Gardening progress, and the accidental coriander surprise

You may recall my post about planting a few little things in my tiny herb and veggie garden

about a month ago. Well, since then I've had some success, which has even a few yummy salads, and some great burger and sandwich fixings!

The lettuce has gotten nice and full, and is still wonderful and mild. The spinach is struggling, but I've managed to harvest some nice leaves for salads.

 

Oh and nothing beats being able to cook with your very own home-grown herbs! I've got sprigs of thyme in a pot of stew simmering on the stove - mmmmm!

 

Another fun and cool thing about gardening is that some plants like to surprise you by spreading their seeds around, giving you new plants when you least expected them. I found a wonderfully fragrant little coriander plant this afternoon - what a treat!

 

Oh and the squash plant refuses to be outdone. If you look closely, there's a tiny squash forming ;)

 

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Digging in the dirt...

Yesterday I added a few new plants to my little veggie-herb garden! Up until now, my little patch of earth has been home to three bushy basil plants (which includes one lemon basil - so refreshing!), two spearmint plants, a lonely little fennel bulb (which I use for the feathery licorice-scented fronds), and the scrawny survivor out of two little rosemary bushes.

I added a pair of "red sails" lettuce plants, which I think are supposed to be a more heat-tolerant lettuce (great for my region), two spinach plants, some German thyme, and one acorn squash plant, which will take a lot of space eventually.

 

 

I don't know if you can see any of it in the photos, but each plant came in a biodegradable fiber pot that you just plant in the ground - right along with the plant! So much better than having all those little plastic pots hanging around!

And I'll soon have the added benefit of adding healthy home grown veggies to my cooking. I'll post updates as things progress!

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The scent of lavender and rosemary....

So, I decided after much pondering and thinking to channel my grandmother and create a little herb and kitchen garden for myself. Since we are in the middle of the "too damn hot to start anything right now" season, vegetables are not really the thing to plant in the ground, and nurseries just don't have plants available.

I managed to scrounge up a few little herb plants - rosemary, a type of perennial lavender, some basil, mint, fennel, and even a coriander plant that was about to go to seed.

Okay...okay...to answer your question: yes, the garden does look pretty scraggly right now, but since planting I have enjoyed picking little bits of herb from that scraggly little garden to cook with.

I plan on nursing my little herb plants through the hot summer (hopefully they'll survive!), and when the fall planting season rolls around, I'll put out some vegetables, and more herbs.







So far I have used my rosemary and basil, and fennel leaves in pasta dishes, but I have plans for the lavender and mint as well. Oh, and the coriander - it should seed fairly quickly. I'm hoping for both cilantro leaves and coriander seed to add to some tasty dishes!