Melt

Hardly melt but I am an optimist. This is the result of letting things go.

This 1st picture shows kale, allysum, and calendula that so far have survived the winter. 2 months to go.

Here's another kale.

Here's the catnip cage showing that the catnip survived but catnip is not vulnerable to much except for cats.

And finally one of my favorites, a lovely leek. If this snow really melts I can harvest a few.

Mint Chutney

OK, so none of these images has anything to do with mint chutney. I've been distracted by raw alpaca fleece but I am not motivated to post in my spinning blog because frankly though I am enthused, I cannot share it as effectively as I can my garden with my beautiful images. If I could share the tactile via the internet that'd be something, but I can't and I am also more self-conscious of it. Instead, I share these pictures. Below, I share a sort of recipe for mint chutney that is delicious.

My monarda is finally starting to bloom. Monarda is in the mint family, so that sorta counts right? At some point I will expound on monarda, but not today.

I am so pleased that this bicolor butterfly bush is finally blooming. I got it is a 3" pot which means it is not as big as most I could have bought at a local nursery. However, I have not seen this variety locally. I got this from Mountain Valley Growers, who remain my favorite place to get live plants. Great prices, selection, service and the best packing I have seen is what you get from them. Did I mention that they are organic too?

These scarlet runners are starting to bloom. they do however look like they have some issue with this spot. There's a few corners in my garden where things don't grow right. Hopefully I can fix this. Anyway, scarlet runners are pretty tough so maybe this won't matter.

This vase came from the street, left as some sort of offering from an anonymous person that I have accepted. I put in a sort of false bottom to retain water so it is sorta self-watering. It seems to be working out OK. It's got asparagus fern, that curly grass and lobelia.

OK, so here's me paraphrasing a recipe I found online. Since I did not follow it to the letter I think that this is OK. In most cases I do not follow recipes to the letter, I just use them as guidelines.

Mint Chutney
2 parts mint
1 part cilantro
lemon or lime juice
fresh hot pepper - you decide how hot and how much
a bit of yogurt
chopped onions,perhaps a quarter or half as much of the cilantro

just put it in a blender add some juice to help it blend,yogurt too.

I think I might make a bunch of this and freeze it. MMMMMMMMM,great way to use some of that extra mint I have.

Volunteer Flowers

All of these flowers, though amaranth isn't exactly that, appeared here without me planting them. The amaranth I would have pulled up but I figured it came from the birdseed and I was curious. It isn't the prettiest thing but I think it has some sort of beauty. I think I will try to save this plume to feed the birds later on when food is more scarce.

Calendula flowers have appeared all over my garden. I enjoy them very much.

This viola came from a bunch I planted last year that all died out. Out of several dozen, just 2 or 3 plants have reappeared.

Rake Lawn Ornament

This rake struck me this morning with beauty as the cypress vine wound its way through it. I found it in the trash like so many garden things I am using.

The confusion of plants below are nasturtium, basil, monarda, calendula and marigolds. I have denuded the 2 tomatoes in this planter so that the other plants are not overshadowed. Some believe that tomatoes with less leaves produce more tomatoes and are less susceptible to disease.

All of these plants seem to be benefiting from the bokashi I have buried below.

This photo is much better seen full size.

I need to document my backyard

This morning I took 80some pictures. We had a good week of rain and warmth and it shows. I have fallen into choosing about 8 pictures a day to post and discuss. Today the choosing was pretty tough.

Here is a slice of the saladbowl, which probably should be harvested soon. The lettuce is starting to get bitter. I will replace it with something more suitable for summer weather. The pansies will probably die out as they get too hot, the chervil is bolting so something should replace those 2 as well.

Also shown is red giant mustard which I will probably all but eliminate. I'll leave one or two to go to seed.

In the background are the birdseed sunflowers which please me more and more each day. They have buds now. I imagine they won't get much taller than they are now but I could be wrong.

This tomato is a clear indicator that I do not grow my veggies for maximum productivity. A few years ago I grew a cherry tomato on a stoop that faced an alleyway that I encouraged passers-by to sample. I guess I like to share. As long as they don't end up throw tomatoes around. This will takes some engineering of this habitat.

I could call this photo 'gratuitous cat picture.' Sally tolerates the Cheddarhead, especially since he doesn't really take any guff. She used to run at him full speed but he always held his ground. Lucky for her, he didn't retaliate. Now she leaves him alone but she still is annoyed by him, as all cats annoy her

Finally my self-sown calendula is beginning to flower. Calendula has a very interesting story. It has excellent medicinal properties that have been known at least since Roman times.

