the onions and my early greens (lettuce, mizuna, and tatsoi). As soon as I can work the soil, I'll be planting these. Well unless we get some really nasty weather predictions. But the long term forecasts say that the weather will stay nice.

Taking Stock

Spring has finally sprung here at Lee's End Eden (what we affectionately call our lot).

Not that the beds look a lot like it is really spring yet. But it was a beautiful sunny day yesterday with a high in the mid 50Fs. So it was nice to walk around the garden seeing where I stand. Well the beds are not unfrozen yet. But some of the beds are defrosted to 9" deep. They aren't good enough to plant and turn over yet, but it will be just a couple of days now with the weather being warmer. Maybe I can turn over the soil on Friday and get my peas and favas in? I can always hope.

I also checked out my overwintered plants. The kale is looking pretty sad. I'll have to get in there and get rid of the dying leaves. But it has started to perk up already. I won't eat any of those old disgusting leaves. But the new leaves will be good. There isn't a lot of time for them to grow in the spring before they bolt and this year they will have even less time this year with things thawing out late. But hopefully I'll get a good crop.

I've never had the spinach look quite this bad before. But again as it grows it will perk up and I'll only eat the new leaves. At least it has mostly survived the winter.

I have a tiny patch of self sown mache. There really isn't enough for anything like a salad. But once the lettuce starts it will add to my greens. In a really small way.

The garlic has started peeking out from under the soil. It won't be long until they are really growing fast.

One of the plants I worry about every winter is the rosemary. Rosemary is hardy to zone 8 usually. I live in zone 6. So I planted two "hardy" rosemarys when I first came in. The Hill Hardy died the second winter. But the Arp still lives. A year and a half ago I layered the plant by sticking some branches under the soil. Last spring I cut those branches off and planted them around the garden. I now have three Arps. I figure if one dies maybe one in a different spot will live. The plant above is the original plant. I have another that looks much sadder by my rhubarbs. And yet another that looks pretty good by the foundation. The rosemary above always has the same side dead. That is the side that is always into the winter winds. I ought to cover it with some burlap to protect it over the winter. I'm guessing if I did, I wouldn't have much die off.

The cilantro that was sown between the kale died. Which isn't too surprising. It only lived one year and that year was the year without winter. But by the foundation a few cilantro plants have survived. Hopefully more will come up as I love my cilantro.

After last winter all my sage but one had died. So last year I planted three more plants. I never seem to have enough sage. I'm almost out of what I dried from last year. This year all four plants seem to be alive. I'm very happy about that. I need more sage. I'm surprised at how poorly it grows in this garden. At my last house the sage wanted to be a 2'-3' bush. Here I'm lucky when it hits a foot. But since they all lived, maybe they will grow bigger this year.

I also checked on my rhubarb. One of my neighbors wants some rhubarb in their garden. So I'm going to dig one up and split it. I've noticed that it is already coming out of dormancy, but the ground there is still frozen. It is almost thawed though. So I'll keep checking. When it is diggable I'll get that done.

More Planting

Today is supposed to be a beautiful day. But we will be getting a cold patch next week. Even a day in the 40Fs. I wanted to get all my hardy plants out before the weekend. And I succeeded. All the smaller Asian greens and kohlrabi are planted in one bed. I didn't have enough plants to fill the whole bed which I expected. So I sowed more baby boc choy seed. This bed needs to be empty on June 1st for my sweet potatoes. They might not get full size by then, but they ought to be close.

I planted all my herbs except the basil. I have a bed where I put my miscellaneous greens. The parsley, winter savory and the sweet marjoram were put there along with the red celery. I had a lot of the bed planted in mache. Most of it was Golden Mache from Michelle ages ago. It grew well, but got way too leaf burned over the winter. So it was just weeded out and composted. But the regular mache (above from Emily) grew well and produced. I'm not picking much as I want the plants you see above to go to seed for next year.

I got a lot of little things done like weeding the spinach bed (finally done). I also spent time standing and staring at one spot along the basement foundation. I'm wondering if I ought to put in a tree to espallier. I've been growing sunflowers along the back. The cilantro is allowed to self seed there in the middle. And I have self seeding sweet alyssum along the front that grows into the brick path. I haven't been happy with the sunflowers of late. So I'm going back and forth right now. Apple tree, sunflowers, apple tree, sunflowers.

Now I just have this partial flat left which is flowers, basil, and a few extras. It has been outside during the day and inside at night. It might have to go back under the lights when the cold hits next week.

Mache

Since I have decided to leave my carrots in longer, I had to transplant the mache to another bed. That way I'll have a place to plant my garlic. I was going to have to transplant it in the spring anyway if I wanted to let it go to seed (I'll see if I like it and it overwinters well). So the work wasn't wasted it was just done this fall instead of next spring.

The first chore was to sift some leaf mold. This bin was filled with leaves two years ago, we barely touched it. I actually fill two bins with leaves in the fall and we need just over one for our carbon additions to the compost during the year. But I like to fill a whole two bins. Last fall I topped it off with leaves again as it has gone down to half its size. Now it is just under half a bin tall and filled with wonderful leaf mold. The reality is that much of the top layer is filled with worm castings. I think it was worm heaven in there this year. Lower down there is a layer that is dried leaves that have turned into powder. I obviously should have added water and turned it, but this is an easy way to get some good organic matter without the work. And occasionally I run into an undecomposed clump of leaves that get screened out.

