planting a holy basil (Ocimum sanctum) bed
Today was a wonderfully productive and easy day. We put many many plants in the ground and the beds are filling up! There are new full beds of holy basil (aka tulsi), astragalus, st. john’s wort, rosemary, thyme, hyssop, figwort (Scrophularia nodosa), and anise hyssop. We seeded a few California poppy in the center circle, as well as adding a few more hollyhock, a nice patch of jasmine-scented nicotiana, more lady’s mantle and violas and our little tribe of datura (aka jimson weed).
bed for the dragon--rosemary, thyme, hyssop
We put in a few more valerian, another blue vervain, and some strong, large wormwood and mugwort plants to begin our artemisia bed. We also seeded a number of artemisias, including sweet annie (A. annua, aka qing-hao), western mugwort (A. ludoviciana), redstem wormwood (A. scoparia, aka yin-chen), and sagebrush (A. tridentata).
planting artemisia seeds
We finished the bed for comfrey and nettles, adding stones for pathways when we need to harvest, as well as rhubarb, cleavers and some horseradish that had volunteered elsewhere in the garden. We added hibiscus (the H. sabdariffa, whose calyxes we can make beautiful red tea from), which will be annual shrubs in the front of the bed of otherwise wild-children. The cleavers would like some support and a bit of shading, which they’ll get as the nettles get larger. We seeded in some purple Papaver somniferum Zahir to add some color and other delight to our comfrey-nettle-rhubarb palace–hopefully the weather won’t get too hot for them to germinate. We still have space in that bed for others–perhaps some mints or our bee balm (Monarda) collection?
CNR palace with paths complete, rhubarb in place; dragon comes in to right of rhubarb
