cilantro – The Salem Garden

Happy Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day! October 2015

The fifteenth of the month has become my very favorite day because even if I don’t manage to publish a post myself, I enjoy visiting all of the other garden bloggers to see what’s blooming in their gardens.

Reading GBBD posts is always an uplifting way to spend an hour (or two)!

We haven’t had a frost yet here in Salem, so while the garden is starting to wind down, it’s still producing and blooming almost as much as it did in September.
The morning glories are glorious, even at ground level and paired with rosemary.

The mexican marigold is happy hanging out with the lovage.

Lovage is very similar to celery and I’m using it often these days in soups and stuffing.

I’m always posting photos of my volunteer snapdragons. I remember my mother using snapdragon in an arrangement for my first communion when I was seven years old, and I can never quite believe that it grows so easily in my garden. I’m hoping that the foxglove right behind it blooms in the spring.

Here it is up close with the macro setting…

I can never get enough of snapdragon or the macro setting.

Macro’d cilantro…
These yellow chrysanthemums survived last winter’s difficulty. The other chrysanthemums really did not.

The taller zinnias are supposed to be a giant variety, but their not too big. I planted them quite late in the season (maybe the first week in July or so) so it took them a long time to bloom, but here they are!

It is a very pretty bloom.
I’m still kind of partial to the Cut and Come Again variety of zinnia.

This single shoot of bellflower popped up on the opposite side of the fence among the pepper plants.

Sedum is one of my favorite fall plants. This small variety has very delicate flowers.
This white daisy-like chrysanthemum is being crowded out by other plants in the bed, but there’s a bit that’s still with us. I need to thin the iris, echinacea and black-eyed susan that surround it. If anyone from the area would like starts of any of those plants leave me a message in the comments and we’ll work it out.
And the knock-out roses are non stop. Yay for knockout roses, you just can’t hurt them!

Be sure to visit May Dreams Garden by clicking here to see what’s in bloom today in gardens all over the world!

Be well,

Love, Michele

What’s Happening in the Garden- May 31, 2015

Hello from finally rainy Salem, Massachusetts!

I haven’t posted in quite a while. There’s been so much going on here; sick children, graduating children, coming home from college children, going to college children, dancing and soccer and proms. Big life events can be great subjects for blogging but they don’t jive so well with gardening and garden blogging, especially the sickness. I’ve been pretty consumed with the needs of my family, as I should be.

So, the garden isn’t quite where it usually is at this point in May, but that’s okay. I can always catch up on the bean planting or substitute things or buy bigger plants that are further along. It will all work out in the end, or not, and that’s okay too.

These are the rainclouds that I was trying to out plant and out photograph before they burst this afternoon. I just made it and now we’re under a flash flood warning. It’s been so dry that the flood warning is welcome.

I post a pic of this view every year. It’s raining hard and is expected to continue through Tuesday, so I’m not sure that the iris flowers will survive. I’m glad I took this photo when I did.

Things are getting underway out in the herb garden. That’s parsley in the foreground. The oregano came back strongly, along with some dianthus, thyme and chives. I just put that brownish lovage in the back and added the new rosemary plants. Rosemary doesn’t winter over here unless we have an extremely mild winter, which is rare. Looking from the other direction the cilantro was started from seed. The blueberry bushes are loaded with berries! I need to plant more blueberry bushes. The Solomon’s seal is about to bloom……along with my favorite yellow iris, and the German iris. Here’s a first for us; horseradish in bloom! It emits an odor of horseradish all around it. I don’t really love horseradish, but I’m kind of enjoying this. I hope the flowers don’t take away from root formation. I planted a little bit of broccoli… so cute! And the lettuce is happy. This is thriving because Michael does a good job of watering it for me with the leftover chicken water.

Here’s an interesting fact about this lettuce; the mesclun mix on the right was fertilized with vermicompost a few weeks ago and the row on the left wasn’t. Vermicompost is the way to go! I have a nice little worm bin here under my desk and all I do is feed them fruit and veggie scraps and keep an eye on the moisture content of the box. I harvest the compost once in a while and the “tea” or liquid that the worms produce every few weeks. It’s easy once you get the hang of it. I should blog about my worms more. I started these onions from seed in the early spring and transplanted them a few weeks ago. I need to make sure they don’t dry out and keep fertilizing them. Maybe I’ll try some vermicompost.
Looking back, there’s lots of open space. I still have basil, tomato and foxglove seedlings,along with peppers.I dug this big pot of dill out of the front yard yesterday because we reconfigured the landscaping out there. Dill doesn’t really transplant that well, it’s better grown from seed. These are small enough that they might settle in if their handled carefully.

If any of you local friends want some dill just let me know! It will be here for a few days until the rain stops.

How’s your garden growing? I miss you and your comments and your blogs! Leave me an update so I can stop by and check in!

Love, Michele

Loving My Seedlings, a Lot!

I really am! This appears to be my breakthrough year in the seed starting world. I think I got it and I love it! The time that I spent this winter reading and researching really seems to be paying off. I have quite a few plants ready for the garden now and there are more coming. Next year, look out, those seed companies won’t know what hit them! Did I mention that I finally got it and that it’s fun?

Okay, enough… here’s what I have at the moment:

This is my seed starting set-up. It’s simple; two shop lights with one fluorescent and one plant bulb in each. Next year I’m hoping to add a third light in the middle so that the entire table is covered. I used the plant bulbs here at home, but at Bass River (work) I used one cool white and one warm white bulb. The seeds did very well there but I do see a faster growth rate and a sturdier plant with the plant bulb. The idea is to create light that mimics the light outdoors and the plant bulb is much brighter which is ideal for seedlings that would thrive in full sun.

These cantaloupe and watermelon seeds emerged from their bags (you can read about my handy dandy bag system here) the other day. They’ve been living in soil for two days and their well on their way.

This is cumin and purple alyssum. I have a love/hate relationship with these jiffy pots. They dry out quickly and I need to keep a very close eye on them. Actually, keeping a close eye is very helpful to new seedlings, peat pot or not.

The cilantro on the left is organic slow bolt, and the pots on the right are coriandrum sativum… there’s kind of a big difference in success rate so far.

We’ll have three varieties of basil this year; Genovese in the back, Red Rubin in the middle and Siam Queen in the foreground.

I started a little bit of summer squash in a jar a few days ago, planted it in the soil last night and I think they’ll be ready for the garden by the end of this coming week. I have some new ideas to help deal with the squash bugs this year so I caved and planted zucchini, even though I swore I’d take the year off after last year’s difficulties.

Up in my office the marigolds are showing their second set of leaves. I’m probably moving them outside later today to maximize the light and good air circulation.

These pumpkins and cucumbers from a few weeks ago need to be planted out asap. The weather looks pretty good so they should be in by Monday.

If I could go back several weeks, I would have transplanted these tomatoes into larger containers. I think/hope the yellow at the bottom is because they need more root space. Looks like it’s time for these to hit the garden too.

As you can see I have a lot more to do. The carrots need to be direct seeded, the beans will follow the peas that are growing, and the squash will probably be quick started then planted outside in the next week or two. I think I missed the window for growing peppers. What should we do? Start them indoors now anyway, direct sow or buy some plants?

My little girl started these seeds all by herself.

This is the best motivation in the world to share the garden with my kids, and with all of you. 🙂

Hope you plant something today!

Love, Michele