Ilene,

Mint was one of the first things that came to mind because of the sogginess in the spring, but mint is dangerous (as you know) beause it can take off and run wild and become invasive.

Nasturtiums might do well there, but I have found their performance varies a lot depending on the weather. They'll last most the summer for me as long as we aren't incredibly hot. This year some of them did make it through until August, but that's in full sun. They'd likely do better in afternoon shade, and their edible! When they are happy, they can form big mounds but I just put the shorter ones (the ones that are said to grow 12" tall) near the pathways so they don't hang over into the pathways too much.

Another herb that likely would do well there is chamomile, which grows well even in my soggy clay and holds up well as long as it is either deadheaded regularly or at least cut back hard after the initial period of bloom.

I think just about any herb would do well there, but some of them like borage and lemon balm, and many basils as well, can become huge monsters. There are some shorter globe-shaped and littleleaf basils that would flourish there, and so would parsley which also would attract swallowtails to your garden. Swiss chard, and in particular the multicolored mixed ones like 'Bright Lights' and 'Neon Lights' would flourish in that location and are edible. As long as you keep the larger, outer leaves picked, new leaves appear continuously.

Some of the shorter ornamental peppers likely would do well in that location. I have had a lot of success with peppers--both edible and ornamental--that are on the east side of a very large pecan tree and only get sunlight until 1 or 2 p. m. I have better luck with peppers in the ground with morning sun in that location and not such good luck with peppers in containers and an eastern exposure. (But, then, none of the peppers I have in containers produce as well as the ones in the ground no matter how much sunlight they get.)

For a lower-growing herb, there are a lot of pretty thymes, but they might need better drainage, and scented geraniums might do well there too. You could grow cilantro there in spring but it might play out in the summer heat. I have a hard time keeping cilantro going through the July heat--but the afternoon shade might help with that.

One of the shorter dills might do well in that little strip of soil, or even chives....although, if happy, the chives will get tall and gangly and flop over onto the path. However, happy chives form big dense clumps and probably would crowd out any grass or weeds that tried to pop up there.

Those are a few of my ideas.

Dawn

I have some soggy spots where all I can grow is ferns...might be too big for your spot though. If you try thyme like Dawn mentioned you really should give lemon thyme a try :-) She also mentioned Chamomile--I don't know how that does in soggy soil but I know it would do fine in dry soil in the summer and it doesn't overtake everything. We had it in Northern Cal where it got to 115 degrees and almost no humidity and nothing could kill that stuff. Come to think of it, we got several months of rain all in a row every year so maybe it would do well with the soggy soil too. Worth a try cause the flowers make awesome tea. If you think Stevia might grow in that spot you could have a mini tea making area lol.

Have fun whatever you choose and good luck filling in your spot.

Mandy

Those are some great ideas! I do have a Stevia plant in a container that I bought at a farmer's market, and I brought it in to put it under light when the weather turned. It's going to seed. I bought some seed from Baker Creek, as well. Hmmmmm. Nasturtiums sound good and they would add a lot of color. I've grown them before. I have parsley and swiss chard growing elsewhere. I had lemon balm in the herb garden but it became so invasive that I had to move it to the north side of the house, where it is thriving in a strip of soil between the house and a sidewalk. On the plus side for lemon balm, it did choke out the Bermuda. And everything else, I might add. I like the idea of chamomile because I love the tea, but I've tried to grow it before without success. Maybe I just had it in a location it didn't like though. It's funny how, when you find just the right spot, something will flourish like it never has before.

If ornamental peppers would thrive there, I wonder if that would be a suitable location to plant jalapenos. I don't have a lot of experience with them, grew three plants in my raised bed this year so I could make nachos. And, oh, I used that recipe you gave me Dawn but we haven't tried them yet, still finishing up a jar from the grocery store. I found another recipe that called for just filling the jar with the pepper slices, then pouring on half cider vinegar, half water, boiling of course, and then into a BWB for 10 minutes. I tried that on a couple of jars. But anyway, the plants didn't get real tall, and they kept wilting out there in the sun. Most of the peppers I picked came from the one plant. The other two just stayed small and didn't make much. Since the mole had been in that bed, I thought maybe there was a tunnel under the plants. Maybe it they grew where they were happy they would be too tall. I liked how bush-shaped the plants were though. There's not much call for hot peppers at my house. Spicy things have always upset DH's stomach and so the rest of us have to spice our stuff up individually. It loses something that way.

