Saturday Gardening Thread: Driven to Drink [KT}

Hello gardeners. Hope nobody in the Southeast whose garden is currently "in the drink" has been driven to give up gardening in order to become a mermaid.

Not that there's anything wrong with being a mermaid, as long as you are not acting out of desperation. There are probably other alternatives if you are just feeling discouraged by your garden's current condition.

Houzz offers 10 solutions for soggy soil. This one looks nice:

A companion article identifies flood-tolaerant native trees for soggy soil. Some of them are surprises to me, such as Arborvitae and Pecan. Can't say that the flood tolerance of the magnolia and cypress species identified in the piece surprise me.

There may be some in The Horde who would like to drown their sorrow over floods, droughts, etc. in drink. CBD's Food Thread last Sunday included a fine rant against the "new prohibitionists" which had me wondering if Dartmouth should rhyme with Vermouth. Dartmouth has a rather casual arboretum featuring northern trees. Anyway, cocktails seemed to be a popular subject in the Food Thread comments. There may be some plants in your garden that you could use in cocktails.

Coincidentally, I saw a NYT best-selling book called The Drunken Botanist offered in a seed catalog. The author is a botanist and has written other gardening tomes. This one sounds fun as sort of geeky, casual reading. I would probably love it even though I don't drink. There's a quirky video ad for the book at the Amazon link above. Remember the AoSHQ Amazon Store, by the way.

One garden plant from the book which I saw highlighted in reviews is Lemon Verbena. It is wonderfully fragrant when touched in the garden and has many kitchen uses in addition to its use in alcoholic (and non-alcoholic) beverages.

I have never grown it. Sounds like some people grow it very successfully, while others have difficulty keeping it alive. Comprehensive garden profile here. A lot of people think it is one of the best lemon fragrances around, especially when fresh. The plant attracts butterflies.

Have you ever grown it? Perhaps in the future, your favorite bar will grow some out back. This brings us to:

Farm News

This week, the Wall Street Journal asked, Are Shipping Containers the Future of Farming?

Goldman Sachs is investing.

There are more than 60 Freight Farms containers installed in 22 states and two Canadian provinces, in climates ranging from the long winters of Ontario to the sweltering heat of Texas. In a development that surprised even the company’s founders, the containers are increasingly making their way onto traditional farms for supplemental income outside the growing season. But most are parked in the interstitial spaces of cities, from warehouses and underneath highway overpasses to alleyways behind the restaurants where their crops are served. The result is hyperlocal produce, which sometimes travels just a few feet from farm to table.

Local Farm and Garden Report

I harvested my first slicing tomato this week, one new to me called Bush Early Boy. It is firm to the touch, like many store-bought tomatoes. The skin is kinda tough and the flesh is a little mealy. But the flavor is much better than that of the typical store-bought tomato. Think i'll go for a different early tomato next year.

We are restriced to twice-a-week watering, early mornings and late evenings. Today is my watering day.

In local produce news, cherries are done and apricots soon will be. You may now be seeing peaches and nectarines grown near our home at a market near you. I think nectarines ship better than peaches, as a rule. I think they are piced when they are a little riper than peaches.

Is anything going on in your garden, yard or farm?

posted by Open Blogger at 12:30 PM

| Access Comments