Mint

Mint has to be the easiest herb to grow. It will grow in all conditions (just needs some sun) and doesn't need to be watered once it is established. The only tricky part is figuring out where to put it. Mint is extremely invasive. One little plant will take over a huge space in just a year or two if it is not contained.

The picture above shows some mint near my back patio. I didn't care about the mint taking over (and you can see that it did!) because this area was previously unused and next to some stairs and a path. We harvest mint constantly from spring until frost and enjoy it in many recipes. You can put a few leaves in your tea (it is especially good in iced tea), or add to ice cream. Mint is a nice garnish and a few leaves will sweeten a salad. We also enjoy mint in mixed drinks.

Mint Julep is super easy to make. Just add an ounce of Kentucky Bourbon to a glass full of ice. Then add an ounce of simple syrup and mix. Garnish with a sprig of mint. Just in time for the Kentucky Derby. Don't forget your hat! I've also seen recipes where powdered sugar and water is used instead of simple syrup and the mint leaves are muddled, which is nice as well.

Mojitos are also an excellent way to enjoy mint. Just take a glass full of ice, add a shot of rum, a teaspoon of sugar and half an ounce of lime juice. Add a dozen or so mint leaves and muddle. Add two ounces of soda and mix. Very refreshing on a summer day!

Sucession Planting

Pea Sprouts

I get asked two questions from home gardeners all the time. First, "How do I get more out of my garden?" Second, "When do I plant my garden?"

Secession planting is the answer to both questions. Getting more out of your garden isn't about getting more from each plant, but by extending the planting season. So, you don't plant your garden all at once, but all the time during the season.

We plant radishes, beets, peas and greens in early spring. Then, we plant potatoes in May. Tomatoes, peppers, squash and melons after last frost in late May. Finally, we plant more greens, radishes and beets in late summer and garlic in late fall. They key is to plant a little every week throughout the planting season. For example, we are planting beets, greens and radishes every week through early June. This allows us to plant different varieties of each veggie, like five different kinds of beets. That way, you get some plants to harvest all season long instead of a huge harvest for one or two weeks in the summer. This also spreads the work over a much longer period of time. The last advantage is you can beat the pests in the garden.

Pests have a normal life cycle like any animal. If the summer squash you plant in June gets decimated by squash beetles in July, the summer squash you plant in August will thrive with no pests to bother them. One final note. If you do follow this plan, you likely will have to plant a lot of your veggies from seed. That's because there are not a lot of squash plants at your local nursery in August.

Daffodils

Daffodils planted against a fence
Daffodils next to the driveway


Two toned daffodils. Note the hosta sprouting up next to the flowers.

I posted three weeks ago about mini daffodils blooming in the garden. After a frost Thursday night and a chilly, rainy Saturday, I was ready for some sunshine and warm temps. Little did I know (or the weatherman for that matter who predicted on and off rain with cloudy skies) that today would be the first 70 degree day of the year with lots of blue skies. I took pictures of daffodils blooming because they seemed to capture the spirit of such a nice day.

Daffodils should be planted in the fall for spring flowers. They are easy to care for and unlike other bulbs, squirrels don't like them and won't eat them, although they have been known to dig them up. There will grow in all parts of the US and are inexpensive so plan to plant some more in your garden this fall.

Hosta and Bleeding Heart

Hard to believe, but in five years of blogging, this is the first time I've posted about hosta or bleeding heart. Hard to believe, because these are my two favorite shade loving plants. And, they both start coming up in April.

This is the perfect time to divide your hosta and multiply the plants in your garden. Most important when choosing a spot for your hosta or bleeding heart is to find a spot with shade and rich soil. I often see hosta planted along sunny driveways. This will only lead to heartbreak because the hot sun scorches the leaves in summer and washes out the vibrant color of the leaves. At One Love Farm, we have few shady areas so we use the spots directly next to the house which provide shade. We also have some spots on the edge of the yard underneath pine trees with lots of shade.

Spring is the time to divide your hosta and bleeding heart. Take a sharp spade and drive it straight down into the soil. Cut around hosta with the spade. You can make as many new plants as you want as long as they are at least six inches or so in diameter. Replant your new transplants in a shady area and they will do well. Truth be told, hosta is pretty hearty and you can transplant almost any time of year. But it is easiest now before the leaves have unfurled and the plant will not suffer as much transplant shock.

Arugula

Sorry for the out of focus picture. The arugula sprouts are so tiny that the picture came out blurry.

I've posted about arugula many times in the past. I've talked about planting, harvesting and saving seeds.
That's because arugula is one of my favorite greens. While the peppery taste can be a bit overpowering for some people, I love the strong taste and the hearty greens can be planted in early spring (these sprouts were planted April 10th) when other greens would surely not germinate.

The other thing that I love about arugula is its versatility. You can harvest the leaves when they are young and made a wonderful salad. Or you can mix the leaves in a salad with milder greens to make a less potent mix. You can use the leaves in sandwiches and I have even made a pesto of arugula leaves.

But, my all time favorite way to have arugula is when the leaves are fully mature and thick like spinach. I take the leaves and cut out any heavy stems and wash and dry them well. Then, I cook some nice pasta (Penne does especially well in this recipe). Once Al Dente, I drain the pasta and reserve about half a cup of pasta water. I put a clove or two of minced garlic (raw, not cooked) in a large bowl with some olive oil and add the hot pasta. It is very important to add the pasta hot as it will cook the garlic. Toss until the garlic is well mixed and heated through and then quickly add the arugula. Again, the pasta must be very hot to wilt the arugula. You can add Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper and olive oil to taste. I know this may sound long but this recipe is super quick and easy and so very tasty. It will only be a few weeks before I can make this dish with my own arugula.

