Advances in Gardening Series: We’re maturing

November–seedlings new planted
January–all the foliage is in
End of February–the flowers really start to pop

Stuff grows. You just gotta remember to plant it!

A quick photo update on progress for the Phan of Pharmacy and the Hippie Heart, mostly for our own record keeping. Maybe it will inspire those of you surrounded by rain or snow with dreams of your own spring planting.

Back in November, I cleared ground and planted the Phan/Fan with medicinal seedlings. See some of that history here. Now we’re at the end of February, and the Calendula and chamomile plants are mature. The Calendula (the yellow flowers in the pic) is giving off lots of blossoms, the chamomile–not so much. That’s garlic growing on the far right. It’s beginning to brown at the tips, but I don’t think it’s going to be ready until May. The poppies, hidden in the back, are slow, and not near blossoming yet. Note the rogue borage in the foreground.

Meanwhile, the Hippie Heart, planted with flax in the center and lentils around the edges is coming along very well. It waves hi to the police helicopters overhead. The point of the Heart was to have a place where I could experiment with planting seeds, beans and spices right out of the pantry. Soon I’ll need to decide if I’m going to let the flax and lentils go to seed, and collect that seed for fun, or if I’ll pull it out early in favor of more experimentation with new pantry crops over the summer.

January 22nd
February 25th: I can hardly wait ’til it blooms.

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9 Comments

  1. I didn’t know you could plant garlic so close. Mine is so spaced out I barely grow enough for Fall. How close can you plant it?

  2. @Jessica: I have been to the cloisters, but a very long time ago. I remember they had a healing garden. Love those medieval gardens.

    @Rebecca: We plant our stuff close, because we follow John Jeavons’ BioIntensive method (see videos a couple of posts back). Our garlic is spaced 4″ apart.

  3. Beautiful garden, makes mine look so square, or rather rectangular. I garden mostly in 6 4×8 garden beds and I have a tendency to make sure they line up correctly, including height!?

    How are you controlling gophers? I am in the middle of tearing up my garden beds because when I originally built them I used chicken wire thinking that gophers were bigger then 1 inch round. oops. I’m now lining the bottom with 1/2 inch hardware cloth. Expensive, but otherwise I loose my veggies.

    Cheers and thanks!
    Shane

  4. Thanks, Shane! We’re lucky in that we do not have gophers here, but it sounds like you’re doing exactly the right thing. Wire barriers are the only way to go on beds, and you can get wire basket sort of things to plant fruit trees in as well.

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