Quite a few little projects have been popping up around the place the last couple of weeks. I fell in love with some herbal tea my dad brought from Ithaca last summer, so have set to making my own. Jeff devised this great drying system so I can keep the herbs drying as they come in throughout the summer. I’ve already dried bunches of clover, camomile, catmint, peppermint, roses, angelica, and nettles.
Last week the garden gate got updated with a sheet metal “roof” as well as one of the many old rusted garden implements found on the property. As Jeff finds the old tools, machine pieces and junk, he’s been stacking them in a perennial garden. The junk is taking on a bit of an artistic bend!
I might end up planting some sort of flowering vine around the gate to soften the entrance and welcome the bees. The garden fencing is semi-temporary as we are not sure whether the garden will live forever in this site, but I love the idea of creating espaliered fruit fencing or a vined structure of some sort. To appease my dreams this year, the tomatoes will grow in the espalier form against the fence.
Another of our projects was to create a nice container for compost. Last year I just mounded all compost material which worked out fine, but didn’t have such a nice tidy look to it. With my sweeper attachment for the mower, I went crazy filling the new composter with grass. It’s so nice to have all the grass to cover the kitchen scraps as they come out, and I find it so convenient to have the grass on hand for quick mulch needs. The bottom foot of the compost is burdock leaves! I have a feeling the compost will consist largely of burdock leaves for many years as I work to eradicate (or at least slightly tame) the beast from our property. I have read that it can be used in tea, so some day may be kicking myself if the herbal tea business starts to boom!
Talk about booming! Yesterday I pulled one radish out of the bed, but the others still looked a little small. For fourteen hours yesterday lightning filled the sky, rain poured down in buckets and thunder rippled through the atmophere. This morning the radishes had literally jumped out of the soil! I don’t know if they were electrocuted or what, but bursting is an understatement!
In fact, the entire garden burst after last night’s rain. Tomato suckers that I picked on Friday had grown back two inches today, and everything seemed to have doubled in size overnight.
Last night’s storm took down a very old apple tree and coincidentally, my parents gave Jeff a Honeycrisp for his birthday. Out with the old, in with the new!
Vegetarian Perspective 