See the bright new green in the middle? This is even a few days old- there’s even more green now! |
In the same planter box as the aloe vera I tried planting some lemon verbena and mint cuttings that my husband had rooted in water first, but the lemon verbena didn’t make it. The mint, though- most of them survived and are growing new leaves.
See how great those look, and the new leaves on some of the stalks? |
Look at those new mint leaves growing out of the ground! |
That would quantify as a win, mostly, though the lack of lemon verbena is a little sad- but I’m glad the mint- spearmint specifically does seem to be thriving!
The other planter was the one I was more nervous about, so when I saw the first sprouts popping up from the compost, I was super excited about. I’d planted a bunch of different salad greens, and couldn’t wait for them to grow.
And then the leaves got bigger and bigger and I was so eager to see which I managed to grow successfully, but finally I was able to identify the vast majority of them. The biggest leaves turned out to be mallow plants, which I have no idea how they got into there, since I didn’t remember putting any mallow into the compost and I certainly never planted them…
See the mallow in the center- the largest plants there. |
There were a bunch of other little sprouts growing in there, taking over nearly the entire planter, tiny little round leaves with red stems, that I was hoping might be the plants that I’d actually intended to grow, but in the end as they’ve grown more I see that they are actually purslane. That’s what I’d had growing in the planter three years ago, but the last two summers they never grew- because of lack of water, I guess, so I assumed they were dead, but now that I have been watering them again they are growing. I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t manage to actually grow what I was intending to grow, but not upset about the proliferation of purslane (also in the planter with the aloe and mint), since purslane is actually my favorite summer wild edible (ok, maybe tied with cactus paddles and lambsquarters) but is hardest for me to find locally- specifically why I had grown it in my planters in the past. So having so many plants of purslane is actually not something I’m upset about- its a definite win, even if the lack of lettuce and spinach is not.
In addition to the purslane there are a few other plants that I don’t know for sure what they are yet.
Some of the plants look like tomato plants, which I’m also ok with, and I understand how they got there- from my compost pile- tomatoes grow nicely from compost, and often even just start growing in random places where people dribbled seeds, and fresh tomatoes taste really wonderful.
There’s still some plants that I am unsure what they are- like the one in the above picture in the middle along the top, with the leaves that look like figure eights. The ones with pointy leaves might be tomato plants, but maybe they’ll turn out to be something else. We’ll see. I also identify two sow thistle plants, and two that might be a vetch, which isn’t edible.
We’ve been enjoying them, and this is exciting too because kale is very expensive to buy from the grocery store.