Questions for the Garden Gnome

(In order to give Annake some time to finish bits and pieces of projects and samples for upcoming posts, this time we are dragging the Garden Gnome out of his hole to answer accumulated  garden-related questions that have piled up since the end of last growing season...)

Clary sage in the herb garden

How did the planting in the straw bales go?

It ended with mixed results. It depended upon how much water I could get to each one. The ones around the former compost pile did exactly what they were supposed to do and have all but disappeared. The remains can be mixed into the compost or plants can be planted into them directly. The ones that were half-successful will be broken down into compost or used as mulch on the raised beds.

All that's left of properly composted straw bales

Leftover straw used as mulch in the raised beds

Unfinished bales for garden borders

Are you going to do it again this year?

There were some bales that were placed too far for the soaker hoses to reach. They are largely intact. A few of those will be used this year as borders for other planting areas. They will get water when the interior plantings are watered and I will experiment with planting seeds in them again. However, the current severe drought will determine how much water we can use for that purpose. The rest may be made into compost.

What happens to the straw bale after you harvest the plants?

They disappear. They become dirt. This is a good thing, because good dirt is expensive and straw is cheap.

Fennel

Are you selling any new and different herbs this year?

Two, fennel and clary sage. Fennel isn't really supposed to over-winter here, but ours didn't “get the memo”. Maybe it was the hay bales? Fennel, a member of the carrot family, has been used from ancient times. Roman soldiers ate it to give them strength and spread its seeds across Europe. Roman women used it for slimming. The Anglo -Saxons revered it so much they even used it as a charm against evil. It is popular in Mediterranean cooking. Fresh leaves and stems are used in salads, sprinkled over meat and fish dishes, and used in sauces. Like dandelions, all parts of the plant are edible. The roots (bulbs) can be eaten like celery or thinly sliced for salads. For a recipe and suggestions for use of this herb, see Annake's addition at the end of this post.

Much maligned, but wonderfully versatile dandelions

Speaking of dandelions, most people consider dandelions as weeds, but they don't know about the plant's good qualities. For example, the flowers are used for flavoring wines and liqueurs. The leaves are edible if you use young, fresh ones. (Please don't spray the plants with anything if you plant to use any part of them!) The roots can be roasted to make a hot beverage, although I recommend that you add other ingredients. The roots also break up hard ground and the plants seem to prefer hard ground. I seldom find a dandelion in a prepared bed. I'm perfectly willing to let them break up the hard ground for me. The flowers make a slightly orange-yellow dye and the roots make a russet brown one. Besides, the flowers brighten up the world when few other flowers are blooming.

Clary sage (pictured at the top of this post) is a very old herb, also originally from the Mediterranean. For those of you who know the folk song (or remember the Simon and Garfunkel rendition) Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme may be interested to know that it — not our Thanksgiving sage — is the “sage” meant in the song. It can be used fresh or dried to flavor breads, stuffing, cheese dishes and vegetables. Its aroma and flavor are much more like its mint relatives than our Thanksgiving sage. It has attractive spikes of lavender flowers. Annake tells me that it is used as a fixative in perfume-making and is really nice in home-made potpourri. She also says a few crushed leaves in your bathwater makes for an invigorating soak. (I'll take her word for that.)

Oregon holly grapes

Are the fruits of the Oregon holly-grapes edible for people, too?

Yes, but they are really sour! With enough sugar, they taste a lot like vine grapes. I recommend mixing them with vine grapes to make an interesting, tart jelly. They are loaded with Vitamin C.

What can you do with rose hips?

These are also sour and also an excellent source of Vitamin C. Once removed from the rosebush, they dry quickly and keep for a long time. Early settlers used them to ward off vitamin-deficiency diseases like scurvy. They are commonly used in teas and jellies.

Our new columbine

Did you ever find out what this year's gift from the birds was?

Yes, in fact we found two. The first was a handsome pink and yellow columbine. I think we have shown you a picture of the cream-colored one they left us a couple of years ago. (April 20, 2017 post) The second was a pink sweet pea vine coming up in the rock pile near where Rasputin, our rhubarb, lives and plots world domination.

Now, go grow something and make the world a better place...

J.D., Annake's Garden Gnome

Annake's Recipe
 for

Grilled Fish with Fennel

Clean and salt the fish. Lightly stuff it with fresh chopped fennel and sage. Slit the sides of the fish twice. Coat the fish with oil. Make a bed of fresh fennel stems and leaves in a pan. Put the fish on top. Cook, turning the fish and brushing it with oil. Serve garnished with slices of lemon.

