It's a Beautiful Thing

Over the weekend we planted a very small garden…and it was beautiful. The process began earlier last week when two of my brothers came to work up the grass and get it ready for planting. With a rototiller, peat moss, and shredded mulch, the two guys worked in the hot sun with sweat dripping off their faces. After two days, they presented us with a gift of a garden ready for planting in a few days.

One morning was spent gathering seeds and plants from a greenhouse and a big box store. Then, as the hot sun waned on Sunday evening, we planted tomatoes and a companion plant to keep them company, marigolds.

On Monday morning, out we went to the early morning cool, pulled the hoe creating a ditch, and tucked in green bean seeds. Next, a hill of jack o’lanterns for the little guy took up residence next to a row of mammoth sunflower seeds ready to sprout and grow. Close by another row of ornamental sunflowers, low-growing and colorful sleep beneath soil anxious to awaken. Two hills of summer squash, a family favorite, took center stage. A container of fennel to attract butterflies and two clay pots filled with nasturtiums stand guard around the garden.

On the back patio, another pot of short stocky, shaggy yellow sunflowers were planted. Rosemary is happy and content outside gracing the corner, close enough so I can pamper her when needed. And because in my world, a garden without herbs lacks an essential ingredient, I planted pots of parsley and dill with thyme, oregano, and lavender to follow soon.

It’s been over ten years since I last planted a garden of any kind. Oh, I’ve had pots and container grown plants, but it’s not the same. There is something about seeing those rows of sprouts breaking the earth, peeking at the world, and reaching for the heavens. A smile of satisfaction when a row is hoed and free from weeds reveals gardening pride. Picking, savoring, and putting up cans of freshly picked green beans or tomatoes offers a sense of security. Yes, to have a garden is indeed a beautiful thing.
 
Thank you B & P!!! 
 

A Dream Garden Come True

Gardeners embrace change like a caterpillar morphing from homely worm into beautiful butterfly. Next year’s garden will be bigger, better, more beautiful, and more bountiful. Instead of planting one row of peas, two rows will be even better. Add a bed here, a new garden there. Dig out what doesn’t work and try a new variety. Nature continuously changes and gardeners follow suit. I was no different. My simple garden might have needed sprucing up, but I needed something totally new. I spent another winter researching, designing, pouring over books and garden magazines until my dream garden became a reality.

After a winter of dreaming, I came up with a list of must haves:

• Beds for herbs in a logical order: the Medicinal garden, a garden of fragrance, a culinary garden, and a garden of delight.
  
• A knot garden
  
• A fairy garden
  
• A picket fence
  
• Room for every flower and herb I’ve ever wanted to grow.

In my dreaming garden scheme, I would add an arbor with a seat at some point and a running fountain, and so much more.

My garden began in the middle of the side yard where the sun shone all day. One corner would hit just below the branches of a flowering crab apple tree. Here I could grow semi-shade plants.

Knot Garden Focal
The goal was to start in the center and work our way outward. The beds were landscaping timbers with slightly rounding sides, set one on top of the other. The first bed laid out was a square that would become the garden’s focal point. I purchased a beautiful wood dovecote from a builder in Bryan. It was set on a tall post in the center of the square bed. Germander and gray santolina planted in a chain pattern edged the central bed. Germander, also created an X growing from each corner to the post. Future plans included making the knot more complex.

The next set of beds were L-shaped creating a larger square around the little knot garden in the center. Keep in mind; I called each bed a little garden.

Culinary Garden
An edging of chives surrounded borage, different varieties of sage, several thymes, basil, that self-sowed much to my delight, and whatever captured my fancy at the time. Lovage with its celery flavor and the vibrant color and peppery taste of nasturtiums added textures and pattern. Umbrellas of dill dropped their seeds in fall placing new plants in odd places.

I like to stuff beds full and tend to crowd plants to create a lush look faster. I also follow the design concept of odd numbers. I nearly always plant one variety in a clump of three’s, five’s, or seven’s.

Medicinal Garden
I have never been a follower of natural remedies and first aid, but the historical uses of herbs, besides culinary, was primarily to heal or soothe the human body. Research enough and you’ll discover a medicinal use for almost every plant. I grew plants that people would recognize and enjoy, but that had a firm background in early medicine. Yarrow was said to staunch the flow of blood and stood proud in the medicinal bed. Lamb’s ears, an ancient type of band-aid lent softness to the garden with velvety leaves. Mint, buried in tile and chamomile soothed stomachaches. An ancient herb, hyssop was considered a fumigant and strewn about floors. A well-loved plant with blue-green foliage, rue, completed the medicinal garden.

Fragrance Garden
The truth is the whole garden was fragrant, but I wanted a bed just for the most fragrant of my favorite herbs. Lavender dominated the fragrance bed with spikes of deep purple, pink, and blue. The flowering spikes became tied bundles or lavender wands. I grew mignonette after reading about it in Rosetta E. Clarkson’s book, Green Enchantment, published in 1940. Lemon balm, lemon thyme, a pot of lemon verbena, pineapple sage, violets, and monarda or bee balm made the bed the most fragrant spot in the garden. Scented geraniums, especially the rose scented ones were placed in pots about the bed.

