From Rick with Love
Rick’s love note to me on the bottom of my new big garden planter box. He’s so sweet.
More Apartment Gardening
Eave-side porch garden
It’s been awhile since I’ve done a post just on apartment gardening. I’ve done a lot of it in the last couple of years. Lots of things grew nicely. Lots more things died because I didn’t have the right conditions.
I was reading over the last and first only post of my apartment gardening posts. Oh the mistakes in it! It’s appalling. Letters missing, grammar sadly lacking, it’s embarrassing. In my defense, I have a horrible time seeing my own mistakes. My super-fast-awesome-reading-skills skim right over them. That’s right , my super-power ability is actually a weakness.
Anyway, I’m doing a ton of apartment gardening, inside and out. At the moment I have an aloe plant in my kitchen window. There is a garlic experiment right outside the front door. And my porch garden is growing wonderfully, both in quantity of plants and well, the plants actually growing.
This time around I feel like I have a better hold on apartment gardening. I’m remembering to think long term a little more, considering the elements I have to deal with, and how large said plants will get.
I’m lucky enough to have a porch that gets close to full sun after about 11 am. It has a divider and a wall of trees that keeps the wind down on stormy days. There is plenty of space out in the open for plants that love or don’t mind rain. It also has a decent amount of room under the eaves for those plants that don’t like their leaves to get wet, such as tomatoes. At my front door I have some room for those plants that don’t need mostly full sun, but just a little morning direct sun and indirect sun the rest of the time. My windows provide much of the same, though, since Milo loves his window sills, I’m trying to figure out what to do to keep those plants that need to be inside in the winter, close enough to light, but safe enough from being knocked over because of kitty frustration. I still have yet to get a grow light. I think that it has become a need, for the plants and for me, because it provide UV light, unless I’m mistaken. And we all need that during the grey winter, sometimes fall,spring and summer months.
My goals for my apartment gardening/porch gardening
Of course I have to have goals for this fun adventure. Without some planning everything will die and I’ll be left feeling wasteful and selfish.
- Use of organic soils so that which I grow to eat is safest and best to eat
- Grow edible things more than plants just for show, i.e. herbs and tomatoes
- Grow things that will last a few months, even years and produce things I’ll actually use
- Have lots of fun and learn a lot
- Share my extras, I can always use work on sharing
- Practice gardening so I can be better prepared when I have an actual backyard and garden
- Create something of which to take pictures
- Dry or preserve things grown to be used in winter time so I don’t have to spend so much money on herbs for cooking(also a reason I have an herb garden at my parents house)
- Give in to the urge to pretend to be Laura Ingals of Little House on the Prairie more often, I can never be too old for that
- With luck(sunny weather) and practice, take pictures of my apartment porch garden that won’t look washed out.
We’ll see how many of them I’ll actually achieve. So far I’m doing fairly well on keeping things edible and practical. And yes, I will consider my recent eucalyptus purchases practical. They discourage insects. They just happen to be pretty. Yup, that’s what I’ll keep telling myself. It is partially true.
The Modern Hippy
Preserve Fresh Herbs
Fresh herbs prepped to dry
In the photo left to right is catnip, oregano, curry(the short grey stuff), marjoram, and rosemary hiding in the corner.
Planning my herb garden the end result, after all the dirty fun of course, was to have herbs to dry for cooking all winter long. Or at least until then ran out. So to save me money. So far, so good! I’ve dried so many herbs so far! Although, the end is in sight soon. The annual herbs are slowing because of the seasonal change. Margoram has already died, though that might be do to up rooting by an excited, energetic dog.
I did some research about drying herbs. It seems that two weeks in the magic time listed by many people. I’ve added a few more weeks sometimes with those herbs like sage that are softer and more succulent. Don’t want mold to ruin anything. Hanging herbs on the wall or laying them out on plates, out of the way of the cat has worked best for me. Remember to keep them out of direct sun light. Store the herbs out of sunlight if you can. I have mine on a shelf in the kitchen. There is no direct light on them because of where the sun rises and where the window is.
I’ve done some experimenting with drying herbs. Fennel is not supposed to dry well, but I left it out for almost a month and placing it in the jar I could still smell the black licorice scent. I have heard that sage doesn’t dry well. No problems so far. Cooking with both dried and fresh sage isn’t a lot different. Not a lot of flavor is lost with the moisture.
What I have noticed is that cooking with these fresh herbs requires a lot less. Sometimes the flavor is completely different that grocery store bottled cooking spices. Rubbed sage, even organic can’t compare to the stuff from my garden. It’s awesome! I can hardly wait until next year when I plant new and exciting herbs!
