Though the month of June found me rather preoccupied with the 30 Days of Creativity challenge as well as starting up my brand new Italian blog, I promise you that I didn’t forget about my adventures in herb gardening!
Now that it’s July, I thought it was time for an update.
My containers full of beautiful, rich, loose soil proved to be a huge attraction to our local squirrels, but I think we managed to come up with a solution that, while certainly not attractive, seems to have kept the little critters at bay.
My husband and I spent quite some time cutting and embedding sections of chicken wire and, several scratches later, finished painstakingly surrounding my herbs with what came to be known as squirrel jail. Over the next day or so the beasts managed to find a couple of weak points in our construction, but we were able to repair the (minimal) damage… and I do believe we have finally fortified the barriers effectively, as we haven’t seen any recent evidence of ingress.
Time to celebrate!
Best of all, our perseverance has meant that we have enjoyed some wonderful rewards! The other day we had a salad with fresh sweet basil and chives from my garden, and green pepper and cherry tomatoes from my husband’s, and it was so incredibly delicious and satisfying… all the more so knowing that we’d grown the food ourselves instead of purchasing it at a grocery store.
I wish I could share the intoxicating smells and mouth-watering tastes with you, but I’m afraid that the best I can do is provide you with a couple of pictures.
As always, clicking on each photo will take you to the larger version on Flickr.
Sage, Chives, Thyme
The chives are a bit short as we’ve been enjoying them in several different dishes over the past few weeks. My husband laughed when he saw them, and said that I’d given them a military haircut!
Sweet Basil, Parsley, Oregano
The sweet basil is incredible – you can almost see it growing! And it is so, so yummy. (I think that perhaps I’ll give pesto another try. I had it when I was much younger and wasn’t a fan, but perhaps my tastes have changed.)
So, how is your garden growing?