Fennel is especially good with bass, but also with other fish, especially fatty ones.

Other Uses for Fennel:

• Snipped fresh leaves or minced stems are good additions to salads. Try them sprinkled over fish, pork, cheese, eggs, beans, lentils or rice. Add the fennel just before serving.

• Fennel is good with dishes of any of the cabbage family: broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, etc.

• Add 3 T. of freshly chopped fennel to an omelet of 4 to 6 eggs.

• Add sprigs of fennel to canola oil, extra-virgin olive oil, or saffron oil for a tasty cooking oil.

• Use 1 T. chopped fennel to flavor butter or mayonnaise.

• Fennel roots and lower stems can be cooked and treated like carrots or new potatoes.

• Use fresh fennel flowers, which have a delicate licorice (anise)fragrance. Mixed with nasturtiums and calendulas, they make a pretty bouquet — and you can eat it as a salad, too!

• Make a fennel sauce with ½ cup mayonnaise, 1 T. light cream, and 1 t. chopped fresh fennel leaves and stems. Good over fish.

Sweet pea, bloomed out and ready to move to a better location

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Be Kind to Your Fine-feathered Friends

Late spring afternoon in Annake's garden

Many years ago when I was in high school, we used to sing a silly song to the tune a rival school had chosen for its athletic “fight” song. It started like this:

“Be kind to your fine-feathered friends,

For a duck may be somebody's mother,

Who lives all alone in the swamp,

Where it's always dark and damp...”

or something to that effect. That silly song was on my mind this morning while I was looking for this year's “gift” from the birds.

End-of-season grapes left on the vine for the birds

We joined the National Wildlife Federation's backyard wildlife program several years ago. We provide cover, food supplies, and water year around. Since our backyard is of a modest size, most of the creatures that benefit are birds and small animals like toads. When I first moved to this area, there were very few species of birds. They had suffered from DDT poisoning. There was a later set-back when West Nile virus attacked the state. For the past several years, however, we have noticed at least one or two new species moving into our neighborhood, or migrating through it, every year. And they come bearing gifts! Each year we find at least one plant growing here that we didn't plant ourselves. Some are annuals, which grace us with their presence for a year and then are gone. But others take root and become permanent residents.

Oregon grape holly in bloom

This beautiful Oregon holly grape started out as a tiny seedling,. Today it is as tall as I am and it takes at least four people to join hands around it, while staying out of its prickly leaves. Each year it produces balls of bright yellow flowers, followed by deep blue berries that help us feed the birds through the following winter.

This evergreen came along soon after the holly grape and stands beside it. The first couple of years the poor little thing was eaten nearly down to the ground by the deer. As its prickly neighbor grew bigger and broader, however, the deer learned to leave it alone. Now it is several feet taller than its protector.

Birds that like rose hips have provided us with several wild, or pasture, roses. One has made itself at home on the side of our small lean-to greenhouse. It produces fine new hips each autumn that we use as a source of Vitamin C.

But our prize gift has been this lovely cream-colored columbine. We have planted columbines in other places, but none have been this color or have had blossoms this large.

Creamy white columbines

Crabapple blossoms

We share our fruit with the birds. They eat the fruits of this crabapple tree all winter long. The tree is old, but still produces these colorful blooms and many red fruits. A flock of cedar waxwings stops during their autumn migration to fill up on them.

Berries on the snowball bush

The lively little bushtits stuff themselves with the fruits of our snowball bush. Like the evergreen, this plant had a difficult start because it was trampled the first couple of years. Now it is so big it seems to think it is a tree! We also leave some apples on the tree and grapes on the vine for the birds to feed on during the winter.

Red Delicious apples on the tree

One of our neighbors keeps geese. On warm, sunny days they wander around the neighborhood, eating lots of insects, scaring the stray cats, and even keeping the deer away. J.D. got this photo of them marching down the middle of the street.

Geese on patrol

Did I find this year's gift? Not yet. But I will. I always do. I'll just keep looking. And I'll put out a string bag of yarn and dryer lint for nesting materials. So my message to all of you is to be kind to the birds and perhaps they will bring you presents, too.

Oh, you wanted a duck, too? Below is one I did in petit point when my eyes and hands were a bit younger.

Love the birds. (Yes, J.D., even the pigeons.)

"Mandarin Duck," available in our Etsy shop

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Irises, Poppies, and Lilies - Oh, My!

