Note from the Garden
Posted by Elizabeth on 12-07-2009 at 8:31 pm
I know. It's winter. Believe me, I know. It snowed a bit last night, and it's expected that we will be getting another couple of inches over the next two days. I'm not doing much in the way of gardening right now.
There are new developments, though.
I did, in fact, create a small drying rack in the furnace closet. See?
It's just a quarter-inch, foot-long dowel with two cup hooks on the end for the hanging wire and some home-made S-hooks to hold the plant matter. The initial plan was to have cup-hooks screwed into the dowel at regular intervals for hanging stems, but I just could not figure out how I was going to do that without splitting the wood.
Then I remembered that S-hooks existed. Duh.
The only improvements I might make would be stronger wire for hanging (like some actual picture-hanging wire) and real S-hooks instead of some made from doubled-up florist wire. These changes are largely necessary if I want to dry big branches of basil, which is possible but a ways off. For now, this works.
Anyway, that's some of the monster-thyme you see hanging from the rack, and I think it's safe to put away. It has been hanging for a week, and for most of that week it has been cool enough to have the heater running at night (more lately, during the day as well). I probably could trim off that much again and it wouldn't hurt anything.
The other gardening development is that I have created a spreadsheet to track plants from year to year. It has basic information on the plant (pot and soil requirements, date planted, etc), a note section, and, importantly, whether I think it can share its pot well with other plants. Basil, by the way, does not share well. Mine did not, anyway. It nearly shaded out the parsley.
I already have next year's page set up. No sense wasting the planning time, right?
There are new developments, though.
I did, in fact, create a small drying rack in the furnace closet. See?
It's just a quarter-inch, foot-long dowel with two cup hooks on the end for the hanging wire and some home-made S-hooks to hold the plant matter. The initial plan was to have cup-hooks screwed into the dowel at regular intervals for hanging stems, but I just could not figure out how I was going to do that without splitting the wood.
Then I remembered that S-hooks existed. Duh.
The only improvements I might make would be stronger wire for hanging (like some actual picture-hanging wire) and real S-hooks instead of some made from doubled-up florist wire. These changes are largely necessary if I want to dry big branches of basil, which is possible but a ways off. For now, this works.
Anyway, that's some of the monster-thyme you see hanging from the rack, and I think it's safe to put away. It has been hanging for a week, and for most of that week it has been cool enough to have the heater running at night (more lately, during the day as well). I probably could trim off that much again and it wouldn't hurt anything.
The other gardening development is that I have created a spreadsheet to track plants from year to year. It has basic information on the plant (pot and soil requirements, date planted, etc), a note section, and, importantly, whether I think it can share its pot well with other plants. Basil, by the way, does not share well. Mine did not, anyway. It nearly shaded out the parsley.
I already have next year's page set up. No sense wasting the planning time, right?
Garden
