The herb garden: a (mint) family affair

Spearmint is growing into the basil area.

My herb garden faces WSW and is just outside the back door. It receives no morning sun, but lots of the hot afternoon sun. This location is really handy when I need to harvest something quickly as I'm cooking.

Many of our classic herbs are in the mint family (Lamiaceae), mostly because they produce wonderful (to us humans) smelling volatile oils. These same oils help repel some of their predators.

I had a couple of problems with members of the mint family spreading too aggressively in my small herb garden. I needed to deal with these unruly herbs--and now.

Mint rhizomes had spread four feet from the original plants.

The first problem was the spearmint (Menta spicata). I'd sown some seed here a couple of years ago and a few sprouted. I placed them in two pots and sunk them into the ground. The mint in one of the pots died, so I was left with only one sunken pot. But this past year some more mints germinated and I had a problem that I needed to fix before "things" got out of hand.

Their sturdy rhizomes were more numerous than the visible sprouts threatening the basil plants would indicate. I pulled them all out. But I wanted to sink another pot of mint in the garden so I'd have enough mint for my teas and other cooking projects.  I coiled two lengths of rhizome into a pot filled with compost, watered it well, and sank it behind the first pot.

Two sunken pots of mint in the herb garden.

The other day I made a delightful cold cucumber soup with mint as the main herb. Here's a link to the recipe I used.  Except I used plain non-fat yogurt (with some water to make it about the same thickness as buttermilk), white rice vinegar, and I did not remove the cucumber seeds. Yummy; and quite refreshing for a hot day.

The rest of the mint I gave to two neighbors. I suggested that they plant the mint in pots, so they would not have a run-away-mint problem like I did.

Greek oregano makes a good groundcover--maybe too good.

The next problem was the Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare hirtum ). I'd purchased a 4" pot with a spindly little plant a couple of years ago. And it has turned into this massive carpet of groundcover, spreading onto the sidewalk and into the chives.

Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) are the smallest species in the onion family. A perennial onion that stays green here in north Florida year round. I've had this group of chives for five or six years now.

Between the chives and the rosemary is a good sized population of another onion family member meadow garlic (Allium canadense), which is a native here in Florida, but it dies back in the summer. So now there is an empty spot in the garden, but it will sprout again when the snow birds begin to return to their winter abodes here in Florida. Read my post, "A native herb amongst the Mediterraneans" for photos and more information.

Family feud: Mints vs. Onions
The onions would lose, probably.

The oregano had grown into the chives, and probably would have eventually choked them out altogether.  I certainly did not "need" all that oregano, so I carefully pulled it from around the chives, from the sidewalk, and from the sprinkler head. I uprooted some of the chives in the process and used them to start two new bunches behind the original population.

As I was uprooting the runners, several toads, large and small, jumped away. Not only is the oregano a beautiful groundcover and a butterfly magnet with its flowers, but now I know that it also provides habitat for my garden bug predators.

A toad flushed from its hiding place
in the mat of oregano.

Other mint family members in my herb garden

The sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum) is an annual. It can reseed, but won't spread with rhizomes. It is planted toward the back of the garden. Like most mints, it roots easily in water or damp sand. I'm rooting some now to plant in the garden in the fall. Read my post, "The royal herb: sweet basil."

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) is a woody or shrubby mint family member that is planted in the right-hand corner of the garden. I trimmed it way back last fall, so it's still a reasonable size now. When my husband and I walk by, we bush a hand along the rosemary to unlease its intense aroma. Anything that causes you to breathe deeply and say, "Mmmmm!" or, "Ooooh!" is a good thing.

The last herb in my garden right now is some sweet leaf (Stevia rebaudiana), a member of the daisy family (Asteraceae) that came back from last year's plants. I used the leaves in some teas and tried using it in some sweet salads, but we did not care for the super sweet taste. I'm not sure why I left it there; maybe I'll find a better use for it.

After I cleared out the rambunctious mint family members, I mulched the whole bed with street needles--pine needles I gather from the neighborhood streets.

I think all of my actions have resolved the family feud in my herb garden--at least for a while.

