MyHerbCorner

Posts Tagged ‘garden’

This weekend was marvelous.
Aileen was helping me to peel out our kidney beans…

… of course she loved the pink ones the most (they are big and pink before they change to a dark colour while shrinking due drying)

We had a funny conversation about the beans after Aileen was asking me what the white spots on the beans are.
My answer was “That are the beans belly buttons!” (What would you have answered?)
Of course this lead into a discussion you can only have with a curious 7 year old

Christoph also called me out into the garden because he saw something moving while he was mowing the lawn.
It was a praying mantis

On my other blog are some more pictures of the mantis (click here if you like to see the underside of a mantis

And did I tell you we have Baby rabbits?

You can find more pictures on Benny’s blog if you like.

Maybe you like this herb maybe not, but let me say I am really crazy about onion weed (Allium triquetum)
Like in spring you can find it now all over wet places or at the forest edge or even as ‘weed’ in your garden

Personally I still miss ramsons also called bears leek (Aillium ursinum) which I was collecting every spring in my home country Austria. My friend even sold them on the market (still does :- )

For me onion weed is a ramsons substitute here in New Zealand and I use it everywhere you may use chive or spring onions. You can chop the leaves and use as decoration or make yummy ‘Mac & cheese & onionweeds’ (click here for the recipe)

For winter storage I dry or freeze chopped onion weed.

Once I also mixed it with a lot of salt which I used in soups. The salt kept it fresh for over half a year!
This is also a method to preserve other soup herbs like lovage (Levisticum officinale)
I mix it one part herb to one part salt and fill into a glass-jar with a tight lid. For soup I even mixed the lovage with grated carrots and it kept wonderfully fresh (that was in Austria, because there you can’t grow carrots in winter…)

By the way I love our new raised bed!
Now the cabbage whites don’t get close to my broccoli or other veggies from the cabbage or mustard family!

At one side of the tunnel I sow carrots and on the other parsnips so they can be ready for winter soups

Oops! Gonna go! Mac and cheese is ready

It is amazing how many flowers still bloom in autumn.
Here is my beloved red monarda. I prefere the red one to make yummy tasting syrup.

Awesome smelling curryplant is blooming as well.

Strong lemon scented lemon verbena is showing off her tiny flowers.

Lovely pizza thyme with it’s unusual scent of combined oregano and thyme aroma.

Twin blossom of zucchini.

And even some tomato flowers defy the colder weather.

In another corner catnip is blooming…

..and the hyssop plant nearby.

It is really lovely to see all the echinacea flowers, chamomile, oregano and other herbs as well as wonderful vanilla scented heliotrope which belongs to the borage family.

Autumn in my area means colourful flowers instead of colourful trees

What a busy day!
My ginger was already looking out of it’s pot so…

… I potted it into a huge pot. This will give us some fat roots for winter tea

Also our tumeric is big enough to pot into a big pot. They are easy to grow but ginger as well as tumeric are better taken inside when the cold season comes.

My husband is still amazed that the little piece of cattail he brought home is growing in a pot. He thought it wouldn’t develop roots, but with a bit of patience and proper care I could make it happen

Today Christoph made me this wonderful raised bed (click here for some pics of his excellent work)

Our garden transforms into a big paradise not only for us, but also for animals.
We will plant some more swan plants (Gomphocarpus physocarpus) for our beloved monarch butterflies.
This was the first year we had seen the plant actually produce seed pots because when we planted this milkweed there was no monarch butterfly around.

It took a few months to get a monarch into our garden and she actually laid eggs which are now developed into hungry caterpillars.

Mummy monarch is here every day and drinks some nectar from the echinacea plants… that is…

… if the bumble bee isn’t first

In our area harvest time has started. The fields and gardens are full of ripe veggies and fruits.
I saw some red berry loaded hawthorns and a lot of acorns.
In our garden hazelnuts and walnuts are ripe and we enjoyed this cute little visitor

I guess not everyone is happy to see a hedgehog in New Zealand since they endanger indigenous bugs and lizards.

There is also this beautiful flower blooming which I have never seen before.

The leaves have spots on them and the plant is building a lantern-shaped husk like I have seen in physalis. After a few Google clicks I found out that this flower is called Nicandra physaloides and belongs to the night shade family. It is also known as ‘Shoo-fly plant’ because the juice of the stems and leaves can be added to milk and set out for flies. When flies drink from this liquid they die shortly after.
It is also known as ‘Apple of Peru’.

My calendula gives me some flowers and I am so happy to see this uplifting colour intense herb in my garden

To keep some colours indoors I also make potpourris from the leaves which fall down of fresh flower bouquets while they scent our dining room. I love also the smell of dried willow leaves… mh… so autumn like

But the best of all is our colourfull meal fresh from the garden! We even cultivate oyster mushrooms!

Please click here for a sneak peek into my husband’s mushroom farm