The Herb Garden, Part 2

Despite the drizzle yesterday, I was able to plant out more of the herb garden. Here is one half:


Several of the culinary herbs were planted a few weeks ago, but I had to wait for The Herb Farmacy to open in May to get many of the others. The Herb Farmacy is an organic nursery in Salisbury that specializes in herbs and heirloom varieties of tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. They have an amazing variety and a really knowledgeable staff. They are also super-nice. We forgot our checkbook (they don't take credit cards), and they let us take the plants and mail the check to the from home so we didn't have to drive back and forth. This place is awesome!

Anyway, we added lemon balm, bay laurel, sorrel, horehound, and lovage to our herb garden. We decided on a plant change on the fly while we were strolling the greenhouses, too. We cut marjoram from our list because it is an annual here, and is pretty much just a mild oregano (which we already have two of). Instead we went with sorrel (a tangy green that almost made the cut the first time around on this plan) and the bay (which Kirk was excited to find). The bay laurel, like the rosemary, will have to come inside for the winter. Those are all also culinary, with the exception of horehound, which is more medicinal (unless you like horehounds, which some people consider a candy — I think it's really a cough drop in disguise).


The other purchase from The Herb Farmacy is comfrey, which are the four big plants spread out behind the sweet woodruff in the photo above. They dug us up one giant root and we split it into four when we got home. It doesn't look like much now, but once its deep taproots get settled in, the plants should spread out to look like fuzzy hosta. This plant is a great compost additive, and is also traditionally used for healing wounds. It should fill in that space by the garage fairly quickly, which is a landscaping plus.

Only a few more herbs to go and we'll be done with the last perennial section of the garden. The ladies at The Herb Farmacy said they should be ready later in the month, so we'll be back for sure to get the last herbs and some pepper and eggplant transplants.

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