That is about a 12' stretch along there. How would it look to interplant several of these things? I'm thinking if I had one thing planted along there it would just be too much, except maybe for the STevia, and if that one thing didn't do well there I'd still have a bare spot.

That might be a GREAT place to plant Swiss Chard. I just planted some out of pots that I bought on sale at Atwood's. They were soooooo potbound, I just hate to disturb them now to move them. But I bet they'd winter over better there. I have read that it is possible to keep them going year-round. Would being soggy in the spring rot them?

I knew that there were several different kinds of thyme and I do love basil. I have seeds for several kinds of that. Lemon basil is wonderful, too. Basil, though, gets too tall and floppy for there. I also love the look and smell of those little Sparky marigolds but I have them coming up all over the place and it would be nice to have something different there. I dry the flowers and use them in place of saffron. What about Mexican Tarragon? I've had it in several places but it's never done very well for me. I still have some seed though. If it was happy might it be too tall??

Ilene,

I love interplanted areas. I try to garden like Mother Nature, and you don't see Mother Nature planting monocultures of single-row crops! I interplant everything.

My peppers do best with some afternoon shade. Otherwise, the July and August heat and intense sunlight just eat their lunch. I get better pepper results from plants that get morning sun and then either full shade from 2 or 3 p.m. onward, or at least dappled shade in the afternoon.

I have grown Swiss Chard in very heavy, barely-improved clay and they only rotted one very cold and wet spring. In general, they can take a lot of water....and a lot of cold. I have had chard plants live for 2 years here....sometimes freezing to the ground but coming right back with new growth just a few days later.

Mexican tarragon likely would get tall and floppy, but you could just shear it back periodically. I have that trouble with tansy. I just love tansy and would grow more of it if I could keep it at 18" or so. However, everywhere I've planted it, it has insisted on getting 3-5' tall and flopping all over and taking over and reseeding too vigorously, so I've about given up on it. With the garden expansion plans for next year, maybe I can give tansy its own place and let it do as it pleases. I moved my tarragon to a new spot this year and it didn't get too big, but it was invaded by bermuda grass that crept in under the fence.

Dawn

Isn't it interesting that we all have a desire to "till more land", "increase the size of the garden", "fill the whole back yard", "build another raised bed", "plant more intensivly", "build a cold frame", "wish for a hoop house", "plan for a greenhouse". Do you think our survival instinct is kicking in?

That sounds like a picture perfect spot for a variety of lettuces. I grew a dark red one last year that was beautiful, lollo rossa. The little butterheads are very pretty too. Maybe some purple cabbages interspersed along there. Lots of the spring garden things love moisture and morning sun. Mesclun mixes and spinach?

I love your brick layout in that area.

Lollo rossa

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I also planted some parsley as an edging:

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I would think your peppers would do better in more sun. East side like that, is partial shade, for plants that like no afternoon sun.

I would think hosta or fern would do fine in such a location.

Moni

Oh, Glenda, that's purty! I don't know if the soil is good enough there for that. I bought a flowering kale that would be pretty along the edge if I had a few more than just one.

Dawn, I do think I'll interplant a bunch of different things. I might have to put up a little picket fence to close off the area and keep the dog out though. He doesn't pee on the stuff in the raised beds but I've had to barricade other things. In his defense, what with the grassy spots shrinking he has fewer and fewer places where he can do his thing. It has solved the problem with his leaving his little gifts all over the yard, like easter eggs, that had to be hunted down and cleaned up before we found ourselves with something on our shoes. He doesn't like to poo on cardboard or mulch, and he stays out of the raised beds, thankfully. I realize as long as we have the dog I'll have to leave him some grass to call his own.

I enjoy Tansy too. Those bright little yellow button flowers are so cheerful. But mine gets tall, too, and then falls over in a radial pattern, which is kinda annoying. I like a mix of tall and short stuff in that herb garden though.

