The past week has been a busy one for me. I had a long list of things to do at home and one was to plant herbs in the garden.
Though I do have store bought dried herbs I love fresh ones. Fresh herbs are expensive and whenever I buy them, they tend to wilt before I use it up. Sometimes I freeze herbs, but in my opinion fresh ones are the best.
The other day I stopped at a gardening center and saw they had a sale. So I bought Cinnamon Basil, Thyme, Rosemary, Lemongrass and Lavender.
I have Malabar spinach thriving in several pots. I collect seeds, dry and keep for the next season.
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| Malabar Spinach |
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| I like using a handful of spinach when making lentil curry. |
I found butternut squash seeds sprouting in the compost pile and planted them in pots. Now they have grown a bit and I'd like to plant them by the fence.
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| Butternut squash |
I planted root ends of store bought scallions. I already cut them several times to use in omelets. Planting seeds and roots of store bought vegetables is an easy and less expensive way to start a small garden.
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| Scallions |
My curry leaf plant is now too big for the pot it is in. I have to plant it in the ground sometime soon. I use curry leaves a lot. I chop them finely and add to omelets, and various curries. I like its fragrance and taste. It is believed that curry leaves are good for gastrointestinal problems and for lowering cholesterol. My mom makes porridge by cooking curry leaf juice and coconut milk with a small amount of rice.
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| Curry leaves |
I love spending time in the garden. When I come home from work, the first thing I do is watering plants. It relaxes me after a long day at work.
So far I've been using store bought potting soil and cow manure which can be pretty expensive. I'm making compost and slowly enriching the soil so I can plant directly in the ground.
I use trench composting method. I dig holes where I plan to grow vegetables and put vegetable peeling, tea bags, egg shells etc. The soil here is sandy so I have to improve it before planting anything.
Do you make compost at home? What method do you use?
Your plants look great. Yes, I make compost in my backyard. I have a huge pile. I use it instead of soil for my potted plants. I also make compost tea. It's an excellent plant food. I feed it to the fruit trees once a year. The citrus get it quarterly. Happy Gardening!
ReplyDeleteThank you Stephanie. I'm still learning about composting. I want to use natural , less expensive methods in gardening and there's so much to learn.
ReplyDeleteI love the sound of your Mum's porridge.
ReplyDeleteI am rethinking our compost at the moment as I had to purchase some a few weeks back which I would prefer not to do. I have started a seperate pile too where I'm adding chicken manure.
I love fresh herbs too and use them all the time for flavour as well as their health benefits.
The trick I found with fresh herbs from the shop is to stand them in a jar of water and place a small freezer bag over the top (loosely) and store in the fridge. They last a lot longer.
Kylie
Thanks for the tip Kylie. I normally keep herbs in a jar of water, but never cover the top.
DeleteIt's lovely to have fresh herbs in the garden. Maybe you could borrow a book about composting from the library. Love your self sprouted butternut plants. I usually bed any pumpkin plants in mulching straw as it helps keep the roots moist.
ReplyDeleteI just planted squash in the ground. I don't have hay, so I'm going experiments with shredded paper. :)
DeleteNil, my husband has huge piles of compost which he sieves before adding to a pot or the soil. It is very rich. We have excellent soil here as it is volcanic and a great gardening area. I have never heard of Malabar spinach but have another type growing here.
ReplyDeleteI knew Malabar spinach as just spinach in Sri Lanka. That the mostly available type there. :)
DeleteSuch beautiful and healthy plants. It gives me incentive to get my plants going.
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