Planting Herbs

I love to use fresh herbs in my cooking, and there is nothing fresher than herbs from your own garden.  Many everyday herbs are very easy to grow and can even be grown in small gardens and containers.  Oregano, thyme, rosemary, mint and winter savory are perennial herbs that can be easily propagated and grown anywhere.  Oregano, thyme, and winter savory are low growing ground cover type herbs.  They spread under the ground and fill out in a bushy way.  When the weather is warm they send out long runners full of succulent flavorful leaves.  Harvest these runners as needed or harvest a bunch and dry them.  Mint is similar to the other three, but is a much more prolific grower.  Sending out long roots that may come up several feet away from the main plant.  Some people say it is best to plant mint in a container for this reason, but the plant is still manageable when planted in the ground.  Rosemary is a long living bush that can turn into a veritable hedge if given enough time.  When planting rosemary be sure to give it a few feet on either side fill out.  When harvesting rosemary it is best to harvest the fresh new shoots before they get a burly.  These fresh shoots are more tender and flavorful.  French tarragon is a perennial herb that may astound you with its productivity.  It may grow up to two feet high with loads of tasty leaves.  With all herbs it is important to keep up on your harvesting because it increases your overall yield.  If you wait too long to harvest, the plant may flower, seed, or get stemmy, making more work for you and less edible herbs.   So do yourself a favor and harvest often.

June 1-7

This week we continued harvesting the first squash plants. From the communal areas we harvested 7 squash (the two dark green ones that take 40 days and five light green ones with yellow speckles that grow on a vine), many bushels of cilantro, one bag of yerba buena oaxaqueña (Oaxaquen mint), and a bag of broccoli. In the personal plots, gardeners have been harvesting cactus, cilantro, lettuce, broccoli, kale, chard, oregano, cooking sage, peas, turnips, time, squash and arugula. Domingo is saddened because many of the communal squash (in Spanish, calabasas para la gente) that he planted have rotted because he planted them below the ground. Many of the plants still produce plenty of squash, however, Domingo repeats that next year he will be sure to plant all of them above ground so this does not occur again. Because of this he has planted approximately ten more plants in other communal areas so we will still have squash for residents of Beach Flats.

The challenges this week have been gophers and leaking plumbing in the Kid’s Club plot. Although we have gotten rid of many gophers, one has killed two potato plants in two different plots. The drip irrigation that the Christian group installed is leaking in various places. Usually the city administration attends to its plumbing, but for some reason that is not the case in our community garden. One of the former administrators, Rachel Colverwell, informed me that another city supervisor, Robert Acosta, would become the administrator. However, last week Reyna Ruiz, the other former city administrator, informed me that Robert Acosta was not actually officially in charge. Therefore, we have no confirmed city personnel administering the city’s contract with the gardeners. Over the past few months, especially in January, we have communicated, both verbally and in writing, with the City Council and city employees, Carol Skurich, Rachel Colverwell, and Robert Acosta to rectify the city’s absence in this city park. We have received no written correspondence from the city and Skurich informed me that they have, “no idea what is going to happen to the garden.”

Thanks for reading the brief report from our beautiful, bountiful garden. Next Friday, June 12, we will be screening 500 Years of Chicana History in Spanish at 9:00 pm at the garden. Please spread the word and stop by!