I’m still waiting on my Pycnanthemum muticum, clustered mountain mint, to germinate. But in more positive news I was allowed to take a cutting of Monarda bradburiana, spotted bee balm, home with me yesterday.
What’s growing on with you all?
Edited to add an image of the bee balm:
Currently enjoying a salad of overwintered kale and cabbage, beet greens from thinning the sprouts, a couple radishes, and snap peas, with sunflower seeds and fresh dill sprinkled on top. I just added grocery store cucumber and bell pepper, because I was behind on planting those. This is what we do it for!
That sounds wonderful, and is totally what it’s all about!
First good harvests of basil and sorrel. A few cherry tomatoes but full production hasn’t started yet. Pluots are coming ripe, and ornamental passion fruits, which most people do not deem edible, but I do :)
We’ve had a relatively cool start to summer which the plants have been loving. My citrus is even still blooming which is quite unusual.
Rad! We’re just starting to hit the kind of temps that tomatoes and basil appreciate, but our sorrel has already bolted.
When you say ornamental, do you mean P. incarnata? Or some other kind?
Mine started bolting but I just keep cutting it back.
In my area P. caerulea is a common ornamental vine. Not the most delicious species but not bad either. The inside of the fruit is bright red and almost looks bloody. I think maybe that’s a factor in why they’re not eaten, since it might be a bit off-putting for some.
You can read about them here: https://notahorticulturist.com/2019/08/23/passiflora-caerulea/
That’s a good move, if it weren’t for our plant nursery we would be extending the sorrel harvest the same way.
Those passion fruit are awesome, and I wish I could grow them here without needing to bring them inside for winter
Oh are you in a very cold climate? I think they are one of the most hardy species, along with P. incarnata. I’d also like to try growing that species but they don’t seem to be commonly available here. I’ve also heard of people growing P. edulis but it’s marginal for them since they’re more tropical.
I live in an urban area so I’m always trying to figure out how to maximize my use of space and vines are one such way. I tried growing a hardy kiwi this year but it’s struggling—I think it came with phytophthora from the nursery.
We’re in USDA 5, and looking at its cold tolerance we still trend lower than the -10C/14F I see listed for it, sometimes for weeks on end.
I have a lot of sage growing hard and fast so I’m going to have to harvest some this weekend to prevent the plants from collapsing.
Now I’m regretting not planting tomatoes, would have made a nice soup with the sage.
Recipe ideas with sage anyone? 😅
In other news: I introduced a beetle into my terrarium that I thought would help eat the little flies that got in there. Turns out my research was wrong and the beetle is a herbivore that’s eating the plants in my terrarium… Whoops. I haven’t seen it since I put it in there, but I have seen leaves getting slowly chomped up and a lot of tiny poops on the plants and glass.
Fortunately it seems to dislike everything that’s not a fern, so I’m expecting everything to work out. Or maybe the beetle will show up and I’ll take it out again. At least it’s been interesting 😂
I like sage with butternut squash soup, personally. And there’s probably still some time for you to get a harvest of those.
I’ll give it a try, thanks!
Carrots appear to have mostly died unfortunately, and a stupid groundhog keeps eating the leaves off my squash plants. I’ve been trying to chase him off for a while now.
That’s a bummer =/
Could you fence off the squash in some way? Maybe plant some sacrificial ones elsewhere while you protect the ones that are for you?
I put fencing up around the plot today, hopefully that works. Next step is to systematically armor up all the areas that it keeps trying to dig into with landscaping blocks.
Plenty of rain lately, so almost everything is growing a lot. Some of the jackfruits that I planted last year are still struggling, but most of them had some root damage during transplant, so I’m not surprised. Some of the new engkalas are really taking off now, despite everything in the world trying to kill them. I recently direct-seeded some Flemingia macrophylla as an alley crop in one area, but it hasn’t come up yet… I’m mainly doing maintenance this month: pruning some bigger trees, removing all of the little guavas that sprout up, and planting more pinto peanut. The grass is growing back in many areas, but I’ll keep chopping it down and uprooting it in front of the pinto peanut so that that can take over.
Edit: I smell a ripe jackfruit. I guess I’ll be eating that today.
I adore how consistently I get to learn about unfamiliar plants when you post! Your space sounds so lovely 💕
Thanks! There’s still way too much grass for my taste, but it’s getting more lovely all the time. More durian would be nice.
As an aside, imgur changed their url handling and my habit of using the i.imgur links to mirror here no longer works. Anyone got a recommendation for a luddite like myself?
I guess Blaze’s recommendation worked out. The image looks fantastic.