Leaf mold isn't as nutrient rich as compost, but it is still an excellent addition to the soil, and I don't make nearly enough compost to cover the garden. In fact I might have to buy some this spring, but with the added leaf mold, I think I'll have enough to cover the spring beds. I hope.

The next step was to double dig the bed. Since these beds are fairly new they don't need to be double dug yet. But I figure I don't want a year where I have to double dig all my beds. I like to get air in there occasionally. If I do three half beds a year, it will take me six years to get through the rotation. That seems about right. At my last house the soil was clay and the rocks were atrocious. It always took me hours, well days, to do a bed it was so much work. This bed didn't take long at all. I didn't time it but I wasn't horribly tired after I was done. I'll do another half in November sometime. And one more in the spring. Mostly I do a no till bed, but I find that double digging really helps to keep the soil aerated when you use that style of gardening. And I'm pleased to say that I now have WORMS! Yes my totally worm free garden is finally coming to life. It doesn't have nearly the numbers as my last garden yet, but it is well on its way.

Then it was the easy job of tossing the leaf mold on top of the soil and putting in my transplants. I'm not sure how far apart to put the mache. I put them about 5". I did forget to add fertilizer. Whoops. I sprinkled a little over the top. It wasn't a very heavy application as I don't want to burn the plants and I was too lazy to be careful about sprinkling around the edges. After planting they were covered with cat protection.

Fall Clean Up

I just started my major fall clean up yesterday. It always happens around the first frost. The bed on the left I did yesterday. The bed on the right I'll do today. The bed I took down was the bean bed so it took some time. I harvested all the beans left including any that were at the shelling beans stage. And I took down the trellis. I also got the sunflowers down and a few other odds and ends cleaned up. I put on my cat protectors (tomato cages), but forgot that I was going to use some bird netting instead. It keeps the cats out better and looks nicer. Sadly it is too late for a cover crop. I ought to get my crops out a couple weeks earlier. Then it would have plenty of time to get started before the ground freezes.

This is another set of beds that need to be cleaned up. The closest one actually has a scattering of cover crop. Where ever I took out plants I put in a cover crop at that time. But if you look closely you will see a flower on the zucchini.

Yup I've got several of them blooming right now. So the plant isn't dead, just most of the leaves. And if you look to the right you can see some mache coming up. I just tossed some old seed in to see if it any would germinate. I didn't have new seed. It turns out that both varieties germinated. So I'll get to see if Golden Corn Salad (from Michelle years ago) is hardy here. It is more tender than the regular variety. Of course I put it in the wrong spot. I really didn't think they would grow. So I'll have to transplant some next spring if I want to collect seed.

The last chore was to take off the row cover on the carrots. I'll have to harvest the majority of them and take down the last of the beans next week as this is where my garlic is getting planted. I'm hoping with a bit more light they might size up a little more. Hopefully the carrot flies were taken down by the frost. I'll be sad if I'm wrong about that. But the carrot bed just isn't getting light anymore. It loses its sun before noon and the days are short. So I want to give it as much of a chance as possible.

What's Growing in the Fall Garden

Though I've ripped out most of my plants in the garden, I still have a few producing. Or in the case of carrots I have tons. Above is a spot about 2'x8' section of my circle garden filled with carrots ready to pick. Since the circle garden is surrounded by bricks and brick path and close to the kitchen door I want to save these and cover them when the ground starts to freeze. I want to bring carrots to Thanksgiving. BTW the netting on this bed is for the almost gone lettuce. The birds would eat it down to the stubs if I didn't do this.

Then there is the main part of the garden that is lower in sun. These carrots were planted earlier than the ones in the circle garden, but with the lack of sun they are small and many aren't even big enough to pick. Over the next few weeks I'll be eating the ones that are large enough. I'll leave the rest and see if they make it to spring. This area is a massive area of carrots. I've probably got over 30 sqft of carrots in this bed, but only if they can mature in time.

The Argentata chard did so much better than the Ruby chard. There seems to be some disease maybe that is distorting the leaves of the Ruby chard, but the Argentata is fairly immune to it. I never knew anything could affect them besides leaf miners. Live and learn. I'll grow the Argentata exclusively next year or at least as long as Fedco offers the seeds.

Also in the Chenepodium family is my spinach. It has been struggling this fall. The leaf miners did a number on it earlier and rotted out their leaves. So I picked all the dying rotting leaves and they have recovered somewhat, but at this point it will be spring spinach and not fall spinach. I'm sure it will overwinter just fine.

My kale is growing so fabulously. I used to have a row cover on it, but in the last couple of days I haven't seen any of those white butterflies. So I'm guessing it is safe to uncover. Which is good since I wanted to stake them for fall and they were getting too tall of the cover. I'll leave them unprotected this winter and harvest the leaves in January maybe. I want to see which ones survive the winter. These are a mixed batch. I'm not sure which ones they are, but hopefully I'll be able to narrow it down. If they all survive, well then I want to find the tastiest and best growing for next year.

And last but not least are my herbs. I so love fresh herbs. I chop them up in the mornings for my eggs. I toss them on a slice of bread and melted cheese. They have finally filled out their circle. Now my chore will be to keep the English thyme from invading the French thyme. I like the French better, but the English seems to survive better. I also have some Rosemary in this bed. It is supposed to be hardy to zone 6 or 7. I'm hoping it survives. I also have two along the foundation of the house. One that is a hardy one like the above and one that is Tuscan Blue, which is one of the best tasting. I don't have high hopes for the survival of Tuscan Blue, but I had to try.

I also have my Asian greens bed producing, but I'll take photos of that another day.