May Garden

This box planter I found on the street turns out to have come from a friend. He did use it to store glass because that is his business. When he saw how I was using this box, and the boxes in back(I swear I will post about them soon) he was very pleased. Everything looks pretty good right now.

Here's the ubiquitous saladball. It's hard for me not to photograph it. I am trying to make it transition to summer smoothly. I just pulled out the large mizuna that bolted. I think other things will fill out and I tucked some more basil in it.

You can also see some other things growing here. I started one of those hanging grow bags with less than spectacular results, thus I have not photographed it much. There is also the ichiban in the background as well as the saladbowl, both looking very nice. The lettuce is starting to get a little bitter but it hasn't bolted yet. I might need to make some transitions with that planter too.

I love lemongrass. This is a stalk I rooted from Lotus, a local Asian grocery store. It finally is growing a 2nd stalk! Lemongrass grows really fast.

Here is the driveway side of the main bed. Visible is chamomile, sorrel, chives,broccoli and some birdseed plants which I just figured out are safflowers.

Garden Eyecandy

This might be obnoxious but I haven't been updating fast enought to catch up with my garden. Everything is just exploding!

This tomato is not in an ideal habitat but this isn't about perfect tomatoes, it's about fun and maybe sharing with the neighbors. It's a cherry, either juliet or super sweet 100. Don't be fooled by it's shady spot. I have plans to somehow train this against the railroad tie wall where there is plenty of sun. I just think I will have to tweak the balance of nutrients in its soil more carefully than a standard planting.These feral chamomile have miraculously not been tread upon. Either my neighbors understand that this isn't a weed or they just think I am crazy and are afraid to damage this flower. I think that they somehow understand that I am up to something special.The saladball is slowly filling out. I plant something else as if this were a sketch I sit with every few days. Always a work in progress. It already looks different than it did from this photo which is maybe a week old.For some reason this little bay laurel makes me happy. It suffered so much this winter and now it looks alive.These cascade hops are in their second year. What a difference a year makes! Maybe it will be worth harvesting this year.This blur of plants are pretty much all greens and all edible. OK, a few aren't but they aren't weeds. I thin them pretty much everyday. It sorta forces me to eat my vegetables. There's mizuna, red cabbage, pansies, florence fennel seedlings, onions and probably something I have forgotten. Damn! I have surpassed the 20 item limit of things I may tag this blog with. Sure, I could have made it 2 posts but whatever.This lacinato kale should be pretty graceful in this pot. I tucked in some allysum and some chervil thinnings from the salad bowl. There's even a basil plant, just basic basil. Now if I can find some red russian kale, I will be happy. I might have to grow it myself. hmph. One disadvantage of Pittsburgh is a lack of exotic stuff. Now if there were enough of a demand I WOULD put more effort into growing my own to share or perhaps sell with to other gardeners.These wallflowers are nice, and half haven't started blooming yet. Tansy, monarda and calendula have yet to flower. This wall is built of found things. I am quite fond of thrifting, indeed, my latest project is the result of thrifting, actually a good find. More on that shortly. I don't know if I have said it here, but I sorta feel like recycling in whatever form is a very patriotic thing to do. I don't want to be preachy, but when I think about things coming from far, far away and using fossil fuels to do things when it's all in your backyard it kinda upsets me.This cat always looks scared. here is a rare view of my backyard. It needs a lot of work. This was taken through my kitchen window. I don't think this cat is feral, she's just a scaredy cat.

These are my tulips at their best this year. Already more than half of them are done blooming. Just this yesterday I heard a very small child say very clearly "TULIPS" when he passed by with his family. This made my day.

These oyster mushrooms show a new direction I am going in garden synergy. If my experiments work out, I'll share them. Honestly for the most part if I show you something here I think you should try it for yourself. The stuff I am trying that I'm not sure about, I don't share.

These ants with amber distended bodies fed from my hummingbird feeder until I filled the ant guard with water. I really do not like ants but these look like jewels. These ants are actually, at least on my browser, a fifth of the size they are here. The black surface they are walking on is a cast iron shepard's hook which looks fairly smooth in normal vision.

I hope that in the future that I will stick to my goal of posting twice a week. I think the poison ivy set me back. Anyway, already I have a lot to document.