The North Chef’s Garden is coming along nicely. In fact I am feeling quite proud of what we have accomplished in there. Let’s hope the produce sells! Lots more to be done yet though.
In the next few days we will plant 60 lavender plants, 60 thyme plants, 60 rosemary plants and 50 oregano plants. I hope my chefs want herbs because I am growing them!
But at the moment all the plants are so tiny they are hard to see. Hard for you to see anyway and sometimes hard for me to see when I am hoeing. They will grow though and I will show you. This won’t be an ugly garden for long.
When I set Camera House up for the day I always take a test shot. This image is completely unframed, thoughtless, and unconsidered for anything but light, and then discarded. Above is yesterdays test shot. It is probably the most telling as far as ugly shots go.
Now I must away.
Work to be done.
I hope you have a glorious day. I really do.
love celi
Weather Forecast: Slowly heating back up. Still perfect for gardens and dogs.
Thursday 06/08 0% / 0 in Mostly sunny skies. High 81F. Winds light and variable.
I’m sure they will want your herbs 😉
I think so too – we will see
You said a while ago that something wouldn’t grow because your land was boggy. Would that dampness allow you to grow gourmet mushrooms…? I know they go great guns with chefs, just like the herbs you already have going.
Mushrooms grow in dark houses – a completely different set up needed for mushrooms, unless you can find them wild and I don’t have a forest. Interesting idea though – but I am happy with my herbs. c
I’ve seen Oyster mushrooms grown on damp straw in a polytunnel with shadecloth over it, and in cool damp conditions below 25°C, which is why I thought it might work for you….
I have some friends who’ve purchased spores and ‘planted’ them in holes drilled in logs. I guess it takes a couple of years but is generally successful. Another thing I’ve added to my endless ‘someday’ list!
The garden Ismail lovely already. But aren’t 60 rosemary bushes a lot? In Greece they grow to be huge!
I wish they would grow big here too but alas they seldom last a winter. I treat them like annuals.. c
Wow Cecilia, this garden looks awesome!!
Thank you – I am pleased with it! c
I think your Camera practise shot is super and far from being boring. There are all the things you use during you busy life..shoes left where you took the off, a bucket and other items useful for your daily life…more of these pics please…it reminds me of my childhood and Grandad's porch
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2017 at 1:39 PM
The porch is always so messy – I would like to give it a good sweep today but I am sure I will not have time..
The test shot looks so lush and green. I actually like it! I can envision sitting there hot and back aching – with a cold glass of ice tea. The condensation feeling good to my cheek as I put the glass to it….
Lavender – so we have a farm north of Fort Worth called Lavender Ridge. They make all the usual soap, linen spray, little bags of lovely scent… but their cafe is amazing. Lavender cheese cake, Lavender lemonade, Lavender and thyme chicken salad…. She had a cold corn and lavender soup with sage the last time I visited – it was so very luscious and creamy with out an ounce of cream!
How divine all those lavender flavored dishes at the Lavender Ridge Cafe sound. Going to replace the three lavender plants that died after that super cold winter we had back in ?. I want to taste them all. I use my rosemary, thyme, sage, mint & dill in many things like that too.
I love lavender too but it does not last long here because of the winters – c
Lucky you having such a divine cafe – that cheesecake sounds delicious.. c
I have a rosemary bush that is 2metres wide and nearly 1.5metres tall in the driest bottom part of my garden …. the bees love it too. I am envious of the 60 lavender bushes though. Laura
How I wish I could grow rosemary that big but sadly it is only an annual here.. though i always try to nurse them through the winter..
We made rock walled raised beds. The walls are not very high, but the bases of the plants are protected by them & now the rosemarys survive winter here in the Blue Ridge Mtns. And when it goes way down in the teens & zero I throw sheets over them. We haven’t had any below zero temps since here since 1985. I remember it was 25 below on Christmas Day for some hrs. & killed any number of plants & trees. Rock walls might be a project for another day if your rosemary market booms. (I know we are much farther south, but our elevation moves us up zones.)
Boo seems quite pleased with the gardens so far, striking a prideful pose. (Or maybe just an over the shoulder wriggle to ease an itch or catch a fly.) I have 2 rosemarys & a raised bed bordered in thyme. Both are threatening to take over the beds, paths & whole darn place. You can be grilling with bunches of your stems & flavoring everything you eat, and still sell heaps. Everything looks wonderful at The Farmy, even your test shot porch. Such a glorious enterprise you have there, Celie.
Rosemary cannot take the winters here so I treat it like an annual.. I love the scented smoke when you grill with it too – divine
I love to rub my hands on rosemary and then just inhale the aroma!!! same with lavender, chocolate mint and a few other herbs!!!
Ha is Boo trying to catch a fly! 😀
He hates flies – in fact he is genuinely insulted when one lands on him – the look he gives is classic!
My Mac is the same, he all but puts his neck out of joint whipping around to snap at them!
your test shot is a great glimpse into your busy life…..a place to pause and perhaps sit before putting those shoes back on and going out into your gardens!
Have a lovely day!
Yes, dogs and cats and people all rest out there..
I just went to visit the cast page. What a lovely list and that you have the founding members of the farm still there. Y’all – if you haven’t been to the cast page in a while – go look….. P
I think it may need a wee bit of updating? I should go and have a look myself..
Chefs always want herbs!
I hope so – c
Being a big gardener myself ~ I’m well aware of all of this work!!!! But I love Boo giving orders!! I should give him a vacation and come stay with me for a few days and keep me company while I work in my garden!!!
I love your verandah, ours always needs a sweep and yields enough dog hair to knit another dog…
Fresh herbs from fields to the chefs, they will love them. I’m only just learning about so much work but satisfaction in growing stuff, and my scale is barely even domestic. If you don’t have it but have room, lemon thyme is lovely too. I love being able to pick stuff from my own yard… or the neighbours’… and am beginning to experiment with herb/spiced salts, lavender sugar, flavoured cooking oils etc.
Lavender sugar! that sounds wonderful
I read in the paper the other day that lavender is very good for depression–sniffing it, I mean.
I will attest to that! It is an uplifting scent!
That is a HUGE Texas-sized garden! 😀
Yes- it is a biggun and not to forget the two others on the south side.. I am hoeing like a crazy woman!
I also absolutely love that verandah shot: would love to sit comfortably in one of the chairs and be part of all that lush greenery. Love the look of your garden and so hope the compensation will be worth the effort! If ‘your’ chefs ‘do’ Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern cooking they will be jubilant about your choices – they also have the advantage of being pretty bug- and fungus-proof plants. Lavender is beautiful – but wonder who will be interested on such a scale . . . .
Not looking ugly to me, Miss C… Camera House’s test shot looks like comfort at home; with kicked-off shoes, so cool and inviting: )
Best of luck with your herbs. Nothing, and l mean nothing, tastes as good as home grown produce:)
“They will grow though and I will show you.” There’s that hope, that promise. It’s what we come back for. What we need. Now, thanks to the test shot,, we can gather on the veranda with you for a breather.
i love the ‘ugly shot’ …… it is life in action, and you do it so beautifully
Wow look at that garden growing! Fab .. you can never can too many herbs. Are those frames housing tomatoes?