This little garden area is only a few steps out my kitchen door so it makes a handy spot for herbs. There used to be a big, brittle, sap-drippin' tree right there where the small raised beds are. We had it cut down, and the stump ground down, but the roots of that tree were all over the place. It is just finally rotting away enough that I can actually plant a few things there in front of the raised beds. Maybe eventually it will get so I can take those raised beds out and plant in the ground in that spot, but I don't know, I kind of like the extra drainage they afford. The picture I posted was taken a year ago last spring. It's kind of overgrown now. I've added a butterfly bush, some Feverfew and then I just threw some wild flower mix seed out there one day but I don't know what specific wild flowers they were supposed to be so now I'm afraid to pull anything up! Some of the stuff is either a weed, or it will bloom next spring. The tansy I planted has taken over (yes I'll probably have to rip it out of there and plant it somewhere else where it will have to behave better), and the walking onion has really gone crazy this year. I had some salvia, purple basil and Red Dye Amaranth scattered here and there. That's oregano in the point of the triangle, it's been happy there for several years. Last year, I had Toothache plant (aka Eyeball) as a border along one side and they were so cute! But I thought they were going to be perennials and after the time passed for planting the seed for the next year I discovered I was mistaken. But I'm going to have them next year. I'm having trouble with my floppy drive and my camera stores pictures on floppies so I didn't have a current pic to post and just used that one out of my files.

I'll move those iris out and into the front iris bed if I see that there's room next spring. I got some starts for some different, old-fashioned colors from my "Baldwin Sisters" friends but my neighbor's cats went out there and uprooted them so many times, enjoying digging in the freshly dug soil, that I don't know how many will survive. It might be that my planting zinnias there afforded them enough protection to go ahead and dig their roots in. I will have to wait and see what makes it through the winter.

Moni, I love the way ferns look, but they don't love me. I've yet to be able to get any to grow. I think there's something herbal that kinda looks like a fern that might work there though. I've found that my peppers don't do well in full sun. They wilt terribly and just don't produce. Maybe it's because they're in containers. I put them in containers because they seem to need so much more water than everything else, it was just easier for me that way. Last year I moved those containers around so many times, trying to find a location where they'd be happy. This year my pepper seedlings didn't come up and I had to buy plants. They've only done so-so in their containers but I'm still giving it the old college try.

Y'all have given me some great ideas. I'm going through my seed and picking out some things to start this spring. Thanks bunches!

Carol, Maybe it is a survival instinct? In these days and times, you just never know.

Maybe it is just a desire to grow something that we can use instead of a boring monoculture of bermuda grass?

I am converting more lawn to edible crops every year. If I am going to have to water the 'lawn' area around the house to keep it green and keep grass fires and wild fires away in dry years, then I might as well plant something edible and get something back in return for all the water I use.

Moni, I deliberately plant peppers in afternoon shade. The ones I have in full sun have lot more sun/heat issues (like blossom drop and sunscald) in July and August than the ones in afternoon shade have. I grew peppers in full sun (from sunup to sundown) for about 20 years in Texas and here before I figured out that they performed better in our heat with less afternoon sun.

Even my tomatoes perform better if they get some break from the sunlight, even though they are thought of as 'full sun' plants. My best performing tomato plants this year had sunlight from roughly 10 or 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and they outproduced those that had sun from sunup to sundown. Next year I will try putting a shadecloth over the peppers and tomatoes still planted in the full sun part of the garden so they have afternoon shade in July and August. Over the years I have found that some shade in the hottest part of the summer really helps a lot of the plants perform well in the intense heat.

I find it ironic that after fighting an increasingly-shady yard in Fort Worth that finally became too shady to grow veggies well, I now find myself trying to strategically position plants so they get 'some' shade in order to deal with the heat.

I found out that the peppers could take more shade than is commonly believed rather accidentally. As the pecan tree west of the garden got taller and made more shade, I started sticking leftover pepper, eggplant and tomato plants, and a few herbs, there in the part that was starting to get shady after lunchtime. I didn't expect them to do well. When the weather got hot that summer (it was a very dry drought-type summer), it was the partially shaded plants that produced best of all. Ever since then, I have planted strategically so some plants get some shade in the afternoon, and they perform incredibly well. It might not work as well in cooler and generally wetter parts of the state, but in our garden, some afternoon shade is just wonderful for the plants.

Dawn

Carol, I'm sorry I didn't mean to exclude you from my reply. When I saw Dawn's reply I scrolled back up and saw your post.

The "survival instinct" hasn't hit my block. I, and one neighbor across the street, are the only ones on our block that have gardens. Although most of the yards are certainly big enough for gardens, many of them have mature trees on them. I guess you have to ask yourself, in this situation, "Do I want shade or do I want food?" Many of my neighbors work all day, too, which makes it harder to find time to garden. My neighbors across the street are retired, as are we, but they're about 15 years older than we are. They grow tomatoes, peppers and okra at ground level and this year they grew their tomatoes in pots.

I do get a lot of interested passers-by along the back of my place. There's a sidewalk that runs the perimeter of the park and lots of people walk it. Sometimes those that have stopped to chat and ask questions are invited in for a "tour". I almost always give them seed for something they admire and sometimes they return with seed to something unusual they grow.

