My friend moved some of my herbs from the old house last week. Despite below freezing temps, they look fine.
I should have taken a closer shot, but there are 2 curley parsley, 2 flat-leafed parsley, some thymes, sage, chives and a mint that's in a pot. It will be lovely to walk along the path and pick what I need at the moment.
He also transplanted 2 rosemary's. I hope they are close enough to the house to get some reflected heat over the winter. Rosemary is marginal here.
Good for you!
It's beginning to look downright homey now!
Hope you're feeling better soon.
Glad you have friends close by who love you and help you.
Love & Hugs,
Well, it was paid help, which I can ill-afford, but at least I have a few more plants here now. He also planted my several hostas that had been in pots over a year, and a plethora of foxglove I had started earlier from seed Nat sent to me.
Ditto to see how nice your herb garden's progressing. There should always be more herbs outside than dustmoots inside, I always say.
Rosemary 'Arp' has wintered outside here in Maryland - a fur piece north above your neck of the woods - except for when it gets covered with ice and snow. Have you tried the rosemary 'Arp' variety? Hopefully someone might have it for trade in spring.
This winter I may invert a glass jar over an unnamed rosemary variety, along with jars over other borderline cold-hardy plants to see what happens.
I suppose I'll also find out come Spring if it's a good idea to plant garlic this late. Will sally out tomorrow with a bulb from the local supermarkert - it should look right purdy behind a row of iceland poppies (Papaver nudicaule 'Meadow Pastels' from seed earlier this year). Darius, why don't you plant some garlic too?
How can you have all those bushes there and not have parsley-loving critters lurking among them with p a r s l e y written all over their snouts?
We thought we were so smart building frames over our kitchen garden this year and draping bird netting over them. It worked to an extent - first year in a while our vegies have had any tops to themselves.
However, some critter ate our parsley from beneath the ground, leaving just a few sprigs poking up from the excavation.
In the past, I've spent many a winter camped out in front of the boob tube making chicken wire baskets to sink in the ground under vulnerable plants/bulbs or to use as tents over new sowings/seedlings. But we've been boobtube-less in recent years, and 50' of chicken wire just don't seem as attractive without ye olde boobtube.
Haven't seen any critters around so far except a few neighboring dogs, one squirrel and one cat. Here's hoping the bunnies, etc. have their meals in abundance elsewhere. I guess I'll have a better idea what's around when spring rolls back in.
One rosemary is arp; I've had several of them over the years and they get big, usually. The other one in the background in new to me and it's too cold for me to want to go outside and check the tag right now.
This is the first year I haven't planted garlic in some years. I may yet plant some. I really wish I had started leeks, though they would have been at my aunt's house.
I bought some really incredibly long, decent diameter organic leeks at the store yesterday (Can you say vichyssoise?), a bunch of 3/$2.99. The white part was over 12" long, and they were 2 bins away from short stubby reg. leeks, 3/$2.49 with only about 2" of white stalks, if that.
no, but I can say can opener. heehee
LOL!
Some time has passed since I said “can opener” on this forum, but I hope you won’t mind a few more words on the subject. My can opener has magical powers and was gifted to me by a flower fairy in my garden one evening as I was snorting around after a bad day at work and on the Baltimore Metropolitan Transit System. This was one of those years in Maryland when, just as the old roses are coming into bloom, Mother Nature pounces on them with a week above 90°F that fries the flowers into crispy critters even before they fully open. The Boss and Mother Nature were in cahoots and the dark, little grumps in my wake as I oozed down the garden path were singeing the flower fairies’ wings -
“Ouch!”
“Hello?”
“Stop that! We’ve decided enough is enough, so take this can opener.”
“Well, coming from you, I have to ask, ‘What does it do?’”
“It’s a spirit opener. It won’t operate when you decide you want to use it, so leave it alone, but keep it near you. It operates itself when it feels like it. It doesn’t like to work on cans of worms, but sometimes when it’s around a beautiful person, it will nudge that person to share some of his/her beauty with the world around him/her. There’s beauty in your boss and that bus driver - they just need a little magical nudge. After carrying around this magical can opener with you during the day, you will return to the garden sprinkling fairy dust instead of grumps.”
“Well, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The strangest things have been happening in my life since this can opener came into it. I joined DG and have met many other gardeners who freely gift others with their plants and seeds and imaginations and gentle spirits. Perhaps the can opener has nothing to do with it. Certainly, no one needs a magical can opener to pry those enchanting stories out of ‘Shoe, who has given me permission to post the following Shoe story. Quills and can openers - spirit lifters all.
“Milking the Bees”
©Horseshoe Griffin
Excerpt from That Old Man's Memories
Yep! It was that time of year again! It was time to go milk the bees. Lots of folks around here wanted, and needed, local honey to help out with their allergies. We did our best to oblige.
This time of year we'd head out early in the morning, just before sun-up, with our lassoes, honey pots, wishful thinking, and hope for the best. Big Rex always said since he had to milk the cows for milk it was my chore to milk the bees for honey. Besides, as he said, I had much smaller hands for that duty, and it was only befittin'.
When we arrived at the "bee pasture" he'd pick out a big fat one flying by and throw the lasso and bring it down. It created an awful commotion but I learnt that if you put your thumb on its hushup (located just behind its neck and before its shoulders) it would nearly go to sleep. Most of the time we wouldn't even need to hog-tie 'em!
Once the bee was pleasantly succumbed I'd straddle it over one of the honey pots and put my little fingers to work, squirting out the honey. (Don't be alarmed. Most folks don't know that honey at "bee temperature" is in a liquid/squirt state. It really doesn't thicken up until it gets to room temperature.and gets even more thicker when it's at "cold temperature", as I'm sure you know. (And cuz you know that, I'm sure you'll nod your head and agree with the afore-mentioned fact, that I just mentioned.)
Once we had gotten 5 or 10 gallons of honey, and all the bees for miles around were happily milked AND extremely satisfied, me and Big Rex would load up the mule (both sides of him) with the honey pots and head on back home.
Now, you might ask me what satisfied them bees. If ya ask me something, I'm gonna tell ya! But maybe I'll save that for another time.
LOL, haden't heard that one from 'Shoe before.. but it fits with your magical can opener, Karen!
Hah!
Looks to me like I got "can opened"!? Would luv to have a can opener like that!
Folks, the above-written piece was a "signature" at the bottom of one of my emails to Karen once. (Sometimes I provide a 'Thought for the Day', sometimes an excerpt of some sort, on my correspondence.) Apparently this one struck Karen's fancy and she specifically asked if she could share it with Darius. (Laughter being good medicine it was to help your healing process, Darius!)
From what it looks like to me, maybe Karen should write some more about what else goes on in her fairy garden, eh? Who knows what else goes on there!
Darius, looks like you're on your way to a garden! Not quite sure what else you can plant this time of year (altho I'd still go ahead and get some garlic in; it's worth a shot). Maybe in the Spring you'll have a wish list. Be sure to holler if so!
Thanks, 'shoe... sure wish I knew what will be sunny and what will be shade so I could do some planning early. Sigh.
Got some shallots to go in tomorrow, and some garlic.
I'm so sorry, Darius that you aren't feeling well. I wish we lived closer- I would make you a spice garden that you could put a lounge chair in, take naps and soak up the aromas.
I'm leaving a space in my herb garden just for that purpose, LOL!
Thanks for the thought...
Well, it stopped raining today and I managed to plant about 8-9 shallots. Had to rest, take some oxygen, then got about a dozen garlic cloves planted too. While in spring I will wish I'd had more to plant, that was about all the energy I had.
