June heralds the month of promise. Our first seeds and plants have been settled into the soil. The days are cresting to be their longest. I, recently, as of 2 days ago, broke one of my toes, and now I must hobble painfully along despite all that needs to still be done to usher in the growing season. Ugh. But, life goes on. Right? I must mention that every day I take one fresh Comfrey leaf and bruise it to release it's juices, then place it on a piece of tape that I then wrap around my broken toe after I have covered my toe with a "burn salve" that has Comfrey with its other ingredients.
This is day 5 and I am already feeling a bit better. Instead of 6 weeks of healing, I am wondering if I can get away with 2 weeks!
The weather has been perfect and the flowers and greens have done well so far this year. Yes, and so have the bugs. My early cabbages have been severely pruned by something eating their leaves. I don't know what. They also like my eggplants that I have been trying to hide up on our deck away from the wilds of the garden. It hasn't worked. Tonight they were brought inside to avoid one of our unusual deluge-like rainfalls that is predicted to come before tomorrow. I also took off the deck a number of fiber-pots of seedlings. These tropical-like heavy rainfalls are not normal but are becoming a normal experience- not OK.
The garlic I planted last fall are getting big and doing so well. They have their large green stems reaching upward. I can tell their bulbs are swelling. The garden is doing as well as it can with the time that I have been able to put into it. Rows one and two have tomatoes. Rows 3 and 4 have beans and root crops. Potato leaves are emerging from my potato bed, the herbs are happy and my leeks have their own double row bed to themselves this year. Next are the Raspberries that are reaching up out of their slumbers. The strawberries are ripening and one or two are ready. I know because at my first site to check, one strawberry was sampled by likely a chipmunk!
Onion sets are emerging after a late start. I planted my peppers this past week. Our peas finally have flowers. Yes!
Today we harvested our first very beautiful buttercrunch salad leaf head. I had to. The warmth and rain has encouraged every leafy plant to flourish.
The Tower Hill Garden plant sale this weekend added more work onto my routine garden tasks. I found fabulously healthy and unique plants to add to our landscape. Broken Arrow Nursery had a beautiful alpine spirea and a Frothergilla (a member of the Witch Hazel Family) with stunningly smokey blue leaves. I picked up a handful of heathers and heaths. I wait all year to find the Heather Society to purchase from them. I couldn't resist. The Heathers and Heaths are perfect for my stone and sandy garden in front of the house. The heathers are strong and sturdy and tolerate drought and considerable exposure.
Herbs are everywhere. I have started parsley,dill and sweet basil from seed to be able to plant small plants into the garden and a few on the deck. I am maintaining my 3 pots of Rosemary on the deck which fill large patio pots. I also have Chervil and Winter Savory. Marjoram is rampant in the garden. I also have Salad Burnett and Chives in the garden.
I have discovered that I have wild Motherwort in which I have harvested and started tinctures and to dry fresh leaves. I have harvested Red Clover blossoms to dry and I am using my Dandelion Apple Cider vinegar for salads. Peppermint is my favorite tea. I have made a fresh Peppermint infusion by simply grabbing a few sprigs of peppermint and placing them in a quart of water. It's better than plain! A favorite "tonic" for spring has been to infuse Peppermint, Lemon Verbena, Lemon Balm and Nettles with an occasional toss of Red Clover blossoms.
Mulch has been spread from wood chips that have composted from the ice storm of 2008 over roses and new shrubs and herbs. Our mulch is home-grown. All of our wood, that had to be cleared from that ice storm, went through a huge chipper via a bunch of foresters that I needed to hire who chipped all our fallen trees around the house. I requested to keep the wood and to dump the chips at a corner-like location on the property. Since 2008, the chips sat and they sat. I never thought to use them, at all, initially. So many trees were destroyed and so much cleaning up had to be done. But, those wood chips sat and they composted and rotted. They were spread out in an area where a few trees had to come down. Those chips were their memorial. They were never to move, but they covered a large area over the lawn and it seemed odd to keep the area bare of a tree, plant or shrub except for a spread of wood chips. Maybe it was time to do something? When I scraped the chips with a rake, a deep rich and dark mulch of decomposed wood chips and soil emerged. Worms intertwined amongst the raking and I found more rich organic matter than I could have every imagined, surface with each scrape. OH MY GOODNESS! "This is totally priceless"!, I thought. I shoveled garden cart-fulls, after my discovery and trudged them up to the gardens. It was well worth the effort knowing how much it costs to order a mulch delivery from a garden/nursery center. A small pleasure but with a rich reward. How many mulch piles have you gone through that are also loaded and enriched with worms and humus?
This is only the first week of June!
There is more to come!