The Herb Borage
Borage Flowers
I’ve mentioned this nifty surprising herb. We got it for my herb garden at my parents. Originally I bought it to feed the bees and as an experiment. A lady at the Mount Vernon Co-op said she had it one year, but didn’t use it very much. She noticed that the bees loved it though. Well, I’m all for feeding those hard working bees.
My one plant has grown faster and bigger than any of the other herbs. It has to be at least two feet high, and four or five feet across. It’s funny looking, very hairy and gangly looking, with gorgeous, simple blue and pink flowers. It is horribly poky.
Cultivation:
It’s a low maintenance herb, an annual that will reseed itself well. It’s spreads and loves full sun. It’s recommended to plant with strawberries, squash, or tomatoes – it is suppose to improve the flavor of tomatoes and repel tomato hornworm.
My experience: It’s super easy. I planted a start and it’s been water a few times through the dryer months. It grew very fast and is starting to grow over a couple other herbs so I will have to cut it back. Be sure to leave plenty of space, even if you think it’s too much, it probably isn’t. I’ve read that trimming it will contain it a little. I haven’t done that with it though.
Uses:
*Culinary:
The leaves and flowers can be used fresh in salad. The leaves can also be steamed, but for a short time because they are so thin they will cook down quickly – or added to stew and soups at the last minute. They both can be used in tea. And have been used in gin drinks. The flowers can be candied and used on cakes. The fresh flowers taste like honey.
My experience: I’ve used the flowers several times to make tea. It has a very smooth soothing taste, like chamomile, but even softer. I like it. I have tried using the leaves in cooking a couple of times. However, I think I’ve put them in too early. Also, as far as I can see, it should be eaten and not turned into leftovers. It doesn’t keep well.
*Medicinal:
It’s is considered to be good for PMS and menopause. Used in tea is good for colds, respiratory infections, high cholesterol, constipation, soothing to the digestive tract. It can help to regulate the adrenal glands and is a galactogogue (milk production stimulant), and emollient.
Borage Oil:
Borage oil is extracted from the seed of the flower. It is showing through studies that it is good for eczema – on the list of things to try for me!
Cautionary Notes: I’ve read in many places that it is furry, but nowhere did it say how pokey it is. The leaves aren’t as bad, but the larger stocks are prickly enough to be painful so becareful! One site cautioned, and I will reiterate – be careful of bees. The flowers hang down so it may be hard to spot a bee before picking a flower without looking closer.
Borage Flowers on Fennel
Resources:
Borage(Borago offincinalis)
What is Borage Oil?
Fresh Herbs in My Cooking
Baked Chicken Breasts with Fresh Herbs
It’s been about a year and a half since I’ve had to learn to cook everything from scratch. I’m getting very good. I’m also embracing the frugal side of me that lay dormant for many years. I search for deals, though if quality is more expensive then I will take a leap and buy. One thing last year that seemed to cost a fortune was all the herbs I was buying to flavor the food. I went through a ton of coriander, salt, pepper, paprika, rosemary and many, many others. Aside from the cost it bothered me that I had no idea how fresh the herbs were in those nifty little glass bottles. So I decided, after asking my parents if I could have a little plot of land in their garden for my herbs. I didn’t know what I was going to grow, or what would grow wonderfully in this climate, but I knew that I wanted fresh, cheap and quality. When you grow your own that combination is possible.
Now a few months after spading up the lovely, sweet smelling soil I am starting to see the fruits of my labor. I’m trying to use fresh herbs in my cooking daily. I’ve noticed that fresh herbs taste completely different than dried herbs (except for rosemary, that’s about the same just more potent fresh). Previously I thought sage was boring, but fresh it has wonderful flavor.
Baked chicken breasts with fresh herbs:
One of my first experiments was with chicken of course. To follow my “recipe”, you will need:
- Two or more uncooked chicken breasts – not frozen (freezing meat changes it, makes it less yummy.)
- A baking dish with a lid – the lid will keep the steam in and not let the meat dry out.
- A selection of fresh herbs – I used sage, curry, oregano, marjoram, and basil.
- Salt
Simply place chicken breasts in a baking dish. Tear or mince herbs to smallish size and sprinkle over meat and into bottom of pan. Sprinkle salt. Bake at 350 degrees F, for about 30-40 minutes, or until done. Temperature for poultry is about 160 degrees F. (Chicken is easy to tell though, it will no longer look clear and pink, but solid and more white or brown than pink.)
