The garden continues to grow well. At the end of June, it was very hot on Saturday and Sunday. I planned to harvested mint to dry and was able to do so.
Wild Lemon Mint
I harvested a lot of wild mint that has lemongrass flavor and hung to dry in the garage. I let them hang outside a little bit as well.
English Mint
My mint is growing and shading some plants in the garden. I harvested many of them and hung to dry as well.
Rhubarb:
I harvested many rhubarb. Some plants are not doing well in some areas of the garden. One is shaded by parsnip tall plants. I chopped them and froze them.
I made greens and fruit salad for dinner over the weekend using sorrel.
The plants seeded and the seeds start to dry. Some of the plants started to grow young leaves which I harvest for my salad. I have sorrel throughout the garden and would continue to propagate them. They are perennial vegetables very reliable in my zone 5. I eat them raw in salad. I sauté them and I add them to soup and stew. They replace spinach and lettuce in my family diet. Spinach is an annual and I have to purchase the seeds every year if I don’t save my own seeds. Sorrel I planted once and just propagated from the existing plants. Besides letting the plants go to seeds to spread them, they grow side shoots on tall branches. I lay the branch flat on the ground and mount dirt around the shout and hold it down with a clip or a stone. After few months, I remove the shoot that rooted and plant where I want it.
Lettuce:
Lettuce from last year or two years ago seeds are growing in the garden. I made salad one time using the leaves. The leaves were so soft for me to handle that I still prefer my sorrel salad.
Rutabaga/ Turnips
One of these two is seeding in the garden. I believed they are rutabaga. I planted two years ago and let them go to seed last year. I let the seeds fall in the ground. Turnips were sowed four years ago let to seed and have been coming back ever since.
Grapes
Seeded and seedless Concord are fruiting. I have a lot of grapes on the vine. I trimmed the vines in the spring but now the plants grew more vines and a lot of grapes.
Greek Oregano, Dill, Caraway:
I sowed them in my herbs garden below my kitchen window at the end of June. My kitchen faces the front yard. So I have a little herbs garden in the front of the house under the kitchen few feet away from the building. During my cooking, I just go out and harvest some herbs when I needed. The dill and caraway were from my spice cabinet. I don’t know if they would grow. Greek Oregano was purchased early this year to plant.
Tomato:
2 tomato plants are growing in my herbs garden. I have one plant that grew there last year and yielded a lot of tasty tomatoes late in the season.
Arugula
Arugula plants went to seeds. I ate few leaves few times in salad.
Green Beans:
They are growing well.
Strawberries:
We harvested a lot of strawberries in June and continue to harvest. Although the production decreased. Alpine varieties continue to produce strawberries.
Sage
I harvested few branches to dry.
I laid flat some branches and mounted dirt around them to root this year growth. I would propagate them later. I generally don’t cut last year branches off my herbs. This year growths are on last year branches.
Wild Thyme
It is growing well. I have been cooking and making salad dressing with the leaves.
Winter savory
This year growths are on last year branches. I harvested many young branches to dry. That is one herb that lasts well in the garden and can be harvested well late in fall or early winter.
Sage, wild thyme, and winter savory last well into early winter in my garden. They are welcome in my garden. I have been using up my spices I purchased more than 8 years ago. Once I am done with them, I intend to just rely on the herbs that can grow in my garden to spice up cooking. Spice can be expensive. They are mostly seeds, roots, and bark. They don’t grow in my area. Most of them are imported from Asia. Herbs are leaves of the plants and herbs, seeds, bark, and roots are all spices. I like to focus on what I can grow in my garden to see if they are enough to spice up my food. One spice root I introduced to my garden is horseradish.
Horseradish
I have 5 plants in the garden. They are all doing well. I purchased the roots from Fedco Seeds and I planted them last year in spring. I didn’t harvest them at the end of the season. The variety I have was said that the leaves can be added to stew but I have not tried it myself. They leaves are very tall now. One plant went to seeds. Horseradish is said to spread in the garden by root. At this point they don’t seem to. I want to let them establish well. I have all sorts of mint in my garden as well as creeping Charlie. And if it is scary enough, sunchokes grow in my garden front and back.
Sunchoke/ Jerusalem artichoke / Sunroot (Helianthus tuberosus)
For those who know Jerusalem artichoke, it can spread easily. A bunny in my garden last year didn’t help either. I couldn’t find the roots to harvest this spring and I thought the bunny ate them all. Now they are growing at places I didn’t plant them. Sunchokes are roots crop that can be cooked like potato. They are growing well in the garden. I have cut few plants down from path ways other than that I let them grow where they are. Last year they grew so tall and blocked my access to some areas of the garden. This time I am removing them from my pathway if I cannot get around them. They are a specie of sunflower and a native plant.
Air Potato
I have one plant in my front yard and is growing well. I sowed the small potatoes last year when I harvested them. I spotted one new plant growing this year in the front yard. Air potato is edible. I should write and blog about it to compile my knowledge and research together.
Raspberries:
The one in my front yard are producing berries. My kids enjoy them.
Currants:
The kids and I harvested white and red currants from the front yard. I froze some. I would add them to teas over the winter. They are sour and should be high in vitamin C. The black currants are ripening as well.
Elderberry
The European elders in the front yard flowered and are fruiting. I cut many old branches off the trees in spring. Many shouts grew out of the ground over the spring.
American elders in the back yard flowered as well. They flowered a lot.
Burdock
Burdock a medicinal wild plant I transplanted two years ago grew tall this year. Last year I harvested some leaves dried them. I made burdock bar soap. I also made burdock salve using extra virgin olive oil, cocoa butter and ground burdock dry leaves.
This salve when applied to mosquito bite reduces the itchiness after few minutes.
It is a very helpful salve in my medicinal cabinet as I don’t use any store bought product to prevent insect bite.
In brief, with the heat I didn’t freeze many vegetables the last two weeks of June. I however, harvested many mint and herbs to dry. Many fruit trees ripped in June including strawberry, honeyberry, raspberry, and currant. My kids enjoyed harvesting them for their snack.
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