From time to time, J.D. and I like to share some of the flowers in our garden with you through J. D.'s photographs. Despite a very dry winter and late freezes and frosts, the irises were especially beautiful and bountiful. The miniature iris appeared in early April while the crocuses were still in bloom. The dwarfs were in full bloom in mid-April, followed by Dutch and species irises, and the tall bearded irises bloomed until mid-June.

Iris marked for removal with yarn

Many of the clumps have multiplied so much that they must be thinned. This should be done every three or four years, but we are doing it for the second year in a row! J. D. has been designating plants that need to be removed by tying lengths of colored yarn (never in short supply around here) around the stalks. Some will be relocated to other parts of the garden, while others will be sold at the farmers' markets.

Irises reproduce from structures called rhizomes. Many people think of these as roots, but they are really modified stems. They lie mostly on the surface of the ground and the short, true roots grow down from the lightly buried lower surface of the rhizome. I'll let J.D. tell you about lifting and re-planting them.

Iris with rhizome and roots, and digging knife

You need something that will cut the rhizome to separate plants, and something to loosen the soil 4" to 6" down and get under the irises' roots to lift them out. For individual plants or small clumps, I use my Japanese digging knife (pictured at the right); for larger clumps, I have a stout square-end spade. Cut through the rhizomes at the borders of the mass of plants you plan to remove; then dig, loosening the soil until you can get your tool under the irises, gently prying up all around the clump until you can get it to come free of the ground and the adjacent plants. Clean the dirt off the roots, and separate out individual leaf clusters with rhizome and roots.

To re-plant, loosen up the soil to about 5" deep, then make a shallow depression just big and deep enough to spread the true roots and bury them an inch or two deep. If you have particularly poor soil, you can add a little blood and bone meal to the soil now, before filling the dirt in around and on top of the roots. Leave the top half of the rhizome exposed, but pack the dirt firmly around  it and over the roots. Water the iris in well; then pretty much ignore it. Irises seem to thrive on benign neglect - just water it when and as you do the plants that surround it, and leave it alone.

J.D. shared a picture of our earliest-blooming poppy in the June 1, 2016 post. This beautiful purple poppy was frozen last year, but came back vigorously this year. We have two varieties of orange poppies, one of which produces extra-large blooms. Visitors tell me it looks like it is made of silk and want to touch the blossoms to see that they are real. We have two red poppies, one of which has ruffled edges, and two peach varieties, one of which is ruffled. In addition, we have pink, rose, and a beautiful white poppy with a black “throat”.

We got quite a nice surprise this spring. We know some of our poppies multiply by self-seeding (the orange ones have established themselves everywhere). This year we found a new one of the peach poppies at least two meters from its parents, growing out of a gravel path. Its top blossom was so large that I had to hold it still so that J. D. could photograph it. It covered both my hands and was larger than a salad plate! We will re-locate it to a more hospitable garden plot and see what it produces next year.

Bagged poppy seed heads

We dig and sell the surplus orange poppies and will divide the peach ones this year, too. We save and sell the seeds from all ten varieties. J. D. can tell you how he does that.

I bag the seed heads with paper lunch bags (plastic makes the heads subject to mold and rot, and slows the drying) secured with several tight wraps of electrical tape. I label the bags with permanent marker by color (before covering the seed heads - much easier to write legibly that way), and wait for the stalks and foliage to dry out before cutting the stems.

Lenten rose in bloom

Our plants have kept their own schedules this year — some blooming earlier than usual, some later; some blooming longer than usual, others for a shorter time. Some just seem confused. For example, we have a Lenten rose which bloomed and an Easter lily I planted after it bloomed last year. Both are blooming for the fourth of July! The Easter lily bloomed three times last year, the last time just before frost. It seems determined to “celebrate” as many holidays as possible.

Orange daylilies

The orange daylilies are late this year. They are very prolific and need to be divided just about every year. They are popular at the markets a little later in the summer. They are also popular with our neighbors. One lady a few doors down started with a row of our lilies a few years ago. Now they take up a large portion of her lawn and really “put on a show” each summer. She likes the glossy green foliage even after the flowers are gone and says she has to mow less lawn every year.

Regal lily

I usually don't have to look up at any flowers except our climbing roses, flowering shrubs, and sunflowers. This year, however, we have a really ambitious regal lily. J. D. had to tie it to a long l bamboo pole. It is in a raised bed, so I'm not sure how tall it really is, bur I suspect it comes close to J. D.' s six-foot-one. It really overhangs my five-foot-one! In the same raised bed, there is a clump of white lilies that was only a single stalk last year. Now there are six stalks, so it, too, will need to be divided. I counted 19 buds and blossoms on the original stalk and nearly as many on the younger ones. They all smell marvelous!