I wish I had space for chickens but even if I did the town I live in has restrictions. I wish I could develop a taste for squirrel, as there are certainly plenty of them running around. I would never have to buy meat again. LOL

I can't speak for anyone else, but what with the increasing problems of contamination of our food with chemicals and bacteria, I just think growing it when you can is a well-rewarded effort. Plus, when you think how many plants you get out of a package of seed, as compared with purchased plants, it's a great value even if the package of seed was several dollars. This spring I grew Copenhagen Market cabbage. The package of seed cost 50 cents because it was on sale. There are still seed left in the package. I filled my raised bed with cabbages and probably got 20 good big well-filled-out heads. Gave some away. Made 12 quarts of sauerkraut and several big bowls of cole slaw, till we got tired of eating it. Steamed the rest and bagged them for the freezer. That's a lot of food for 50 cents! I used no fertilizers or pesticides. Next time I'll probably apply some Slug-go, though. Think of how much Dawn would've had to pay for all those tomatoes and peppers she put up this summer. It's mind boggling sometimes. Gardening is not cheap at the start-up, and I admit my water-collection containers were expensive and so were the tiller and chipper/shredder. But when my days of gardening are over, those things can be sold and some of the money recovered, and till then I'll have the use of them every year. Sometimes you can join with your gardening friends and share each other's equipment but I haven't found that to work very well because things come back broken. So if you share your expensive equipment, go along with it.

I'm even beginning to see the wisdom of having water-collection systems beyond the obvious savings on the city water bill. According to one of Dr. Oz's shows last week, there are still a lot of chemicals and stuff in our drinking water that aren't filtered out, and when we water our plants with city water, they take up some of that.

Gardening in town has its plusses. The fact that we don't have deer or too many other critters raiding our gardens makes up for our lack of space. As time progresses, we might start having trouble with two-legged critters raiding the garden, but so far I've only had an occasional seed gatherer. We can, if we need to, lock our gates. And there's the dog, who Bow-wow-wow's anybody coming anywhere near.

Ilene,

You know, I think it would be 'fun' (though tedious at times) to keep track of the number of pounds of each veggie harvested all year and then, at the end of the year, try to compute what it would have cost to buy those at the store. I do sort of get a headache just thinking about weighing all those tomatoes, though. LOL

Some, like conventionally-grown potatoes, are going to be cheaper at the store. However, since I grow organically and often grow potatoes that are less common, like the fingerlings, I might even fine my potatoes are cheaper than the same ones at the store that are grown organically.

Peppers are a great example. Although you can get jalapenos pretty cheaply at the grocery store (they were 99 cents a pound at our Wal-mart in mid-July thru August when the main crop came in), they aren't grown organically. At Central Market in September, organically-grown habaneros were $4.99 a pound, and I had pounds and pounds of them from our garden all summer long. So, I think if you grow organically and you're comparing your costs/yields to grocery store prices for organically-grown, you come out ahead for virtually every veggie.

Onions are a great example. The average person can walk into a garden center, buy a bundle of 60-80 (or more) small onion transplants in February or March for about $3.00, plant them, give them an inch of water a week, and harvest pounds and pounds of organic onions in June or July.

The only 'great' price I saw for tomatoes from the store was 4 lbs./$1.00 at a local Mexican market and I think it was right around July 4th. I did buy some of them and made some salsa, but I normally don't buy any grocery store tomatoes because they lack good texture and flavor. (Sometimes I'll buy Romas for Tim to make fresh pico de gallo in winter.)

Some things are frustrating to grow at home---like the corn because we have to fight the earworms and the European corn borers AND the darned raccoons for every ear, and then I walk into the store and see 10 ears/$1.00. However, that's for conventionally-grown, and mine is organic, so at least I know our corn wasn't treated with chemicals.

I think one of the biggest savings for the average home gardener is in the herb area......if you grow just one plant each of basil, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, mint, and dill, you'll save a fortue compared to buying herbs in the store. At our local stores, tiny packages of fresh herbs are usually about $3 or $4 for about six little sprigs. For the price of six sprigs, even if you don't raise your own, you can buy one plant in the spring, plant it and have herbs all year....or for much longer if it is a perennial or reseeding annual.

