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Yesterday, I hit Navlet's to get starter mix (and some French terragon, mint, and coriander seed while I was at it). I went home, filled two six packs with the starter mix, filled some yogurt cups and a larger pot with potting soil, and pulled out my seed stock.
I put a small sweet potato from last year's harvest in the large pot, and sowed some sage, basil, and coriander in the smaller ones. Then it was on to the tomatoes.
( Details and descriptions of the varieties )
I braved the drizzle today and cleared the old plants out of the tomato patch, then weeded a bit more than half of it. Five or six years of diligent weed control has exhausted the seed bank to the point where half the ground is bare to start with, and much of the rest is wild geranium, a not-unpleasant plant I sort of encourage because it chokes out other weeds, yet it's easy to pull and not noxious in any other way. It has a pleasant spicy scent, actually. There's some wild mustard and miner's lettuce, which aren't bad either. This may end up being the easiest weeding year yet. Then comes the digging, though, and the ground is now very soggy...
I have a few volunteer potatoes out there, which I may decide to leave in place and ignore. White potatoes do poorly in my garden, attracting rapacious insect life and demanding far more water than their yield can justify. If I'm going to put out that much water on a starchy tuber (sweet potatoes are drought-tolerant) I'm tempted to try taro instead, which is less likely to get hammered by mites. If the potatoes can survive neglect, though, I won't get in their way.
( Plans for an herb garden )
I put a small sweet potato from last year's harvest in the large pot, and sowed some sage, basil, and coriander in the smaller ones. Then it was on to the tomatoes.
( Details and descriptions of the varieties )
I braved the drizzle today and cleared the old plants out of the tomato patch, then weeded a bit more than half of it. Five or six years of diligent weed control has exhausted the seed bank to the point where half the ground is bare to start with, and much of the rest is wild geranium, a not-unpleasant plant I sort of encourage because it chokes out other weeds, yet it's easy to pull and not noxious in any other way. It has a pleasant spicy scent, actually. There's some wild mustard and miner's lettuce, which aren't bad either. This may end up being the easiest weeding year yet. Then comes the digging, though, and the ground is now very soggy...
I have a few volunteer potatoes out there, which I may decide to leave in place and ignore. White potatoes do poorly in my garden, attracting rapacious insect life and demanding far more water than their yield can justify. If I'm going to put out that much water on a starchy tuber (sweet potatoes are drought-tolerant) I'm tempted to try taro instead, which is less likely to get hammered by mites. If the potatoes can survive neglect, though, I won't get in their way.
( Plans for an herb garden )
