Garden update

sweet potato hill

We worked hard in the garden over Memorial Day weekend. Chuck got the sweet potatoes planted- 25 Beauregard plants, which we think are the ones we liked best from last year, and 25 Vardaman plants. I think next year I may order my slips from Sand Hill Preservation just to get a little choice and variety.

The herb garden is filling out- 5 of a new kind of rosemary called Barbecue are in a pot. Supposedly these yield longer, straight and sturdy stems good for skewering meat to barbecue. In the ground are a cilantro plant, already been harvesting some of it's leaves since it bolts so quickly, a yarrow, a dill, green Greek Basil, purple basil, the bronze fennel, 3 chive plants, and a perennial spinach substitute called Good King Henry. I have read about it for years, but had never seen one- when I ran into them at the Amish greenhouse, I bought it just to see. Around the edges of the bed, in the holes of the cinderblocks I put in an oregano, a Doones Thyme and Wedgewood thyme plant. Still to be placed is a Gota Kola plant- my directions say to plant it in the shade of a grape arbor, but I am not too sure about how that will work. I may put it between the bird bath and the sage plant. In another pot are 3 pineapple sages, and a Gerbera Daisy. Can you see the 2 thistle plants growing in the cinder blocks? I keep trying to remove them, but I never have my gardening gloves when I am out there. Actually, I keep hoping Chuck will take them out for me!
Apparently Boodles has enrolled herself in a gardener apprentice program- she has been digging holes all over the yard.
This afternoon I will be making rhubarb jam and steaming spinach to freeze. We like to add spinach to stirfries and to pizza, and I try to keep a good supply of local on hand. My spinach patch is about to bolt, so I plant to pull most of it today, and plant amaranth where the spinach was. Another spinach crop will go in the ground in the fall.

Tomorrow we are attending a Rain Barrel Workshop put on by the nearby Penn State Extension Center. For $25 we get a rain barrel and instructions on how to best use them. I'm very excited by that- we have one rain barrel, and I would like to have one for each downspout.