Some of you may know I'm putting in a 20' diameter "English" herb garden. I've had the circle laid out for weeks, covered with landscape fabric to solarize the {@*!$^g St. Augustine grass. This weekend I took the fabric off and laid stepping stones for the paths to the center, edged part of it (the little hammer-in plastic edging -- sorry but it's cheap and easy and does control roots a bit), and tilled the whole thing. I'm taking pictures as I go along and would rather post them all at once for contrast.
I realized my sage was doing poorly because the pot it was in was badly cracked. Sometimes I'm a really bad mother. So I went ahead and put it in its place in the garden, and I hope it's not too hot to have transplanted the poor thing. But it was dying in that pot, so maybe I did right.
So I've got seeds for four different colors of echinacea/coneflower, and will plant the outer edge of each quarter with a different color. The question is, can I just direct sow, and can I do it this fall? Or should I set in seedlings? Or should I wait until spring? I'm thinking I'll sow some come late September, and make sure and mark which quadrant has which color, and then sow the rest of the seeds in spring. Sound like a sound plan?
The cutesy but crucial thing I'm doing is making markers for everything. At the craft stores they have stepping stone kits, with letters you press into concrete. I'm making a little "name stone" for each plant, using a variety of sizes. I made "rosemary" in the lid of a Breyer's Ice Cream container. Only needed a butter container for "sage" and "aloe." I'll post successes and mistakes as I make them!
Tilled the new bed yesterday!
And yes, there is another question. Does anyone have any experience with herbs that do better sown in the ground than in pots? I want oregano and basil and others in this garden, but what I have is in pots, and if I put the pots in direct sun they die very dead. If I sow them in direct sun would they do better?
I'm not even going to try tarragon. *sniff*
What is preventing you from trying tarragon?
I know that dill and cilantro do not like to be repotted and do better sowed in their definitive place.
best of luck with your herb garden.
mermaid, it can't take the brutal heat/humidity combination here. Either podster or dmj has overwintered it (sorry I can't recall which) and it's done well. But it would never take full sun here, and the garden is definitely full sun.
Unless you know something I don't? I'd be happy to eat those words!
Spider, my late MIL had dill that did well; I've tried it in pots and it was not a success. Maybe I'll tuck some in a corner. I LOVE dill. And I'm going to try cilantro, direct sown. I've tried everything I can think of and cannot get it to grow in a pot down here.
Edited for spelling atrocity.
This message was edited Aug 21, 2006 3:47 PM
brigid, a lot of people kill their first tarragon plant and then go on to growing a bumper crop of it. The plant file on DG shows that it grows in your zone. If definitely grows in my 9b zone and came through the triple digit July heat wave without any difficulties.
I'm attaching a few links on tarragon cultivation that may help you figure our what your last plant didn't like about the place you planted it.
I'd give it another try. Try planting one in a pot that you can move around the garden to find it's best summer location. If you think the sun was too hot for it, do you have another larger herb planned for your herb garden that may be able to offer a little shade to the tarragon if you plant it next to it?
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1612.html
http://gardenaction.co.uk/fruit_veg_diary/fruit_veg_mini_project_october_3_tarragon.asp
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/72529
Thanks, mermaid! I really appreciate the links. And, at least in the kitchen, tarragon is one of my very most favorite herbs. I'll research it some -- I don't plan on giving it up entirely -- I just think it may do better inside on the kitchen window sill rather than in the garden. Then again, if I sow it directly, it could make a difference. Maybe it would like to be in the shade of the bay laurel?
Maybe it's a rite of nature, that you kill your first and then get your bumper crop. At least for tarragon. I may sow it here and there in the garden and see if there's a place it likes. Is yours in the ground, or in pots? Full sun?
You can't sow french tarragon. It has to be started from root or cuttings. I grow it both in a flowerbed and in the greenhouse. It comes back in the spring outside and I cut it yearround in the greenhouse. The plant I started with was pricey($9 for a gallon) but had several small plants in the container and has been established for years. Not sure which is user more often but basil and tarragon are close to number #1.
Mine is sown directly in the ground. It gets partial shade now from the mullein that is growing next to it. I've attached a photo of the garden bed on July 17th when you can actually see what is planted where. The tarragon is to the right of the garden gnome on the plant stake, just below the large fuzzy leaves of the mullein. There is an anise hyssop planted in front and to the right of the tarragon.