When I was done, the herb garden looked much neater.

How does your herb garden grow?

Green gardening matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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Visit a wildflower hotspot sometime soon!

My gardening companion and I are off to a conference focused on gardening with native plants this week (in Cullowhee, NC).  It's a great conference, and long-running (25+ years, I think).  It should be great.  I've been a number of times, but not as frequently as I would have liked.

Check out this recent article in the Wall Street Journal about Wildflower hotspots! 

Who knew that there were specific garden tours for wildflowers, but sign me up.

Here's the link to the story from Wildflower Ecology. 

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Is gardening political?



The White House's organic vegetable garden

 The other day I posted this photo of Michelle Obama out in the White House vegetable garden on my Sustainable Gardening for Florida Facebook page. I asked the question:

"Do you think Michelle's garden has changed the nation's mindset about organic gardening?"

 

I was expecting a discussion on organic vs. standard gardening, or maybe a comment on the raised beds. But no, the first two comments appeared to be politically motivated:

 

"...is she actually working in the garden herself ... or does she have someone else pull weeds and hoe ???"
"...I think most people have the same thought."

 

Then a couple of people countered with:

"You guys..she started a garden..brought attention to gardening..brought attention to healthy foods that come from a garden..and you want to find some kind of fault..are you kidding me?????? You think most people have the same thought? No they don't..GOOD people recognize GOOD works... and most people are good..BECOME good people and find the good..GEEZ..this crap has got to STOP!"

and
"She promotes gardening across the country, serves produce from the garden at State Dinners bring further attention to the garden and the results and has written a book about it."

 

When I finally logged back into the Facebook again, I said:

"Gosh, we're all gardeners here, aren't we? I think she has opened an important discussion and made a significant difference in how people think about vegetable gardens. She has introduced many of the local school kids to gardening, too. If we get kids involved in gardening now, the future will be better for them and for all of us.
And the profits from the book sales goes to the National Park Service, which maintains the White House property and so many other parks that house our natural treasures."

 

The first commenter came back with:

"and alll those people in white shirts re secret service personal protection --- eh ??? well , she is ussing and promoting monsato seeds and what not , i wouldnt trust her any further than i could throw a cow !"

 

And so it continued... Someone pointed out that "the seeds for The White House Garden are from High Mowing, a seed company that is so far removed from Monsanto that the difference is night and day." I could have pointed out that the people in the white shirts are the White House chefs who have fully particpated in this project.

 

So, IS the organic vegetable garden on the White House property a controversial topic? 

 

What I recall is that the big chemical companies were quick to criticize the project saying that the garden could not succeed without their chemicals. That Michelle was giving ordinary Americans the wrong idea.

 

Some say that this is politics as usual and that the unrestrained anger toward the Obama's and anything and everything they do is fair game.

 

I disagree.

 

Some of the first ladies have initiated some great projects that seem to have been appreciated by the whole country and not made into a political scandal. Ladybird Johnson had a wonderful vision of beautifying the country and her legacy is the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center.  Barbara Bush worked on literacy in the country and wrote a book from her dog's point of view. Laura Bush also worked on various literacy projects, which were appreciated by the left and right.

 

For example, my leftward leaning friend and author, Lucia St. Clair Robson, was invited to and attended an authors' breakfast at the White House. She went out of respect for the office and to particpate in lively discussion. Later she received this Christmas card from Laura.

 

 

 

Today, I think that people lack that respect.  It's a sad state of affairs when even gardening becomes political.

 

Can't we all just garden together for the greater good?

 

 

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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Nectaring after the rain

front meadow planting

An exceptionally rainy spell (three+ days) finally broke, with bright sunshine late this afternoon.

Tiger swallowtail and bumblebee (notice how battered the flowers are!)

The swallowtail just kept working the flowers!

A tiger swallowtail was taking advantage of the dry weather to get some serious nectaring done. This individual spent almost 15 minutes working on a flower spike of this Liatris, supported from flopping by a green plant stake.

