Stymied by My Cilantro

This is the first year I've tried to grow cilantro (coriander) in my garden . . . and it's not looking at all like I thought it would.

I bought two started plants from my local nursery (they were in small 3" pots) and planted them in my herb bed. They are both a good two feet tall now and from the time they seemed to take hold and start to grow, they put out these lovely little white flowers all over each plant.

The green leaves (pictured above) are very fine, small and delicate. I remember the cilantro I've purchased in the store as having more of a broad, flat leaf. Like Italian parsley. Know what I mean?

Also, I had expected the cilantro plants to look/grow more like parsley (shown above). More of a low, bushy type plant.

My cilantro plants are actually very, very attractive, covered with an abundance of the delicate white flowers. But there's more blossom than foliage . . . and I was growing the cilantro for its leaves! (Geesh, some people are never satisfied. Most of the time, we grump about all foliage and no flower!)

So I guess my question is are there different types of cilantro like there are different types (and leaf configurations) of parsley? Come on all you Green Thumbers out there that have grown cilantro/coriander in your herb gardens . . . fill me in here, please?

Signed, Clueless in Cilantro

Mama, Will We Starve This Winter?

No, 'tis not a panic situation . . . and I promise we won't starve this winter. But, holy smoly, what a crazy gardening season we're having.

Since it is now past the middle of July and the above zucchini (which I sliced up - after losing it twice on the counter - and put in our scrambled eggs this morning) is the first one we've had this year, I think I oughta turn in my trowel and take up playing bridge, don't you? (Oh, yuck, I'm sorry, but card games are BOOOOR-ING.)

We've had one hot spell (and I will admit it was HOT) but it lasted only a few days. Other than that, our temps have been way below normal. Our dry spell seems to have been broken as we're experiencing a very moist period . . . which, granted, is much welcomed and I'm not complaining about that. (Right before the inch of rain we received a couple of days ago, we had a small forest fire in the area but it was thankfully contained and put out in short order.)

Perfect weather for peas now that we've gotten some good moisture. Yes, we are that far behind that our peas are just now in full blossom with a few pods forming. Wanna know what my shivering bean plants have to say about the situation? "Phfttthppp." That's bean talk for giving you the ol' raspberries.

It's drizzling rain as I write and our forecasted high for the day is 58 degrees. When we got up this morning it was 64 in the house and I said oh, the heck with it and built a fire in the wood stove. Cozy in here now . . . I'm fighting the urge to curl up with a book . . . it's that kind of a day.

As we ate breakfast we were discussing what we were going to work on today. We've got plenty to do and even some things outside we can easily accomplish . . . if the rain doesn't turn to ice.

Frazzled

Just one of those days that we all have now and then. Too much to get done in a day's time . . . and yet we continually fool ourselves into thinking we are capable of accomplishing it all. (Picture Wonder Woman with her headpiece and cape askew, tights bagging at the knees and limping slightly . . . that's how I feel tonight.)

We had one whopper-doo of a storm last night and received a blessed inch of rain. Boy, we needed that. The garden soil is still moist and black 18 hours after the last drop of rain fell.

I'm going to be away from home all day tomorrow and so had strawberries that really needed to be picked today. I went out about noon time but everything was still so sopping wet (and the rain brought the slugs [shudder] out in full force) that I stopped trying to pick hoping it would be drier later in the day.

It was after dinner tonight before I could get out into the strawberry patch again. Better conditions, although the slimy slugs were still in evidence. I got all but one of the eight rows picked before the bugs got too bad.

I'm too pooped to process them tonight so they'll have to wait patiently in the refrig until tomorrow night, and I'll deal with them then.

Wonder Woman needs a shower very badly now and a good night's sleep before hitting the floor running tomorrow morning. How does one arrange your life so that you don't have way too many Must Dos of a day? It truly seems like there are so many time-sensitive things to be done that if you put them off, the next day they come back to bite you in the derriere and make your life even more rushed. And unpleasant. And frazzled. And . . . aw, heck. I'll think about it tomorrow.

Love, Scarlett

Bean Report

Because I know many of you have been losing sleep over the report of the leaf disease my yellow beans were exhibiting, I wanted to share with you that I think they're gonna be all right. (And a mighty roar goes up from the crowd.)

The new leaves that are growing up and above the scabby, fungusy, brown burned spots in the lower leaves are looking fine and healthy. Still don't know what affected the first leaves but am monumentally (whew!) glad it didn't spread to the green beans or continue on the yellow beans. Disaster averted.

Had to throw in this picture of my first Morning Glory blossom. Purdy, ain't it? If it looks a little wet it's because I watered with the hose right before I took the picture. About 1 o'clock this afternoon, it started to look very gray and overcast. I figured if I took the time to water, it would start to rain as soon as I finished. Hasn't worked yet . . . but I'm still hoping.

Just Monday

Not much excitement on ye ol' homestead today. Getting laundry done and recuperating from a busy weekend.

The only thing that got done in the garden today was a good watering with the sprinkler which my husband engineered and was in charge of. Bless him. Dry, dry, dry is the current state of the soil right now. We keep getting the promise of rain dangled before us but it doesn't materialize. It's amazing how fast everything dries out when you don't receive frequent doses of rainfall.

I picked strawberries yesterday so had quite a few (still have some) to deal with today. I know it was a bad thing to do since there are just the two of us here to eat it but . . .

I discovered this recipe only last year and think I've been waiting since then to have the fresh berries to make it again. You bake the shortcake in an 8" round cake pan and then (very carefully) slice it in half to make the two layers.

Knowing this was waiting in the wings for dessert, I made only a tossed salad for dinner. Then (woo-hoo!) we dove into the Strawberry Shortcake. Oooof, I be stuffed right now. But not to worry. The feeling will pass . . . and I know what I'm having for breakfast.

Be Afraid of Your Straw Mulch - Be Very Afraid

After cleaning the strawberry patch up first thing this spring, I tackled the job of mulching between the rows to keep weeds down, hold moisture, and provide "clean" paths for me to crawl on when I harvest the berries.

For the first couple of pathways I used up some old straw left last year in a pile at the end of the garden. When that was gone, I got a couple of bales of straw from some we purchased last fall (for mulch and poultry bedding) that we had stored under cover over winter. I used those bales to finish up my mulching in the strawberry patch.

It wasn't very long before I started noticing healthy, green sprouts coming up through the mulch that I had put down last . . . the straw we got last fall. In short order it looked suspiciously like a good stand of oats. (I'm sure the weeds would have been less thick if I'd not mulched at all!)

This is one of the rows where I used the old straw that had been left out in the elements. And had no seeds in it. Lovely. Nice mulch. Good mulch.

Well, sure as shootin', turns out our latest purchased straw did indeed have a lot of oat seeds in it . . . which to my mind, makes it pretty useless as mulch.

Because we're not market gardening this year, I have one corner of the field garden where I didn't plant anything. I kinda planned it this way because this area has always been the poorest soil in the garden and I wanted to try to enrich it this summer by sowing a green manure crop and tilling it in or just mulching it and then plowing that under. But Roy had the idea to use the space to lay out the oat seed-filled bales of straw, soak them down really well with water so the oat seeds would start to sprout, then cover the whole pile with a dark tarp which would cause the bales to heat up and kill the sprouted seeds.

That's what we've done and now the tarp is ready to be taken off. We'll stack the now seed-free (keep your fingers crossed) bales of straw outside at the end of the garden by the fence line and they'll be ready to use as mulch when we need them. Sounds like a good plan. Hope it works.