Fancy Flourishing Flora

On June 29, 2020June 27, 2020 By CarynIn Garden

The day lilies are blooming in my front yard. I love when I find the right spot to plant and the flora flourishes. These are particularly fancy with their triple petal layers.

Another one gone to seed

On June 19, 2020June 16, 2020 By CarynIn Garden

I now have a carrot that has gone to seed. It somehow escaped the harvest (which was rather a sad harvest, as I planted carrots just to see what happened, but didn’t prep our hard clay soil for carrots, so the roots were small and stunted). As it grew up tall and lush with the spring rain, I decided to just let it do its thing. The flowers are impressive bundles of white! I have since been reading more about carrot seed collection (this is a good article), and it will be interesting to see what, if anything, will grow from the seeds. This is a longer experiment; I need to wait until the end of summer when the flower heads turn brown, then collect the flower heads and let them dry completely before collecting the seeds.

Garden sack experiment

On May 31, 2020May 25, 2020 By CarynIn Garden

I filled up the chicken feed bucket and had an empty feed sack. I had some dirt left over from the strawberry planting project. I had some carrots that were getting leggy in the fridge. I’ve seen some posts on planting potatoes in sacks. Why not? I’ll try planting carrot tops.

I folded the top of the feed sack down to the base, to form a double walled container. I cut some drainage holes in the bottom of the sack and filled it with dirt. I cut the top inch or so off the carrots and planted them in the soil with just the tops showing, then gave them a good water. In the photo, behind the feed sack, you can see I’m doing a similar experiment with green onions. My basil is doing well (right side of photo), and I even have some watermelon sprouts (left side).

Nasturtiums

On May 20, 2020 By CarynIn Garden

My nasturtiums bloomed! However, they are not climbing nasturtiums. I was rather hoping for a nice shady vine to climb up the chicken coop, but alas, no. These are about 18” high with no signs of tendrils or runners. I’ll have to try for something vining next year. However, they are pretty and smell nice. They don’t taste of much, though. The leaves remind me of lily pads.