The solstice has come and gone, and we’re officially into summer. We’ve had a number of days with temps in the 90s already, and I must say the plants are enjoying this hot weather more than I am! Still, now that the garden has established itself a bit more, I’ve reflected back on the ups, downs and lessons learned from this first spring in the new house…from the comfort of the air-conditioned inside, of course.

Before our weather flipped nearly on a dime into this hot and dry summer, we slogged through a spring season that was late, wet and cold. Then we had a burst of lovely warmer weather in the early-middle part of May, which lulled many of us gardeners into a false sense of security that it was probably safe to start planting outside. I’m sure you see where I’m going with this, but sure enough, a late May cold snap did in some tender plants and weakened others. 

Minnesota weather, eh?  Uff da.

All in all, I was fairly fortunate, as my raised bed and containers were spared from the worst of the damaging high winds by the privacy fence surrounding the backyard and the bulk of the garage. Some of the herbs took a step back after that dip in temperatures, though, and I think it stunted the development of their root systems. I had to entirely replace a few basil plants and others I’ve had to support when they became top-heavy. After the last several weeks of consistently warm weather, most things do seem to be settling in and starting to flourish – knock on that wooden fence.

First-Year Observations

As I mentioned in my last post, part of the excitement going into this season was that in so many ways, I really didn’t have a clue as to what I should expect: how dense would the tree coverage be? Would there be any established perennials? What is the soil quality like? I thought I’d share a few interesting things I’ve learned about the space thus far.

1. The mature trees overhanging the house are a mixed blessing, even in ways i hadn’t anticipated.

• On the up side: in addition to regulating the house’s inside temperature, they provide cool shade for early-morning herb harvests. Since the raised garden is on the western edge of the property and definitely in full sun during the afternoon, I appreciate that! 
• The unexpected down side: obviously I knew their shade would limit how much and where I’d be able to grow, but I didn’t anticipate just how much the plants – even those distanced from the trees in full afternoon sun – would end up leaning towards the west. It’s made for some unbalanced plants and means that in places, despite my best efforts to plan the garden in a way that would give every plant enough space, there is some overlap that isn’t, well, ideal. 

2. I am very bad at identifying new plant growth by sight when I don’t know what was planted there. Epically bad. In my defense, this isn’t a skill I’ve spent much (read: any) time cultivating, but even I was surprised at just how clueless I was when a few perennials started showing up later this spring! Just one example, to illustrate my point yet salvage my pride. 

The front yard has a narrow flower bed alongside the fence on one side, and initially I assumed that it had been an annual bed when nothing even peeked through the surface by a week into May. So I purchased a mix of annuals and perennials to brighten up the space, at least for this year.

How surprised I was, then, when seemingly overnight the bed was filled with shoots of the same plant! I watched them for a few days, and I knew I recognized the leaf shape and patterns, but for the life of me I could not place them.

After a couple failed attempts with a plant identification app, I gave up and texted a snapshot to a horticulturally-talented friend. Her response was immediate: orange day lilies. OF COURSE! I knew I’d kick myself for not recognizing them, and sure enough, I did 🙂 . 

…In Which She Took the Lawn Service for Granted

Of course, alongside the cultivated plants, this is the first time in years that we’ve had a lawn that is our responsibility to maintain. One of the perks of the old townhome was that it had a huge corner lawn AND the homeowners association fees covered the lawn service! So while I couldn’t install my own garden beds, I always had a beautifully trimmed lawn and no weeds, and I never had to lift a finger. Talk about spoiled! 

Even with the maintenance work that comes along with it, I do appreciate having a lawn that’s actually ours. In fact, the trouble we’ve had so far is getting it to grow where we want it to, rather than keeping it from getting overgrown. From the listing photos, which were obviously taken in the fall, we knew there were patches in the backyard that would need some grass-growing TLC if we didn’t want the house continually slathered with muddy pawprints. 

To get through the summer season, we sowed the worst areas (like underneath the aforementioned shade trees) with a shade mix in May. To give the new grass a fighting chance, we fenced the areas with chicken wire to keep the dogs off. 