White lilies

Speaking of fragrances, we did a “tour” of the irises when they were at their best and identified 21 different scents in several categories: floral, fruity, musky, citrus, candy-like, spicy and “what-would-you-call -that?”. Not all of our irises are fragrant, but the majority certainly are. I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse of our garden. I just wish you could smell the flowers as well as look at them.

Best wishes from us to all of you,

(and J.D.)

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The Plants Ate My Blog Post (and Other Excuses)

Early blooming purple irises

Hello – J.D., Annake’s Garden Gnome here. Annake is taking a short break from blogging, but didn’t want to lose the momentum we’ve built these last few months; so, she’s asked me to jump in and explain what is presently occupying so much of our time and attention.

First, an apology to readers using our archived posts. Due to Google’s decommissioning of Picasa (in favor of their new Google Photo application), we temporarily lost connections to all the photographs for our older posts. It took some time and a great deal of work to restore those posts, but I believe we have pretty much fixed the problems. To be fair, it took longer than it might have because I took the opportunity to address some other issues that arose from changes made over the last three years by both Google (to the Blogger software) and in the way we use the platform.

Our archives are extremely important to us: unlike many (perhaps most) of the blogs on the Web, the majority of our content is never supposed to become obsolete. We always intended that our archives be a continuing resource for readers, old and new. We do not shut off comments for those archived posts, either; so if you encounter a problem or if you find our content useful – we want to hear about it!

On to other matters: as Annake mentioned in our 3^rd anniversary post (February 29, 2016), we are now heavily involved in area farmer’s markets. The original plan (a year ago) was just to add another venue for selling our crafts; as things worked out, we discovered a market for surplus from the kitchen and herb gardens, as well as excess from the flower gardens which Annake has struggled to give away for years. So, in an effort to make the Garden more self-supporting (a notion expressed way back in our very first blog post!), we are expanding our horticultural efforts with commerce in mind. The pictures below show some of what we are doing.

Straw bale planting - growing crops in straw bales - is an idea that seems to have taken off in the last couple of years. Since we had a good local source for the bales (a fellow Farmer’s Market vendor), we thought we’d give it a serious try. In addition to the additional crops, we've thought of other benefits this method might provide for us, such as -

Planting deer-repelling fragrant herbs among the rose bushes: even the heavy wire cages you can see around the roses don’t keep the really determined beasts out, so we’ll take any help we can – even if it’s just depriving them of places to graze from;

A “deer maze”, to discourage pregnant does from birthing more fawns in the space behind the storage sheds;

A way to contain and rehabilitate last year’s compost pile: beans, squash, and chard have already sprouted in that rich compost, and we’re planning on planting things the deer won’t like in the straw bales that surround it.

And the straw bales are not our only additions. Here’s a picture of the beginning of a new perennial herb bed we’re putting in. Up to now, our herbs have mostly been planted among other flowers and shrubs in the decorative garden areas; our aging bodies and local demand convinced us that we needed something more, dedicated to herb cultivation.

We also erected a  temporary greenhouse so that we have someplace protected to store plants we winter over in our permanent greenhouse, some of which have gotten completely out of hand despite the short days and cold weather...such as “Big Red,” the geranium shown in our last anniversary blog post or these potted herbs below.

Rosemary (left) and pineapple sage overflowing their pots; lawn sprinklers show scale

House plant "starts"

The space we’ve cleared in the permanent greenhouse is quickly disappearing under new houseplant pottings, the result of other greenhouse occupants’ insistence on  propagating themselves right out of living space. These offspring are headed for the Farmer’s Market, as well.

So, that’s a partial list of just the agricultural pursuits that are keeping Annake away from the blog at the moment. 

Additionally, we are creating more craft stock, items that are variations on things Annake has discussed in previous posts over the years that weren’t different enough to write a new tutorial on;

And, Annake is planning several new series of tutorials that haven’t gotten to the project stage yet;

Oh, and we're planning to publish several short e-books - starting this summer - based on compilations of some of the blog post series Annake has already written, complete with NEW additional content, patterns, and projects that won’t be available anywhere else (oooh, I just LOVE dropping bombshells like that in passing comments!).

As you can see, we are kind of busy around here; which is why we don’t have a craft tutorial post for you this time. But next time, we will - so keep watching!

J.D.

 Small "Jinx" irises blooming away in the Garden

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Aloes, Alliums, and Mints … Oh My!

