Today was a good day. I took a hoe to all the weeds and dirt among a row of potatoes, and upon seeing the farmer doing a much better job on his row, went back and redid mine to standards I could accept. Not quite as good as him, but not too shabby. Sometimes, when hoeing the rocky dirt, instead of the clank of metal hitting stone, I got a sound almost like metal hitting glass. Investigation showed some of the rocks looked an awful lot like broken-open geodes, and I was striking chunks of solid quartz. Next time I'm taking a break from farm work or shooting, I'll wash a few off in the creek and see if any make pretty paperweights.
The butter beans will be awfully sparse. When bean sprouts come up through the soil, they bring the bean with them - and to the few surviving roosters too canny for coyotes and foxes, the beans looked awfully tasty.
Some of the other plants also suffered from a cow getting loose. Fortunately, not everything has sprouted yet, so there was less damage than there could have been.
Cats like basil. Not quite as much as catnip, but I'm down to four out of the original twelve basil seedlings. I've started more seeds, and will try for better survival rates on round two.
Parsley seeds take a month to germinate. Once they've poked their first set of leaves above the soil, they then take weeks to get their first true leaves out. I'm clinging with hope to the advice that they take a long time in the beginning, but the more greenery they get, the faster they grow. (Next year, I think I'll just buy a plant from the nursery.)
I cannot find mint for sale anywhere. This is the south - land of mint juleps, right? Can I not find mint because everybody is already supposed to have it? Or did it get labeled as an invasive weed? Why may I not have my own minty weed with aspirations of kudzu held in check by minty peas, and mint teas, and lamb?
Strangely enough, I can find catnip. It may be a member of the mint family, but I refuse to plant it - no sense in training the beasts to dig about in the container garden.
Well, the bright side is you have a greener thumb than I do :-) Did you try a nursery for mint? or the local big box store? I seem to remember seeing mint in one of the two last year.
ReplyDeleteMy parsley - also from seed - took FOREVER to "do anything", but now it's trying to take over :)
ReplyDeleteLuckily you can never have enough parsley (or basil for that matter!).