What’s Growin’

By: Garden4Dinner

I am always interested in what others are growing. It is time to share what I have growing at my place. It is winter here in the Pacific Northwest, so this isn’t the height of the growing season. I have previously planted perennials, started indoor seeds, and indoor plants.

I only include edible or medicinal plants here. I have many other beautiful plants, but this is Garden4Dinner and I only include flowers if I plan to consume them. I know medicine isn’t exactly food, but it does help with being frugal and healthy.

Indoors

Herbs/Medicinal

• Sweet Laurel Bay Tree – This tree provides bay leaves used for cooking. My tree is new and small, therefore, I plan to let it grow for a while before using the leaves.

Sweet Laurel Bay Tree: I already included this picture in a previous post, but I love it, so here it is again.

• Camellia sinensis (Green Tea Tree)– I love tea and green tea is one of my favorites. This year I purchased a very small green tea tree and want to try to use the leaves for tea. I plan to wait a few years for it to grow more before harvesting.

Camellia sinensis (Green Tea Tree)

• Aloe Vera – I had a larger plant for several years that endured much abuse by my lack of attention. I was able to take pups (Aloe Vera offsets) from that plant and start some new healthy plants. I am inspired to take better care of them now.

Little Aloe Vera plants that have been growing very quickly.

• Mint – I am not sure on the variety because I grew it from cuttings. It grows very well in the spring and the summer. I usually leave it outside in the winter and let it die off and regrow in the summer. This year after letting it die off, I brought it inside early hoping it would start growth early and it has. I plan to harvest quite a bit of mint this year for tea.

Look at how lovely the mint is growing during the winter!

Seedlings

• Australian Brown Onions (bulb onion) – I started these onions back in January and they are growing tall quickly. We eat bulb onions in everything. I am sure I didn’t plant enough. I am excited because after several years of trying to grow these seeds, this is the best growth I have had yet. I generally have better luck with onion sets.

Grow, Australian Brown Onions, Grow!

• Common Chives – We don’t eat a lot of chives, but it will be nice to have them available when we do use them. I used to have a lot planted in a garden bed that would come up every year, but I dug them up to use the space for something we eat more of.

Common Chives

• Australian Yellow Lettuce (Green Leaf) – This is a new variety I am trying which is supposed to grow well in the Pacific Northwest. My kids prefer milder lettuce varieties and I am hoping they will like this one.

• Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce (Green Leaf) – I have always had success with this variety and my kids like it.

• Crisp Mint Lettuce (Romaine) – I am hoping my kids will like this new variety that is supposed to grow well in the Pacific Northwest. My daughter said her favorite is lettuce is a romaine.

• Rouge d’Hiver Lettuce (Romaine) – This variety has a red color to it. I have grown it before and I like to be able to add some color to my salads and the extra vitamins and nutrients that come with the different color.

• Sweet Marjoram – This is my first time growing marjoram. We don’t use a lot of marjoram, but it is another type of herb I would just like to have around for when we want to use it. So far it has been growing very quickly and very well.

Varieties of Lettuce, Marjoram, and Common Chives

• Seascape Strawberries – I purchased some bare root plants and they came in December, which isn’t the right time of year. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, so I put them in pots and in my house. They were doing really well and growing probably a little too much and then all of a sudden they started to look unhealthy. I hope they recover when I am able to plant them outside. I will share more details in a future post.

Trees

• Dwarf Meyer Lemon – I just received this in the mail. It looks a little sad, I hope it hangs in there.

This Meyer Lemon is much smaller than I expected.

• Dwarf Key Lime – I just received this tree also and it looks less sad, but not great. I have a friend that lives in Seattle that has a beautiful lemon tree that produces a lot and inspired me to give citrus a try. Citrus must be brought indoors during the winter in our area.

Dwarf Key Lime

Outdoors

Vegetables

Planted last fall

• Yellow Stuttgarter Onions (sets) – This is a new variety for me. I saw this variety at the nursery and just couldn’t resist.

The onions are in the back and garlic in the front. They are growing fast again now that the days are getting longer.

• Garlic – A few years ago I tried to look up the variety of garlic that is sold in the grocery store because I love the strong flavor. I couldn’t find what it was, so I just planted some I purchased at the grocery store. This is the garlic that has been divided from that original planting a few years ago. I just call it my store-bought garlic.

My garlic is growing strong and loving the longer days, just like I am. This is one of my deck containers.

• Oregon Sugar Pod II Snow Peas – This is the first year I have grown snow peas. I am excited to see how they turn out. I expected them to be a little taller than they have been by now and I am afraid they haven’t been happy about all of the snow we have had this winter.

I just love the look of peas growing.

Perennials

• Asparagus – There is really not much to see in March.

Herbs

I decided to start planting more herbs last year and all of these herb plants were purchased last year.

• Berggarten Sage
  

Berggarten Sage

 

• English, Platinum Blonde Lavender

• Spanish ‘Anouk Silver’ Lavender

• Phenomenal Lavender

My Phenomenal Lavender is the largest of my lavender plants (which isn’t very big).

• Thyme – I had Thyme in a pot for several years, but unfortunately, it couldn’t handle the winter and I will have to start again. I wish I would have brought it inside.

Fruit

None of my fruit varieties produce fruit in March. I will share more information about them in the future.

• Multi-variety dwarf apple tree
• Multi-variety dwarf European pear tree
• Multi-variety dwarf cherry tree
• Asian Pear Tree
• Persimmon Tree
• Blueberry bushes
• Blackberries
• Raspberries
• Grapes

The grapes are dormant right now. This photo also shows we have planter boxes on the railing of the deck.

• Huckleberry bush

Huckleberry bushes are beautiful during the winter.

• Apricot – The featured image of this blog post was a picture I took of the apricot blooms from this week. It was amazing there was blue sky for about an hour. Don’t be mislead by the blue sky in that picture, in the Pacific Northwest the sky is usually grey in the winter.
  

My apricot tree was unable to handle the unusual 7” snow fall. Many branches broke off and the branches were touching the ground. It is still blooming (the featured image), but time will tell how well it recovers.

What are you growing? Anything growing particularly well for you?

[Image Credit: ©2017 Garden4Dinner]

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