herb garden update

It looks like my herb garden is off to a good start. I can already see a few tiny green sprouts coming up from the soil in the pot where the basil is planted as well as the rosemary. Another week and there will hopefully be a little more to look at.

herbal oasis

Over the past year I have started to really enjoy cooking and have certainly buffed up on my cooking skills. In my spare time I indulge in several cooking shows and even a few blogs. Some of my favorites are French Food at Home with Laura Calder which you can find at http://www.cookingchanneltv.com and my sister's blog of course, http://www.keepitsimplefoods.com/. Through all of my new cooking experiments I have learned that one of the smallest things that has the greatest effect on the flavors of any recipe, new or old, is fresh herbs. They are so much better than the dried ones that you shake out of a plastic bottle, but they are so pricey at the grocery store. My new project is an herb garden. I have thought about trying it out several times before, but this time I'm doing it.

filling up my pots

seed packets

Last week I made a trip to my local home improvement store and selected a set of small pots that would look superb in my kitchen window. I also picked up some potting soil and a few seed packets of my favorite herbs, parsley, rosemary, basil, cilantro, chives, and mint. Just a little bit of water everyday and plenty of sun and I will have a beautiful and useful herb garden in no time!

one set of pots resting in the window

winter garden

Well, my seeds finally arrived and I finished planting my winter garden a few months ago. This time I sectioned off my garden into a grid-like pattern, so each vegetable would have a 3x3 plot to grow in. Inside of each 3x3 square I made long, skinny rows or mounds to plant my seeds in. All together I planted one plot of carrots, one of onions, one of broccoli, one of peas, and two of spinach.

pea plants

As usual in Texas we have had a variety of weather this winter. Freezing cold days, even one with a little snow, and beautiful sunny ones too. Not very much rain however. I was starting to doubt that anything was going to sprout from my garden, after several months of staring at the earth, then I finally started to see some growth around the new year. Not a lot of action, but the peas and spinach seem to be on their way....plus it looks like I have some weeding to do!

spinach plant

fyi

 

After preparing the soil and such for my winter garden I went to purchase some seeds. Little did I know that seeds are very hard to find this time of year. Despite the fact that many vegetables grow well in cold soil and need to be planted in the fall, only a few packets left over from spring were still looming around the stores. So I turned to a different source, the internet of course. I did have to pay a little extra for shipping, so I filled my virtual cart to the top to avoid this problem in the future. My winter garden will soon be complete! Thank you parkseed.com!

hello, goodbye

As the summer temperatures continued to rise my garden began to dry up more and more each day, despite my watering efforts. I did end up with several small pumpkins and watermelons, but the vines shriveled up so they did not make it to maturity.

freshly tilled garden

Yesterday I began the journey of preparing my winter garden. After I pulled out all of the dried up plant matter I re-tilled the garden soil. Then I mixed in some organic gardening soil and tilled it again, so that my seeds will have plenty of nourishment.
As I was pulling the plants out of the existing garden I noticed something that looked like the top of a carrot. I dug it up and indeed it was a carrot! Actually two of them! I hadn't been tending to them since they were not warm weather vegetables. Now I hope I can grow a nice bunch along with several other things in my new winter garden.

carrots