The results were…well, mixed. A good percentage of the grass sprouted, which was encouraging; it was certainly progress over last year, especially since we knew going into it that fall is the better time to plant new seed anyway. Unfortunately it wasn’t only grass that took hold quickly; quite a number of weeds and unidentified groundcover types took advantage of the fact that we were doing “no-mow May” to give the pollinators a leg up.

Part of me is a bit disappointed that we didn’t achieve a lush, beautiful lawn right away, but most of me – okay, probably the part of me that’s realized how much work it is to move, sell a house and get a new one in livable shape while holding down a full-time job – has accepted what we have for now. We certainly won’t have any lawn care companies knocking on our door asking to shoot a commercial, but what we’ve got meets our basic needs for the summer. So I’ve decided that if it’s green, generally holds the soil in place and keeps the majority of dirt off my dogs’ paws, I’m happy to let it grow there for this year. 

Elevation Matters

Finally, a word on weeds. Tenacious little buggers, aren’t they? 

The proclivity and resilience of the weeds everywhere – in containers, the raised bed, the rock beds – has been a bit of a surprise this year. Of course I expected them, but I’ve pulled more weeds out of my containers this year than any year previously, even though this year they do not sit directly under any trees as they did in the past. 

This is merely conjecture, but my initial guess is that it has a lot to do with the fact that this year they are sitting essentially on ground level, rather than on a second-story deck. In past years, I’ve pulled mostly tiny tree seedlings out of my herbs. This year, there have been a wider variety of “volunteers” crowding in, and I have a feeling that no-mow May, combined with a greater variety of creatures that can reach ground-level planters than could scale my deck, are contributing to the variety. 

Plucking stray greenery from the raised bed and containers isn’t a major hassle, but trying to prevent the rock gardens along the fences from becoming overrun is proving challenging. I pulled the first round by hand, but when they grew back so speedily I recognized that relying on elbow grease alone wasn’t going to cut it for the whole year. 

I confess that I did use a commercial weed killer on the rock beds farthest away from my garden, and the nice thing is that the regrowth has been minimal. I mixed up a homemade blend of white vinegar, salt and dish soap to treat the spots nearer to plants I do want to preserve or potentially consume, and it’s also been fairly effective at killing the weeds initially. It does take a lot more of the product to produce the same results, though, and while it’s still the more eco- and pocketbook-friendly option, I think I need to find a spray bottle with a kinder, gently trigger to save wear and tear on my digits! 

Are any of you also getting to know a new garden space this year? If so, I’d love to hear how it’s going! I’ll be back soon with, I hope, some successful early harvest stories! 

Time for another periodic peek at this year’s garden experiment, and another opportunity to explore the influence of plants on human history. This blog is all about documenting and sharing things I learn and today, thanks to several Twitter posts by talented historians, I was prompted to do a bit of digging into the history of Lammas Day. (As always, I am not an expert, but rather a continual learner; any mistakes are solely my own!)

What is Lammas Day?

Traditionally celebrated on August 1 and observed in Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and England as a Christian holiday, Lammas Day celebrates the first grain harvest of the season. The term ‘Lammas’ (or ‘Loaf-Mass’) stems from the Old English ‘hlaf-mas,’ and medieval customs included baking a loaf from the first grain sheath harvested. The Celtic festival known as Lughnasadh also marked this early stage of the harvest season and celebrated the sun god, Lugh. 

Today, the names are often blended or used to denote a general harvest observance, though they have rich and distinct histories in each culture. By either name, these celebrations also mark the halfway point between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox, making August 1 a cross-quarter day on the lunar calendar.  

Garden Status on Lammas Day

On this August 1, my garden (and much of the Midwest) has been suffering after several weeks of extremely hot, dry conditions. It’s been miserable for humans, and even the most sun-loving plants have felt the strain. I must also admit: due to circumstances of…well, life…I’ve had less time to spend taking care of the garden lately, so I take responsibility for the effects of the mild state of neglect I’ve left it in. In the past couple of days, the weather has cooled down a bit, so combined with more regular watering, things are generally springing back fairly well. 