Garden of Delight
This bed was reserved for the plants and herbs that enchanted me in some way. An edging of ornamental strawberries, called ‘Pink Panda’ produced a plethora of pink blossoms that made me smile. Marjoram, summer savory, tansy, calendula, marigolds, and artemisias filled the bed. The plantings changed from year to year with various annuals.

Those four beds surrounded the square bed in the center. The paths were covered with black plastic and pea gravel brought in to line the paths. Tons of topsoil was purchased to fill the beds and I used cocoa bean mulch exclusively within my dream garden.

Watching my brother, Bill and his wife Judy, build their new garden has brought back so many memories. I miss my garden and can’t wait until I can plant a bit of earth to call my own, until then it’s container gardening and big dreams.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you how the garden grew into an English cottage garden.

Now get out there and get dirt beneath your fingernails!

Journey through My Herb Gardens

I’m not sure when I first fell in love with herbs, it was sometime in my early 20s, probably after reading a historic novel. My first venture into growing herbs began with seeds. I thought I could grow lavender, thyme, and rosemary by casting seed around the old windmill on the farm. I covered the seeds with soil, watered the area, but of course, nothing came up. Starting herbs like lavender and thyme from seeds takes some knowledge of horticulture and the right growing conditions. At the time, I grew a vegetable garden and a bed of strawberries, but nothing from seed started indoors. Starting lavender seeds indoors can be done, but it takes patience as lavender seeds take a month or more to germinate.

I began reading about herbs and the more I read the more fascinated I became with the history, beauty, and usefulness of the plants. My first herb plants came from a Smith & Hawken catalog that landed in the mailbox one day. I sat leafing through the thin catalog enraptured by what I saw…lush green thymes; spikes of lavender in blue, pale purple, and pink; bushes of rosemary in terra cotta pots, and lemon verbena light and refreshing beckoning me to buy, buy, buy…so I did. The plants arrived wrapped in damp newspapers, bare root exposed, and looking a bit wilted. I jumped in the car and ran to the nearest store for clay pots. I couldn’t wait to plant the herbs.

An old wooden wheel from a long discarded wagon or buggy became my first herb garden. I wish I had a picture of it, but it never dawned on me to photograph my gardening journey at that time. As a foolish grower, I hadn’t read enough about herbs, yet. I was just excited to grow a few. So I planted spearmint, thyme, lavender, lemon balm, lamb’s ears, and Silver king Artemisia. I can almost hear the gasps and cringes emitting from herb enthusiasts. Yes, I placed two invasive herbs, next to darlings like thyme and lavender that overtook the entire wheel, heading out into the lawn. If you’ve never grown herbs, you should know… mints of any kind invade every corner of the garden, landscape, or lawn unless you take extra precautions to keep the mouth-watering fragrant herb in check. Artemisia is a prolific plant, growing tall, and sometimes gangly, falling over into its neighbors. Both plants add a layer of beauty, fragrance, and utility to the garden and should be included, but showcase each properly and refrain from planting helter-skelter.

In the few years I had my wheel garden, I fell head over heels for the fragrant plants and wanted more. A flowerbed was worked up and herbs planted among iris, a Queen Elizabeth rose, globe thistle, and a variety of annuals became my focus. I started sticking herbs everywhere… in the vegetable garden, in the flower beds around the house, and anywhere I could find an open bit of earth, but I wasn’t satisfied… I wanted an herb garden smack dab in the middle of the side yard.

I picked up a book called The Pleasure of Herbs by Phyllis Shaudys. I spent the winter pouring over that book as if it were a new friend and I needed to know every intimate detail. A long-time insomniac, I would sneak downstairs so the light would not bother anyone and read all about herbs at 2 am. I found sources for herbs that I could not purchase in rural northwest Ohio. I discovered garden designs and how-to directions for building raised beds. I discovered a love that then turned into a passion.

As spring approached, I had my garden design drawn on paper, a list of plants, and a pleading plan ready to go. Yes, I got my raised bed herb garden using old lumber from the farm.

I placed a bee skep in the center of the garden and thought surely I would be satisfied, but my passionate hobby turned into a business and once again, the bigger, better bug hit me. This time I wanted my dream garden.

Come back and learn about the dream garden tomorrow.

Now get out there and green your thumb!

Of Greenhouses, Herbs, & Flowers

I hope everyone went out last night and covered newly planted vegetables, herbs, and flowers. The weather forecasted a hard frost and sure enough, white frosty ground greeted me this morning. A flannel sheet tossed over pots, too heavy to bring in, protected the plants. The two flats of seedlings, yet to be planted, came indoors. The importance of not getting too excited and planting too early cannot be overstated. It’s early folks…there’ll be plenty of time after the threat of frost to get plants in the ground.