Peach buds

My peach tree budded out last week. As you can see from the picture, I didn't prune the tree like you are supposed to in March. Next year, I'll make sure I do it in the early spring.

Besides pruning, the other thing you have to do is thin out the peaches. If you don't you will get smaller fruit and I have even seen the peaches so heavy that they break the branches of the tree! The best time to thin out the peach crop is when the fruit is small (about the size of a quarter). According to Ohio State University (where the best study on backyard peach tree growing was written), peaches should be thinned to 8 inches apart.

At One Love Farm we have an issue with birds eating the peaches on the tree. I have tried using bird netting, but found that tree growth during the season makes it tough to get the netting off the tree after the season ends. So, we have hung aluminum pie plates on the tree. The sound and reflection from the pie plates seems to do a good job of scaring off the birds. And that means more peaches for us to enjoy come August.

Compost

Rain is forecast intermittently this week. Since I am not moving the rest of the compost until this weekend, I covered the last few yards of compost with plastic sheeting. Because, as much as moving compost by hand is a crummy job, moving wet compost is the worst job ever.

Hollyhock

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Hollyhocks are one of my favorite flowers in the garden. I posted about my love of this plant last year when they were blooming at the end of June.

Yesterday, I was walking around and saw that some hollyhocks were sprouting up. I expect in 10-12 weeks we will have the wonderful blooms in the garden. If you want to plant hollyhocks, give them a sunny and dry spot. They don't mind the dry conditions that most plants will not tolerate. Hollyhocks do well throughout the United States with the exception of northern New England and some parts of the south, like Oklahoma according to the USDA. Hollyhocks have a long taproot, so once you plant them, they don't like to be transplanted. But, they are easy to grow from seed, so getting new plants is never a problem. In fact, hollyhocks reseed so easily that many people assume they are perennials. In fact, they are biennials, meaning they bloom every OTHER year. So, find that nice sunny and dry spot for your hollyhocks and they will reward you year after year with six, seven, even ten foot spikes of colorful blooms!

Re Compost

I figured six yards of compost would be enough for the beds this year. Was I wrong. I used up those six yards (162 cubic feet) last week and wasn't even halfway done. So, yesterday I got another eight yards. As you can see from the pictures above, I made a pretty good dent in the pile (and a pretty good dent in my back and shoulders) but I still have about half left. With 900 square feet of planting space left to add compost, I can put down about an inch and a half to two inches of compost. When I add the organic fertilizer, I think it will make for some good planting spaces this spring.

Garlic shoots

You get a couple of warm spring days and you want to get outside and start planting. But in reality, there is very little to plant this early in New England. Beets, radishes and peas are a crap shoot which is why we plant a little each week in case the ground is too cold for the seeds to germinate.

A few bulbs are up and some shrubs are starting to bud out. But other than that, about the only thing up is the garlic I planted last fall. By June, those sprouts will be eight times their size, send up a seed head (the garlic scape) which we will cut off to make garlic scape pesto. By fall, we'll have several dozen heads of garlic which we will use long before the next harvest is ready!

Japanese Fantail Pussy Willow

Karen and I bought what we thought was some clumping bamboo. For several years we kept it planted near our pond where it did ok but never flourished and certainly never bloomed. Then, we got another plant and moved our clumping bamboo to another location near the water garden. It did well for you a year and then imagine our surprise when it bloomed this spring. Our clumping bamboo was not clumping bamboo at all but a Japanese Fantail Pussy Willow. The lesson we learned is that if a plant isn't doing well in one spot, it might be that it is not getting proper care or you don't live in a climate zone where it will do well. But, it could be that the plant needs to be in a different location.

Lettuce seedlings

I wrote about Yugoslavian Red heirloom lettuce last year. I've also posted about lettuce going to seed. Now is the time when you start to see some plants from last years plants. Above is a picture of a head of Yugoslavian Red. I'm not surprised to see this plant pop up so early, even with overnight temperatures well below freezing. That's because the Yugoslavian Red loves the cold and is one of the first lettuces to go to seed in hot weather. Over the next couple of weeks I expect to find arugula and oakleaf lettuce plants near the beds they grew in last year. But remember, not all plants will produce well from seeds they drop the year before. For example, many hybrid plants like squash will produce vegetables that are odd looking or inedible due to cross pollination. There are seed saving organizations that can walk you through seed saving in your garden. Or, just let your lettuce go to seed and you will enjoy some more next spring!

Mini Daffodils

After an extremely snowy winter and cold temps this March, I expected most bulbs to bloom late this year. But, looking back at bloom dates for daffodils they are a week early this year. Above is a picture of Tete a tetes (mini daffodils) that come out first. In the next week or so, the larger daffodils will bloom.

I happened to be in New York City on Friday and noticed that daffodils and hyacinth are blooming in the city. You would think that being only a couple degrees difference in latitude would not make much difference, but NYC is a couple of weeks ahead of Rhode Island in blooming times.

Compost

Prepping beds with organic compost is one of the most difficult jobs of the year. Since we use no mechanized equipment for any farming activities, I like to say that you have to move compost three times. First, you shovel it into a wheelbarrow. The second move is pushing the wheelbarrow to the bed and dumping it in. The third move is shoveling in the bed and smoothing it out to a consistent depth. An exhausting job, to be sure, but worth it since plants love compost and will grow strong with healthy root systems.

If you are wondering about he plastic in the above pictures, I use it to keep the compost dry. Thursday and Friday we had rain (and snow!). Compost is heavy enough without adding the weight of the precipitation!