Harvest Monday 5/18/2015 - Melissa and Monarda

I started to dry herbs!

Lemon balm and bee balm this year are growing like  weeds.

 Lemon balm, or Melissa officinalis, was starter 2 years ago from seeds.

 - from www.herbwisdom.com
Lemon Balm was dedicated to the goddess Diana, and used medicinally by the Greeks some 2,000 years ago. In the Middles Ages lemon balm was used to soothe tension, to dress wounds, and as a cure for toothache, skin eruptions, mad dog bites, crooked necks, and sickness during pregnancy. It was even said to prevent baldness. As a medicinal plant, lemon balm has traditionally been employed against bronchial inflammation, earache, fever, flatulence, headaches, high blood pressure, influenza, mood disorders, palpitations, toothache and vomiting. A tea made from Lemon balm leaves is said to soothe menstrual cramps and helps relieve PMS.


Bee balm, or Monarda, Eastern Beebalm, Bergamot, Wild Oswego Tea, Horsemint was on ,y property before I moved in. I also planted red variety to the purple one.

from http://altnature.com - Bee Balm leaves and flowers and stems are used in alternative medicine as an antiseptic, carminative, diaphoretic, diuretic and stimulant. An infusion is medicinal used internally in the treatment of colds, catarrh, headaches, and gastric disorders, to reduce low fevers and soothe sore throat, to relieve flatulence, nausea, menstrual pain, and insomnia. Steam inhalation of the plant can be used for sore throats, and bronchial catarrh (inflammation of the mucus membrane, causing an increased flow of mucus). Externally, it is a medicinal application for skin eruptions and infections. Bergamot’s distinctive aroma, found in both the leaf and flower is wonderful for use in potpourri.








Please visit : Daphne’s Dandelions “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest or how they are using their harvests for the week.

Greenhouse update May 8

Last fall I was renovating/rebuilding my hoop-house.
First it was simple PVC hoop-house with regular , not greenhouse plastic, wich did not survive the winter snow.
I decided to make completely new wooden greenhouse.
First of all - I am not a builder and my hubby can't help me. It is in my blood how to handle the hammer, I believe -my grandparents were farmers. 

 Greenhouse is 24 feet by 12 feet, it is also on a slope what makes me life more difficult.
I was hoping to finish it before winter 2014-2015 but hurt my finger very badly so I stopped and only salad, onions and some asian greens survived there.

 This spring is very fast,everything suppose to be done by yesterday! And I have about 1 hr a day to work in a garden, so building process is slow.

 There is an entrance - bricks raised beds, new compost, pine shaving between.
I/m cleaning it from the front will the end side.

 There is a lettuce and onions from last fall.

 My first goal is to make a good roof support and I will not be covering the GH with plastic till fall probably, do not have time for it.

On the very back of the GH I decided to make a tall raised bed for probably squashes or cuces. Right now there are leaves from clean-up, I will add compost and plant something.
The back side is still a mess.

Harvest Monday 5/4/2015

Today my harvest (except the greens) is unusual:

Japanese knotweed of the left and asparagus on the right.

Japanese knotweed is a common weed but also a tasty edible treat in spring.
In the early spring, Japanese knotweed looks like an army of nondescript fat, green, red-flecked stalks poking up from the ground. I am not growing them, only discovered them last fall on the edge of the plot. I was using Japanese knotweed tincture and ordered some dried roots for making it.
Of course after I made an order, I found free plants.
When the shots are young, they taste like rhubarb, or spinach and sorrel. 
I ate them raw but it also can be steamed as asparagus.

Please visit : Daphne’s Dandelions “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest or how they are using their harvests for the week.

Plating first tomatoes, oka and potatoes

 The spring weather turns out to be a summer very fast, we missed 50s and came to 70s in one week. I decided not to plant radishes but tomatoes.

 and some oka (white and pink) beneath the large tomatoes plants.

 The new bed in the middle with the strawberries bed on the left and carrot bed on the right.

 Baby basil

 I also had some store-bough organic potatoes that sprouted, I planted them in post and they grew huge. I found the small bed for them.

 newly planted potatoes.

 This year I am a big fan of pine shavings.
I want to cover all the beds and all the passes to prevent weeds and dry soil.

 Strawberry is started to bloom, so lovely.

 My 3-years old red currants are blooming this year!

Other plants like cabbages are doing pretty well too.

Carrots

The fist carrots were in on Apr 12, it is 10 days now and I can see some of the young plants up.


I still have some small carrots in the ground, missed by me and my deers.

 First I cleaned the bed from leaves (this winter I covered most of the beds with oak leaves and black fabric), then added compost and peat moss.

 I sowed the seeds, cover them with peat moss and tapped with wood board.

The bed is covered with "argibon".












In a meantime my rhubarb is up

And greens in square foot bed is doing good.

 

Spring strawberry clean up

I am not very experienced gardener, especially in growing strawberry.

I am growing everbering and june berring types and I do not have much sun in the garden, which may be the reason I do not have big harvest.



The first type of berries I got was Ozark beauty - and the plants  and 3 years old now.


You can see the plant inself is pretty healthy after the winter. I was covering them with oak leaves.
It was a lit of snow this winter and some of plants did not survive - I see the growing point is rotting and 3-4 plants so I have to remove them.




Last year I planted 3 more bareroot  types - 1. Honeoye
That's how the bed was look like after the winter - plants covered with wood shaving and leaves.

I did not see berries last (the first) summer.

I was also surprised that some of the plants roots are out of the soil.
I checked the plants, removed the old mulch, added compost to the roots and new mulch - wood shaving again.

 The bed after the clean-up.

 Two other types are Tristar and Tribute, everbering types - they were very productive last year.

My experiment was of growing them on the black mulch. I like this idea, no weeds, but I lost 5 plants this winter. The plants were pulled out of the ground and frozen.

The Tristar plants after cleaning.






My absolutely love is alpine strawberry - last year I added to my collection -

Golden Alexandria.
Small plants, with green-yellow leaves and everbering berries with very strong smell!
Not so much but as a treat!

 There is one of the bed under my red currant bushes.

This one is a wild strawberry that was brought from NH forest and overwintered here.

Harvest Monday 4/6/2015

My harvest today is some of the volunteer garlic.
Last year I planted some bulbs here and there to deter deers and also some of the small bulbs I probably missed to harvest. And now I have volunteers everywhere.

 The whole garlic bed, planted in different time.

 Overwintered lettuce and asian cabbage.












The first of the bulbs.

Green peas planted a week ago.




Shared at: Daphne’s Dandelions “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest or how they are using their harvests for the week.