Grammy brings up a good point about the seed. True french tarragon usually has sterile seeds and is propagated from cuttings/runners. So if you've been growing it from seed, you must have the mexican or russian variety.
Here's the same section on July 30th. Use the gnome and the mullein for bearings.
The gnome has moved to the tarragon stake, which means the plant is just below him.
As you can see, it's getting some shade protection from the hyssop in the front and the mullein leaves behind it. This photo is taken from the south side of the bed looking northwest. The squash vines are on the north side.
Must have been dmj on the tarragon. That's one I haven't tried yet...
pod, I think it was dmj. I get my gardening buds mixed up when I'm not on the thread I'm thinking about. I just know I rely a lot on the two of you.
mermaid, I LOVE your garden! Is the pvc a frame so you can protect it, or is it an innovative and bewitching watering system? Your plants look so healthy and wonderful. It made me think I could protect it by planting it "under" the comfrey, but the comfrey fries in the sun as badly as the tarragon, if not worse.
Grammy, one of the things I read on one of the links mermaid sent was that after about three years you need to replace the plant altogether. Has this been your experience? Or does it renew itself when it comes back?
I did some more edging yesterday, and chatted with the sage. It's no worse, at least yet, for having been transplanted. Hopefully it's very happy.
Thanks for all the input. I'll post pics when I've really got the thing going.
brigid, the pvc frame is for plant protection & support. My DH designed it so that we can move the parts around as needed. In the winter, the upper pipes are connected to create a pitched roof. We cover the entire frame with plastic or agricultural fleece to create a greenhouse. As the squash and beans grow in the summer, we disconnect the roof pitch and swing the parts around to create a tall trellis in whichever section has the tall vines that year. I can run twine between any of the horizontal and vertical members to create the plant supports or shade that I need.
I have comfrey growing next to the tarragon. We hadn't yet gotten into the full heat of summer when I planted in mid June. We were tucking all the plants in under their fleece at night until mid-July. The tarragon and comfrey are in the middle section of the bed so that they receive some protection from the other plants. We plant intensively in a sort of combination of Jeavons/square foot/biodynamic methods that allows the plants to sort of mulch each other.
I've attached a photo of the tarragon that I took around 5pm yesterday. The tarragon is to the left of the gnome in this shot. I've already harvested quite a bit. The fuzzy leaves to the left of the tarragon, behind the dill, are the comfrey. I've tie the mullein leaves up a bit to get more sunlight in that section.
Here's a wider angle view of the same section.
That's absolutely wonderful. You're certainly giving me things to think about. And how nice it must be to have someone interested enough not only to help but to design something like that!
Count your blessings. We were in the full heat of summer by April. We'll still be in it at least another six weeks.
Mermaid, your herb garden is so inspiring! I want to sow herbs now, but everything I have is seed except for three rosemary's and a lavender. Our ground I don't think here (clay amended) is very good for herbs, but most of my potted ones are doing good. Oregano and marjoram are struggling - I may move them to a more shaded area of just morning sun.
I'm hoping my new seeds will grow well. I'm running between flowers and herbs, and still have fall veggies to get into the newly tilled area. I need to get better at time management....!
Thanks for the inspiration, all of ya'll.
~Sunny
Sunny, we know all about clay. California adobe isn't as red as the Georgia clay, but it is gets just as "dadburned hard as a rock" in the summer if you don't amend the living daily light into it (and just as slippery in the raining season). I can easily understand how the early settlers could mix it with straw to make bricks for their houses. My husband double dug the bed to get it ready to plant. Several bags of sand and compost went into the lower 18inch layer to improve drainage. 27 cu ft of compost was mixed into the top 18inches to loosed it up for planting. All this for a single 4 x 16 ft raised bed with 50 sq ft of growing area.
Herbs will usually grow when nothing else will. It's just a matter of figuring out what each one likes. I always recommend buying or seeding multiples of what ever herb you want to grow. The first ones are sacrifices to the garden gods. The next ones owe a debt to the one that was sacrificed. If they insist on looking piqued after you've coddled them, trying throwing a little guilt their way. Remind them of their sibling that sacrificed itself so that you would know where and how to plant the current one.