Of course, my garden does not include any grains, so the bread-baking aspect of a traditional Lammas Day wasn’t an option. However, some sources I consulted today indicated that, in addition to grains, four herbs are also commonly harvested on this day: meadowsweet, mint, sunflower and calendula. 

Calendula

Calendula is one of my favorites; it was one of the very first medicinal herbs I grew. Now it is an old friend that I love to greet again each year, and its bright, cheerful blooms that proliferate during the sunniest days of summer seem tied to the sun itself. I can easily understand the association between its harvest and this holiday,, marking the start of the transition from midsummer’s sunny dominance into the season when the earth starts to prepare for its rest. 

This season, the calendula in my garden have bloomed continuously and well since late May. Since I have limited space and therefore only a relative few plants, I do my best to prune the flowers at their peak to encourage the plants to continue flowering. Preserving the flowers at this time also retains the highest levels of medicinal benefit for the preparations I’ll make with them later. 

I knew what I’d find when I went out to see the calendula today: since I hadn’t been diligent in pruning for the past couple of weeks, I knew many of the flowers would have gone to seed by this time. In some ways, I was disappointed; I missed the beauty of so many golden flowers all at once. At the same time, however, I prepped myself to look on the bright side of a less-than-ideal gardening situation, which is something I’ve been trying to do more consciously this year. 

Instead of seeing flowers missing petals and dried past the point of much medicinal value, I strove to value them as the seeds for next year’s crop; this year’s plants passing on their legacy to begin anew next spring. In past years, I haven’t let blooms go to seed if I could help it, preferring instead to amass what they could offer immediately. Of course, that resulted in the need to purchase brand new plants or seeds each season. This year, I’ve tried to take a more measured approach – one that means I can take what I need from this year’s crop to make needed preparations for myself, family and friends, but that also encourages the plant to fulfill its natural life cycle and leaves us room to grow together next year.

I’ll leave you tonight with these snapshots from today’s calendula visit. As you can see, I trimmed quite a few spent flowers, which I’ll allow to dry so that I can preserve those seeds for next spring. Despite the neglect these plants have suffered in the past week or two, they are still persevering with new blooms – and now that they’ve received a refreshing trim, I hope we’ll see still more lovely flowers in the waning days of summer. 

I was always a city kid, but when you grow up in Nebraska and spend lots of summer vacations driving across various Midwestern states with an RV to see the sites and  visit family, you pick up an old farmer’s adage or two along the way. One that particularly stuck with me was this old saying, used to advise whether the corn crops were on track to have a good harvest by the fall:  the farmer should have corn that was “knee high by the Fourth of July.” 

I can’t tell why that one has stayed in my brain, other than that it’s particularly fun to say with an overly-exaggerated country drawl.  (Try it if you haven’t already – you’ll thank me for it.) It isn’t even useful advice anymore; from what I’ve read, advances in agricultural science and growing techniques mean that these days, most cornfields would have surpassed knee-height long before now. Still, a glance at my calendar this week brought it to mind, so an Independence Day garden check-in seemed like a darn good idea.  

(For the record: I’d initially planned to include more up-to-the-moment snapshots today, but we’ve had crazy winds over the past day or so and many of the plants are tilting and having, shall we say, bad leaf days.  I’ll have to share a full gallery once they’re recovered a bit!) 

2021 Growing Conditions To Date

Spring here was mostly cool and dry, with long stretches of grey days that didn’t actually bring much precipitation. After a winter with less-than-average snowfall and the absence of  any late-season (late March-April) last-gasp snowstorms, it’s been a struggle all season to keep appropriate moisture levels in the soil.  The state set several heat records in June as well, so it’s been rather crispy all around so far.

Background: This Season’s Crop 

As of this weekend, my plants have been in their containers outdoors for a full 6 weeks.  In hindsight, some of the hardier souls probably could have gone into the soil a bit earlier, but mid-May had seen such wild temperature fluctuations, including several dips to the mid-30s Fahrenheit, that I decided to play it safe.  Especially since I’d had greater success in starting seedlings indoors this year than I’d ever had before, I didn’t want to risk my plant babies! (More on lessons learned from indoor experiments at a later date.) 

Container Setup

As I mentioned in my previous “meet the garden” post, my suburban townhome situation means that my plants are container-dwellers.  I’ve gotten more skilled at the nuances of container growing over the seasons, which is good! There is a down side, however. The result of my increased confidence and expanding interests has been that the total volume of planters has also grown considerably, from a measly 11 little pots or so when I started, up to 45 this year. 

What’s the problem, you may ask? Well, we’ve always enjoyed using our deck for other things as well, like grilling meals, relaxing to read, and letting the pets out for some basking in the sun. After last year, the amount of room left to the rest of the non-plant family was quite limited, so I resolved to preserve some leisure space this year. 

I expanded my growing space this year by doubling the number of railing planters I set up on the deck’s edge.  This certainly has freed up some real estate on the deck floor, though I’ve been learning quickly what does and doesn’t work so well in that setup! I’ve also tried more companion planting, such as allowing a couple basil plants to grow between the tomatoes, and so far the experiment is working. 

My plants are loosely divided into a few different categories: medicinal herbs, vegetables, herbs primarily used for culinary purposes, and decorative flowers.  Let’s briefly check in with each.  

Medicinal Herbs

Getting some lovely early returns with the yarrow, calendula, comfrey, and chamomile!   

The winner of this category, leaves-down, has to be the borage! It’s my first year growing it, and I’ve been utterly amazed by how easy it was to grow from seed, how well it took off in the garden, how absolutely gorgeous the flowers are, and how much the bumblebees can’t stay away from it! It’s lovely to see little pollinator friends going from borage to calendula to yarrow to catnip and back again. I have it on good authority that these blooms also taste fantastic, but so far I’ve been saving and drying them for later medicinal use. I’ll have to try it soon, though!

Veggies

As part of the attempt to control the amount of space taken up by each type of plant this year, I decided to go “mini” with the vegetable plants. That is, rather than full-grown species, I opted for cherry tomatoes and lunchbox peppers.  I’d never come across lunchbox peppers before, but as you might imagine, they promise small, compact peppers that are perfect for a snack or a single-person side.  Worth a try in my book! 

So far, a few tiny green tomatoes have been spotted, along with a few blossoms on the pepper plants.  Stay tuned! 

Culinary Herbs

In past years, I’ve struggled a bit with which way to prioritize herbs like sage, thyme, and oregano.  Great for herbal healing remedies, of course, but also lovely to have as fresh culinary ingredients! One of the things I’ve learned after a few seasons of growing herbs is that trying to do everything usually leads me absolutely nowhere, and I end the season feeling that I wasted opportunities and frustrated that I didn’t have enough preserved for either medicinal or culinary purposes over the winter.  

This year I changed my approach a bit.  I decided that I have a number of other herbs I’m growing purely for medicinal reasons, like plantain, calendula, yarrow and borage.  This year, I’d try to expand my focus with the kitchen herbs to using them exactly that way: fresh, as needed, in the kitchen.  Sounds like a minor adjustment, I know, but giving myself permission to use, enjoy and share them at their freshest has been downright liberating. 

They’re doing rather well this year, too, knock on wood.  I’d planned to share a picture of the mediterranean planter with you, but they’re looking a bit mushed-down at the moment after a good watering.  Soon, though! In the meantime, here’s a tiny glimpse of some lemon thyme…oh, and Llewelyn the Lesser, just for fun.  🙂 

Decorative Flowers

Finally, even though I really didn’t intend to grow any purely decorative flowers this year in order to reserve space, I did end up with two after all…and they’re so gorgeous, I’m truly glad I did.  

This pretty petunia was an impulse buy at a plant sale this spring, but I couldn’t resist those colors.  Unfortunately, it was in a section of unmarked misfits, so I don’t have details on its variety. Looks gorgeous amongst the other greenery, though!

I’m so pleased that this snapdragon bloomed this year. I attempted to grow these seeds last season, but long story short, they didn’t germinate.  I tried again this year with the remaining seeds in the packet, and while only two plants were successful, just look at the stunning color of these blooms! (Territorial Seed Company, Potomac Sunset)

Thanks for taking this garden tour with me! Be back soon with more updates and plant bios!