Back to the Land
Posted: May 28, 2011 Filed under: Phil Wrote It | Tags: garden 4 Comments »Realized recently that we haven’t really written at all about getting back to our community garden plot with the start of this year’s growing season.
I just spent the early afternoon doing some general plot maintenance and planing a couple of tomato seedlings. My reward was a big bunch of mint that I’m going to make into iced mint tea later today. I also got a bunch of motherwort, which has been growing like crazy in one of the common areas. Nobody had been picking it – partially because a lot of us didn’t know what to do with it – but from the link above, it seems like a tea infusion could be used for a whole range of medicinal purposes. Anybody have any experience with this plant?
Anyway, in our own plot we’ve got big, healthy garlic plants from cloves we planted last fall, as well as a whole lot of beets, chard, and kale. We’ve also got a couple of hearty-looking purple pole bean seedlings. Hopefully we should start doing some harvesting within the next few weeks.
We also need to figure out what to put in the space where our radishes were. I guess we could put in more radishes, but it seems like they just end up being varmint bait.
Garlic
Purple pole beans
Nice photos. Welcome back
I saw your twitter about DIY fabric softener. I buy a 0.69 cent bottle of Alberto hair conditioner (any scent you like), dilute it in 4 gallons of water then use about 2 ounces in my rinse cycle. Smells nice, works like a charm and costs practically nothing!
I recently found out that the mystery plant in my garden, which hitched a ride with some rhubarb transplants, is motherwort. I have no intention of using it medicinally. I just like the whole architecture of the plant – it adds lots of visual interest to my perennial row.
When I start my organic garden, I usually make a garden plan showing what crops I plant in every quadrant of the cultivated land and also showing where I place the crops in each plot. I usually segregate crops according to the kind, space they will cover when grown up and according to the water they need. Garden planning is really a tough home work.