Sometimes you have to be sneaky. If the garden bed soil isn't right in the area I want the herb to grow, I dig a hole in the bed, fill it with potting soil, and then plant the herb.
One of my garden neighbors gave me a zatar plant (Jordanian oregano). I killed the first one. Planted it in full sun like a Greek oregano. Apparently zatar needs shade. Thankfully he gave me another plant, which is doing nicely as a house plant. I'm going to root a cutting when it gets a little bigger and try it outdoors again.
I start a few new plants from root cuttings every year. It is pretty easy to find now but when I first started with it finding a plant was not easy so I have always kept some babies going. It starts slow but grows fairly fast. Although it is not nearly as fast as basil or mint! But then what is?
Thanks for the encouragement mermaid :) Yes, the clay *is* slippery, as we just had a couple of nights of rain and I discovered I have a muck space down the slope of the garden. My poor tennis shoes :(
I repotted some down in the dumps lavender, and it seems to have perked up. I cut out all of the dead stuff, loosened its roots and gave it a new house in the sun. I hope it does better.
I'm just going to keep some clay pots around for the herbies and play it safe I think.
Grammy, I'll have to check out your kind of propagation; I've never done root cuttings before.
~Sunny
I grew french tarragon from seed in my containers and then sat the containers outside.
kanita, does the french tarragon you grew from seed look and taste like the french tarragon plants at the nursery? Where did you find the seed?
I have never bought a french tarragon plant from the nursery, so I can't compare it to that, however. I got the seeds from www.seedsfromitaly.com
Gardenmaid...I forgot to add, do a search for tarragon and it will pull up. This is the true french tarragon, not russian.
That's curious... DeBaggio seems quite sure that true French tarragon is sterile and can only be propagated vegetatively rather than from seed.
But if it tastes good and grows well for you, well, there's no arguing with that! ;-)
Well, Critter, I will tell you that out of 6 pots I started seeds in, only 1 germinated, and it took forever, but it did germinate.
That's interesting! Maybe once in a while the variety produces a viable seed? Cool.
Perhaps the low gerimination rate is the reason french tarragon is thought to have sterile seeds. I mean, if the plant has all the right parts, one would think if could reproduce by seed if it wanted to. Maybe certain rare conditions produce an aphrodisiac response in a tarragon? (hey baby flower, check out my pollen, winky winky)
nudge, nudge... wink, wink.... saay no more!
more plant porn... sigh...
Apologies Ann. I was thinking botanically....as in two tarragon plants holding leaves romantically in the sunlight. I've hand pollinated a few plants that were unable to fruit or seed on their own (not a tarragon though). Did not mean to offend.
OFFEND!?!?! It was the highlight of my day!
Y'all are too funny! But yes, I only got that one plant and have tried more seeds but have not had anything happen with them yet and I don't know how to take cuttings because they always seem to die on me. I tried it repeatedly with my bay leaf plant. My tarragon is getting big though, and it does taste like the tarragon I had when I went to a farmers maket in Paris. I think the Russian tarragon's leaves aren't as soft and thin as the French?
Sounds like a winner!
You might check over in the propagation forum about cuttings... I started a thread there a while backwith a summary of the method Tom DeBaggio uses, and I think there's been some enthusiastic discussion about rooting in water using a bubbler.
I finally got the DeBaggio book, and the Hill southern herb gardening one. I'm gathering so many resources I don't know where I'll find time to garden! I didn't realize the Hill one was from Hilltop Herb Farm. I had dinner there once, back in the late 70s. Incredible place.
I have a relatively decent French tarragon going in a pot that GardenGirl sent me, and hopefully can get a cutting or two started from that. I think one of the things that keeps me afraid of doing anything to it is that it looks so delicate. I did get seeds at some point that were labelled French tarragon, possibly from Richter's, but have read in several places it can't be done. They sprouted and promptly died.
So, kanita, you have to grow it and send a sample to each of us... ;p
Does French tarragon flower readily? I've grown it quite successfully for years in my zone 5A garden but i can't say I've ever noticed it flowering before. I purchased an additional plant this year and it is covered with flowers. So do you think I've really got French tarragon?
Ann
Does the new plant look and taste like your existing French tarragon?
I can't say that I've ever seen my plant bloom, but then I may be harvesting often enough that it doesn't try.