Some fruit trees are very productive, although not necessarily every year. In 2004, I bet we got easily 100 lbs. of peaches and a similar amount of plums, plus about 40-50 lbs. of apricots from Fred's tree. My trees weren't that expensive when planted and require little care other than pruning once a year and thinning when the fruit load is heavy. Blackberries and blueberries produce most years and are fairly low maintenance, although blueberries need a whole lot more soil prep at planting time.

I do think more people are paying attention to where their food comes from, and I credit Michael Pollan's books like "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and Barbara Kingsolver's book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" with opening up a lot of folks' eyes and making them think about where the food comes from, what is in their food if it is processed, how it is grown/shipped across the country or even around the world, etc. And, I think, many people are like us and are saying 'there has to be a better way". I think a lot of us have found the better way.

And, too, I wonder about the current economic hard times. What if the economy doesn't fully recover? What if the current higher unemployment rates more or less do become "the new normal"? What if grocery prices stay sky-high? And, you know, we cannot blame the farmers for sky-high food prices. The farmers get an average of 9 cents from every dollar we spend on food and the rest goes to wholesalers, processors, distributors, etc.

What if swine flu starts running absolutely rampant this winter and we'd rather avoid the stores as much as possible for a few weeks to avoid wider exposure to the virus? How many of us have enough of everything stored away to allow us to avoid the stores for a few weeks under that circumstance?

It is food for thought.

Dawn

I think what scared me the most was that series of videos called "The World According to Monsanto". Up until that time, I had no idea that there were so many dangers to growing chemically altered food. Apparently their genetically altered crops can cross breed with varieties people have grown for generations. Not only is this a problem because of the chemicals we take into our bodies from eating these foods, but also apparently Monsanto can sue you for planting your own seed that has become contaminated by their seed. It ought to be the other way around! I hear they are trying to get people in India to grow genetically altered rice now that is sterile. Which means, if the altered rice crosses with what they have always grown, they can no longer save seed for next year and will have to buy seed every year. If they get to the point where they can't afford to buy seed, then they starve. The videos paint a very disappointing scene indeed about greed and dishonesty in the way they say Monanto is "planting" their people in strategic positions within the FDA and other government-run regulatory offices. It makes you never want to drink milk again unless it comes from a cow you know. And soymilk is not a solution because it can be full of Roundup, which, it turns out, does not disappear with time like they say it does. I almost want to not believe that there is any truth to these videos. But I do remember reading in the paper about a farmer in Kansas who was sued by Monsanto for growing "their" seed. He lost his farm.

I come from a time when we did not hesitate to believe everything that came out of Washington. Now you can't believe anyone. Everyone has an axe to grind, or financial gain to make. We eat tainted food all the time. Rat droppings and maggots and other unsavory things are allowed in our food supply up to a certain percentage. Nothing is "pure" except my disgust. We take medications that our doctor is told are safe and then tells us that. Several years later, we find out we have poisoned ourselves and the drug maker doesn't even offer so much as an apology. They just brace themselves for the lawsuits that will follow, and attorneys love it because they get a huge slice of the pie without having to endure any of the suffering. To those who took the drug, the damage is done, and no amount of money can return their health back to what it was before.

I guess one of you need to plant me an herb "care package" for the spring swap. LOL

I am just not a big herb planter, or user for that matter. I did have mint but I think I killed it all in my attempt to take out all of the grass in my back yard. I always plant basil and use it and occasionaly plant dill.

I have some fennel seed that I am going to plant next year, but I will probably put it in a flower bed because I don't plan to use any of it and I hate the way it smells. A friend grows it in her flower bed for the butterflies and she saved the seed for me this year.

I hear everyone talking about this and that herb tea, and I have no desire for any of those. I don't want to drink hot water, no matter what you put in it. My DH liked a few of the ones that our friends brought him years ago from Switzerland, but I don't know what they were.

I occasionally drink hot apple cider or hot chocolate, but I am just not a fan of hot drinks. I drink ice water all day everyday, summer and winter. So, as you see, I would only be interested in those herbs that I could use for cooking.

I am a big fan of Italian food so I like most of those herbs except for fennel. I will be planting basil, rosemary, and oregano probably, because I already have the seeds. If I need to plant anything else, you guys are going to have to convince me that I need it. LOL

I think a lot of good Mexican food has been ruined by adding cilantro, so that one is of no interest to me. Tell me about sage, because I might be interested in trying that one. Come on....convince me what I need to try.

Ilene, try an Autumn Fern. They are survivers. I have several, and the best part:
They stay green in the winter. I have some ferns that go dormant, but not Autumn.

Moni