April 29, 2012

Garden Time

My bed isn't nearly as good looking....yet
Spring seems to have come a bit early this year and I've been mowing the lawn for a month now.  The traditional last frost date for Boise is early May and I recall having snow on Memorial Day last year.

This year is an odd one so far, but I'm not complaining.  The Lilac bush by the front door is in full bloom and smells wonderful.  The birds are chirping all day and the frogs, well I've mentioned the wonderful frogs before.

I will add that even though the frogs are closer to a friend's house than they are to ours, the way the sound travels off of the foothills and back makes it so that we get to hear they cannot.  Sucks to be them.  With the warmer weather this year I wonder if the migration to our creek will come sooner rather than later.

Did you know that catnip is a mosquito repellent 10x more effective than DEET?
Yesterday I got some herbs for our garden and today I picked up some more, along with some vegetables.  Last year we had catnip, zucchini, and a bunch of tomatoes.  The catnip is a perennial and now we have a great looking bush that I'm going to harvest some this week.  While I had enough zucchini to freeze last year I went ahead and got a single plant for this year.  It went into one raised bed along with two cherry tomato plants.  I think I'm going to shy away from "regular" tomatoes this year because last year we didn't have much of a crop and I was stuck with the green tomatoes.  While most of that was because I planted too late, I think we eat more of the cherry tomatoes if they are available.  They make great finger-food snacks.

Right now we have two small four foot square raised beds and a single half-barrel planter.  Last year I made the beds out of 2x8 or maybe they were 2x10 lumber.  I had the folks at Home Depot cut them in half and I used some simple construction metal ties to fasten them together.  It was cheap and easy, not to mention sturdy.  I think I'd like to put in one more bed this year, but I think that will be it.

The second bed is going to be my herb garden of sorts.  I have the aforementioned catnip, bit now I also have sage, basil, oregano, rosemary, peppermint, chamomile, and dill. I expect the plants to just completely take over the bed and it should look pretty striking when everything grows out.

This year I also picked up a single rhubarb plant for the barrel planter.  It won't be ready for any harvesting until next year, but that is ok by me.

I don't think you can plant a garden and be a pessimist.

No comments: