gardener to farmer, too

It took me at least two and a half days to renovate this bed that sits outside our kitchen window. This is an after picture…I wish I had a before…The landlord had planted about 8000 grey ornamental thyme plants and this little Japanese Maple in the plot so it wouldn’t be bare. And that was unfortunate for two reasons…one, I couldn’t stand to have the perfect herb garden right outside of my kitchen and NOT use it for herbs and two, when it was planted, weed seeds were disbursed throughout the bed…shortly thereafter resulting in a lovely crop of weeds all mixed in with the thyme.

So I, in my “I am the best tenant in the world, please let me do this” persuasive voice convinced him to let me rip it all out and start over. In hindsight, I realize I was committing to a LOT of work…and might have let my enthusiasm get the better of me…nonetheless…I did what every good gardener does, went out and bought a bunch of herbs to motivate me to clean the mess up…

Now, just look at this picture…doesn’t it make YOU want to plant?

This is a variegated basil called “Pesto Basil” next to a yellow (!) pineapple sage. This variety has…to read the rest of the post, join us at www.gardenertofarmer.blogspot.com ….

Waaaaay back in March, I brought the strawberries into the greenhouse, hoping to have an early treat… As the plants started warming up and growing, some hateful insects started eating the leaves…

I didn’t know what it was or what to do about it…You all gave me suggestions, and several of you identified the problem as weevils. In fact, strawberries have their own special weevil…called, wait for it, the Strawberry Root Weevil, dun, dun, dun….Aack, what a gross pest…anything with larvae really freaks me out.

Anyway, I grabbed up the plants and put them out into the yard…away from my seedlings. They sat outside for the next two months or so… During that time, we had a couple of freezes (which is ridiculous…Mother Nature is seriously acting up)…didn’t kill the plants, but they stopped growing. As we moved into the spring, I noticed the new growth on the plants had no notches in it…
I kept an eye on it, waiting to see the evidence of my strawberries turning into a buggy snack…for the rest of the article, join me at Gardener to Farmer …