Potted Aloe vera

At last week's local Farmers' Market, a lady asked her husband to buy her “that burn plant.” She was referring to one of my potted Aloe barbadensis (also called Aloe vera) plants. The plant does offer excellent first aid for burns — and also sunburn. I started keeping a pot of it on my kitchen windowsill years ago for just that purpose. You may have noticed that aloe vera is an ingredient in many modern skin treatments. The plant was used medicinally by the Egyptians and Greeks at least 2,400 years ago, but has fairly recently been “rediscovered”. It was used both externally and internally. J.D. recently pointed out a bottle in the grocery food supplements that is a fruit juice and aloe vera mixture. To use the plant on burns, cut off a piece of one of the fleshy leaves and squeeze the internal gel over the burn. The gel has both anesthetic and antiseptic properties. The pain decreases very quickly. Unless the burn is severe (and should be treated by a doctor), it should leave neither scar nor skin discoloration.

Chives in bloom in Annake's garden

This got me to thinking about all of our plants that serve more than one purpose. For example, we have Allium (onion family) plants throughout our gardens. Not only are many of them good to eat, but some garden pests — including deer — tend to avoid them. Also, others have attractive flowers and are grown primarily for their blooms. Giant purple alliums and cheery yellow sunny twinkles come to mind. I would grow common chives (Allium schoenoprasum) for their flowers, even if they were not so useful in the kitchen. They have lovely round heads of lavender flowers in late spring. Our garlic chives (Allium tuberosum) produce star-shaped white flowers later in the summer. Put leaves, stems, and even flowers of chives into a bottle of vinegar — I prefer white wine vinegar — seal, and leave for a couple of weeks or until the scent and taste of the vinegar suits you. Onions have been used medicinally, too. I remember my grandmother making creamed onions for me when I was little and had a bad cold.

Blooms of purple alliums and yellow Sunny Twinkles

On the same market day, we were offering freshly harvested peppermint (Mentha piperita), spearmint (Mentha spicata), and lemon balm (Melissa officinalis). Despite the difference in scientific names, all three are mints — as are scarlet-flowered salvia, bee balm, catnip, and many other plants. I learned the use of peppermint tea to cure stomach upsets from Frau Hauk, our landlady in Germany. I keep both frozen and dried leaves on hand to make it. The mints are full of chemicals like thymol and menthol, both of which are useful for arthritis relief, especially for those of us who are allergic to capsaicin. Both peppermint and spearmint are delightful additions to summer iced tea. If you have an old-fashioned ice cube tray, freeze single leaves in water in each compartment. They not only add to the taste of the tea: they are pretty as well. Chop either or both mints finely, mix with sugar and serve on top of grapefruit halves or fresh pineapple.

Of all the many plants that have “lemon” in their names, I like lemon balm the best. Its fragrance alone is reason to grow it. I have never offered it to a woman who didn't like the scent — although there was a man who said it smelled like furniture polish. It tastes just as good as it smells, too. It is a welcome addition to salads, including fruit salads, and a good garnish for vegetable and fish dishes. I especially like it with early green peas.

Lemon balm in Annake's garden

The “balm” in its name shows that it has been used medicinally. My research told me that Roman soldiers used it as a poultice on wounds, claiming it helped them heal without infection. While gathering fresh herbs one morning, I suffered a nasty cut to the palm of my hand. I cleaned the cut, washed some lemon balm, and applied it to the cut, wrapping a clean cloth around the hand. The pain decreased right away and soon ceased altogether. When I checked it an hour or so later, I could actually see the sides of the cut drawing together. By afternoon, there was only a bright pink line across my palm. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it! The cut healed completely and left no scar. We tend to disregard the wisdom of the ancients, but they were wise in many ways — or else we wouldn't be here!

Another of my favorite mints is horehound. It is a pretty plant with small, oval, gray-green leaves edged neatly with white. The tiny white flowers form fluffy little wreaths around the joints of the stem, peeking shyly out from under the leaves. The plant is both fragrant and tasty. I remember my father buying me horehound candy when I had a sore throat. Fortunately, there is a shop in a town we visit frequently that still sells old-fashioned candies like anise, horehound, and sassafras.

Horehound, plant and flower specimen

How do you know a mint when you meet one? They have square stems, rather than the round or oval stems that most green plants have. Sage, marjoram, oregano, thyme and basil are mints. The lavender in bath salts and oils (and my anti-static dryer sheets) comes from mints, as does the patchouli in many popular perfumes. The multicolored Coleus species that we cultivate as houseplants are tropical mints. In Panama, we saw trees of the Hyptis species which have square trunks and can sometimes reach a height of 40 feet. Now that's a MINT!

Just for fun, try a new herb this week. I think you'll like it!

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