A few vegetable plants not only withstand frost, but prefer cooler weather. My father tried to get his peas, radishes, and lettuce in on Good Friday. He grew from seed, not plants. If you’re tucking lettuce, radishes, or pea plants into the garden, make sure you’ve hardened them off first. Not sure what hardening off is? Take a look at a previous post, Hardening Gardening.

Plants to start in early spring outdoors:

1. Beets
   
2. Chard
   
3. Kale
   
4. Lettuces and Leafy Greens
   
5. Peas
   
6. Radishes
   
7. Spinach

Yesterday, my sister and I headed for a Schmidlin Greenhouse outside of Delta, Ohio. The well-kept greenhouses await gardeners with lush plants ready to be hardened off and planted. I’m an herb lover first and a flower lover second… I know, in this economic climate I should be following the current trend and growing vegetables galore, but I digress. We wandered up down the aisles of the retail greenhouse ooing and ahhing over plants that made my heart beat a little faster, but when I spied the herbs on the far aisle, I couldn’t resist.

My backyard will be home to container-grown herbs, each pot dedicated to one variety. I all ready had sweet basil, so I picked up opal basil and spicy globe basil plants for early additions to cooking. In a couple weeks, I’ll sow basil seed in the elongated container ensuring I have basil until frost.

I adore lemon thyme. It’s one of my favorite herbs in the garden and in the kitchen. I have variegated thyme, but wanted a variety of thymes to round out the container I’m using. I purchased wooly thyme, an old time thyme that remains popular and just plain ole thyme, also called upright thyme. Instead of creeping, it grows upright.

Every front porch deserves to be adorned with a pot of flowers. The little front porch rests in the shade most of the day, so I looked for semi-shade annuals that look great in a pot. Use an interesting container to add a bit of pizzazz. A basket leftover from my now defunct herb & flower shop, Windy Corner, will be the container for a palette of pink, sky blue, and silvery gray foliage. Schmidlin Greenhouse offers an enchanting double impatien that looks like a miniature rose with variegated foliage. I chose “Fiesta” Olé Peppermint, a charming pink color, to be the centerpiece of the living bouquet.

Lobelia makes a statement as a filler in potted bouquets. The lobelia I chose is called “Sky” a clear blue the color of the sky on sunny days. Dusty miller adds the finishing touch of soft silvery gray to the feminine palette with bold pattern. The juxtaposition of soft and bold lends just a smidgeon of drama to the romantic look.

I highly recommend journeying to Schmidlin Greenhouse, Inc. The owners are Don and Becky Schmidlin. The greenhouses sit out in the country on County Road 9479-M north of Delta off Route 109.

Schmidlin Greenhouse, Inc.
9479-M
Delta, OH 43515
Telephone: 419 822-3137
FAX: 419 822-0175

The rest of the week, I’ll be adding posts regarding thyme. The blogs will cover how to grow it, where to grow it, how to use it in the kitchen and in the garden, and the legend and lore. Whewww…by the end of the week you’ll know thyme well and I hope be encouraged to pick up a few plants if you haven’t all ready.

Now get out there and get your knees dirty!

Welcome to My Corner

Almost every house I’ve ever lived in was on a corner. I grew up in a big white house on a corner in a rural northwest Ohio town. One day I drove up a winding lane to a bigger farmhouse that had rested on a corner for well over a hundred years. This house became my home for over 20 years...the place where we’d raise children, he’d raise cattle and I’d raise flowers and herbs. I moved to a cottage on Cape Cod, after the end of my marriage, and it too sat nestled among trees and brush on a corner. Even now, I live in a small home on a corner, in yet another rural town. Yes, corner homes are as much a part of my life as my love for gardening and entertaining is, so why not name this blog The Cottage on the Corner…it suits my life and it satisfies my soul.

Once upon a time, a shop called Windy Corner herbs & flowers grew from a passionate hobby. A small building on the farm became a quaint location for the spill over from the garden. We installed a wood floor, brought light in with new windows, and added a heavy door of wood planks with a wrought iron door pull inviting guests to come in. New walls received a coat of paint and a stencil at the top. An old wood counter from a general store added flavor and much needed storage. I filled the shop with books on herbs and flowers, whimsical garden accessories, plants in the spring, and all manner of wreaths, garlands, and designs fashioned from flowers I dried or preserved. Potpourris, herbs and spices in bulk, and flowers hanging from wooden beams scented the air. Yes, I loved my shop and I miss it. Although, I no longer have my fragrant escape into the world I love so much, my goal is to recreate a similar experience through blogging.

I have no idea what path this blog might take and that’s half the fun…the mystery of what lies around the next corner. I hope by sharing my love for gardening and entertaining I’ll bring something new or so old that it was forgotten to the table. At the very least, I hope to delight you and encourage you to grow a few flowers and herbs, invite a friend for tea, and take a moment to smell the lavender.