Backyard Dye Garden and Edibles

Black Cohosh and Evening Primrose – a happy reunion.
Oenothera biennis, Evening Primrose AKA sundrops

Most of my garden is loving all the rain we’ve been getting but we could use more consistent sun and warmth. Still, a lot of work would have been best done earlier than now, so I’m playing catch up with putting things in that I ordinarily would have had in a month ago.

The strangest thing, though, is that a crop of oregano that’s been in there for a few years suddenly has no scent or taste. I have no idea why this would happen. So, I pulled it and put in some new Greek oregano. I’ve never grown sweet potato before but have one that should actually produce potatoes and one that is just for the foliage to use in printmaking.

Herb Bed: LtoR, basil. Thai Basi;. Front, Mints
Ipomoea batatas, sweet potato vine, emerald lace.dye garden.
Ipomoea batatas, sweet potato vine, Blackie

The tomatoes have sprung right up. I spread lots of crushed up eggshells in the tomato bed to keep those slimy hornworms off the vines and tucked in some marigolds as well. Unfortunately, I found some early Blight on one plant, so I have to hop right on this to try to save it. In my experience, though, it’s hard to stop and I don’t want it to spread to the rest of the plants. I do rotate my crops but excess rain is probably the cause.

I’ve allowed one volunteer pokeweed to stay in the dye garden. And I just introduced some Baptisia australia, False Indigo, but I will transplant this into a site more suitable for it ASAP, before it develops any significant taproots because I want a fair amount of it but it would take over my small dye garden within a short period of time. I need to clone myself to keep up!

It was a joy to plant a Butterfly Weed in the back to welcome Monarchs to the area! I’ve been chasing and pulling an extensive meandering bittersweet root, inch by inch, foot by foot. Not having enough energy left at the time, after putting it in, here’s the root I left sticking up so I can attack it today.