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MORE meadows, pocket meadows, and prairie gardens

I've been immersing myself in learning more about meadow gardening (and prairie gardening) and naturalistic gardens as practiced by Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury and others. It's not an unfamiliar topic for me, but I've having fun revisiting it.

I'm doing a pocket native gardening program at the Cullowhee Native Plants Conference next week, so I'm wanting to be up to date.

It's so interesting that our North American natives (prairie species, but also our successional meadow species in the Eastern U.S.) have been embraced by naturalistic garden designers in the UK, the Netherlands, and Germany.

I would so like to visit Piet and Anya Oudolf's private garden this fall and some of the German gardens that are being experimental with naturalistic gardens.

I've got just enough frequent flier miles to book a flight -- perhaps that's a signal that I need to go!

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The birdhouse gourd adventure

A 3-year old birdhouse gourd sprouts in the compost.

Three years ago I thought it would be fun to grow a birdhouse gourd vine. They are not really edible so I'm not sure what my original motivation was. One of the vines did extremely well, scrambled into some nearby tree branches and grew to about twenty feet high with numerous gourds hanging from the tree like Christmas tree ornaments.

Some of the gourds ended up in the compost and sprouted just like this one. I was on my book tour (for Sustainable Gardening for Florida) and was a vendor for several gardenfests. The timing was right for two of them and I'd potted all the seedlings into 4" pots and gave them away to kids. I'd kept one gourd as the sample so they could see what they'd get. When the seedlings were gone, I stuck the sample gourd into some branches of a shrub in a thicket. I thought some bird would break into it and build a nest, but that didn't happen. Last winter, I put it onto the compost pile.

Last week I saw that the seeds were still quite viable and had sprouted in the compost again.

The new spot for the gourds at the edge of the cleared area.

I've been working on getting some beds done in time for some fall pumpkins. (More on this later.) I did not wish to provide any room in my regular beds for the gourds, but I had a spot at the edge of the clearing that I could use for them.

I'd saved out a bunch of dead leaves from various gardening activities. I've been using them as a water-retention layer at the base of the beds I've been building. I had some leftover leaves. I dumped two wheel barrel loads of leaves for the gourds. (I'll use the rest of the leaves for building a new compost pile.)

I dumped a load of finished compost on top of the leaves and fashioned a squash mound with a center swale. I planted the best-looking seedlings around the the edge of the mound and broke up the rind and the less mature seedlings and placed them in the center of the swale. After all that, I watered the whole mound and especially soaked the center. I will not use too many resources--water and otherwise--to grow the gourds, but if they do grow as successfully as the one vine three years ago, I will make a purple martin apartment house and install it down by the lake. Maybe inviting more purple martins into the yard will reduce the mosquito population.

Top view of the planted seedlings with the rind and the less mature seedlings in the center of the squash mound swale.

I will keep you updated on my gourds, pumpkins, birdhouses, and more.

Green gardening matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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Mystery squash, easy basil, and fall vegetables

I've been down in the Piedmont for a couple of days -- for an evening hike at the Garden with a bunch of fabulous Summer Science Research high school students and a vet check-up for Woody (his partially-torn crucial ligament is being monitored -- happily, he's improving again).

Thankfully, we've had enough periodic rain that everything looks good, even though the lakes nearby (Lake Hartwell) and the ponds at the Garden are way down.

Interestingly, there's a mystery squash in the satellite garden.

I'd pretty much given up on squash in the Piedmont because of woodchucks in the back woodlot, but perhaps they've gone elsewhere now.  This "mystery" vine (quite healthy) is producing small butternut-shaped squash that have outer markings like young tromboncino squash, and were totally delicious as part of my dinner tonight, along with some young leeks and a red 'Pizza' pepper.  Yum.

I'm planning on planting long-season fall vegetables later in the month, continuing through August.  It's SO hard to think about sowing seeds and planting when the temperatures are in the upper 90's.

Young basil in flats up in the mountains have already yielded some exceptionally- tasty pesto. I hope they'll have been well-watered in last night's thunderstorms.  It's a great way to grow basil.  I've been doing this for awhile and it's totally superior to trying to coax edible leaves out of older basil plants in the garden.

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