Raw Chicken Breasts with Fresh Herbs - before baking
Herb Garden – Catch up
I’m a little behind on updating about my lovely herb garden. It is thriving! I have rosemary, sage, margoram, thyme, oregano, lemon verbena, fennel, chives, basil, borage, and two kinds of mint.
They have now grown enough for me to use them in cooking! I’m so proud of my little herbs – I feel like a mother. Haha.
Herb Garden Early
Here is my “baby” a couple weeks after planting. It’s so cute!
Herb Garden
The big one in the back is the borage. It is the fastest growing herb I have. The funny thing is I use it the least. At some point I will make a post about it – I use the flowers in tea, it’s good. More experimentation will occur over the rest of the summer. From what I’ve read, it will stick around and spread crazily. I must learn how to use it well. One good thing about it is my dad’s bees love it. So honey for us!
Herb Garden
Infant herb garden
This year I’m growing some of my own herbs. In the last year I have spent a fortune on herbs. They make things taste interesting and are beneficial to digestion, so in my opinion they are a must!
Since there is a good possibility that if I try to start some inside for a kitchen garden Milo, my cat, will eat them, I’m growing them at my parents’ house. They live on about an acre, the “farm” I grew up on. I planted them about a month ago. I have a couple different types of mint, rosemary, sage, oregano, lemon verbena, fennel, basil, and a couple of others I can’t remember. Last weekend I planted three different lettuces between the baby spice plants. They will be gone before it gets too crowded for them. Only one plant died, the original basil plant. They are a little too delicate for our recent crazy weather, probably should have waited to plant it for another month. But the most recent replacement should do okay. I hope.
Being a crazy-picture-taker, I will be documenting a lot of the gardening at my parents’ house. They have a lot of room and I have a lot of willingness to play in the dirt. Check back for updates from the “farm” weekly or so. I’m trying to get back to blogging more. However, looking for a job and the impending move will take up a lot of time. So please be patient.
Apartment Gardening
It’s fall now so of course now I want a garden. Must be contrary. Well, I told Rick about wanting to go to pick up a couple of plants. He pointed out that I’ve been having trouble keeping my plants alive recently. The cactus that I’ve had since I was a teen has died. It had been knocked out of its pot by my cat too many times to count. My coleus has died back and once again I’m not sure why. It’s almost died on me before, it does each time we move, but we haven’t moved in almost a year so what give? Milo my kitty has knocked of its branches. My peace lily is still alive though, though Milo likes to chew on it. And now my jade plant is acting weird, it’s not standing tall like normal; it’s spreading out and then growing up.
Basically my apartment garden is acting strange. This summer I had a hell of a time keeping everything watered and happy. My memory has been horrible, plus I think I was really burned out, had trouble caring about regular things. Things around me sadly suffered.
Well, I’m back, the old Missy, the one that organizes everything to the last degree of ridiculousness. I was however swayed by Rick; I’m not buying a plant any time soon. I want to keep the ones I have alive and well for a while. So I’m researching what I should focus on for an apartment. I think when I get more plants either already in plant form or seeds I’ll have a better idea as to what to get. I’ll say that I’m having trouble with something. This apartment does never have direct sun, but what about when we move? My coleus was so healthy in the old apartment; it had plenty of sun there.
I have a section of wall that I may reorganize and get grow lights to place on the lowered ceiling. It’s just a mass of clutter now. If we can afford it I want to get a shelving unit or a table of some sort. Fine plan, sounds good to me. I figure that if I plan everything to death it will help with my missing plants. Logics get in my way. I want instant gratification and cute little green plant. Patience sucks.
I have some gardening supplies, fresh soil, lots of pots and I mean lots of pots all nicely stacked. The little ones are so cute. I have a broom; every porch or apartment gardener needs one. And a trowel that is too big for some of the pots but perfect for my huge pots.
List of Gardening Needs & Wants
1. A table of shelf
2. Smaller trowel
3. Little planter tray tiny, so I can plant seeds and transplant them out into something bigger.
4. Seeds possibly organic
5. Grow lamp
So far that’s all I can think of, if anyone has anymore ideas let me know. If I come up with something else I’ll add it.
The last of my porch garden
I’ve salvaged the rest of my garden. My apple mint went to seed nearly a month ago. Rick’s peppermint has also gone to seed, but as it was a little shoot came up and grew. It is going to seed again. My lavender dried out and started to die back. It’s growing back now though. It’s over two years old. I started it just before a winter at our old apartment. It made it through two cold winters and snows. By its self mind you, I didn’t help it.
