We're finally getting around to fixing up the garden this year or next...

[conuly]

My mom still has that bad foot and not much time, so it looks like I may get some serious say in this garden.

We don't have tons of space, but basically, I want three things.

1. I want to grow something useful - vegetables and whatnot.
2. I want to grow herbs.
3. I want to have a garden where everything smells nice, and it changes often. Not one that mostly it just *looks* good, or where it just smells like roses (and I hate aphids, so roses are pretty much out anyway).

So, please. List your favorite smelly aromatic herbs and flowers and whatnot. Or fruits and veggies. Something that's simple so that Ana could help would also be nice.

I may also, if I get the urge, clean out Jenn's yard and stick some plants there. Why not?

Comments

[failstoexist.livejournal.com]

we used to have mint growing...I always loved that. We had a tiny herb garden and we planted vegetables, but never got anything bigger than an inch. My dad planted tomatoes, but those seemed like a lot of work-they were really good, though, if you want to try those.

[conuly]

Tomatoes attract slugs, but we don't seem to have many in our garden here.

What I *really* want is a mulberry tree, I love mulberries, and I'd love to try making jelly out of them - but they drop berries everywhere when it's that time, and other people find them a nuisance. I'm not sure if it's fair to inflict one on the neighbors just so I can satisfy my cravings.

[demonkoala.livejournal.com]

If you're really concerned about slugs, crush some eggshells into and over the soil. That helps a lot.

Curry leaves are fun and smell great.
Small citrus fruits are neat too like limes or various, but these can still get to be big shrubs/bushes. The Japanese sudachi is a really great citrus fruit to have, but they might be hard to come by.
I've always liked the taste of rosemary.
I basically suggest anything you would enjoy cooking with or would want to use to experiment with in cooking. Otherwise, I'm not too knowledgeable on the aromatic ones.

[l33tminion]

Fresh mint is excellent. And there are so many varieties.

My other favorites to grow are rosemary, basil, chives, and parsley.

[conuly]

Only thing with mint is that it spreads all over the place. I'd rather stick it in a windowbox.

[l33tminion]

True, but I don't mind that about mint. Then again, I really like mint...

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

My great-grandmother had a mulberry, though the kids weren't supposed to eat the fruit because it stains clothing so easily... If you trim the tree a certain way each year, it shouldn't reach your neighbors unless you have a really tiny backyard. (It's the one advantage of that annoying "hack everything off other than the trunk every year" approach.)

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

Artichokes, maybe? That's what I recall helping the most often with as a little kid -- they were pretty the part of the year that they had giant flowers, plus they produced very kid-friendly food at other times. (Another thing my great-grandmother had... The kids would pick them, wash them off, and then eat the leaves/heart as snacks in ketchup-and-mayonnaise dip.) I have no idea if they grow easily back there, or how much room they require, though.

[lakidaa.livejournal.com]

Rosemary reeks. And it has dinky little purple flowers. :3

[conuly]

Bite your tongue!

[lakidaa.livejournal.com]

Reeks in a good way?

My neighbor has a giant bush of the stuff that I walk by every weekday.

[deceptica]

Not a herb or fruit, but personally I love the smell of lilac. You need to have enough room for a bush though. If you have that, it doesn't require much care/any care at all.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

Rosemary's lovely for the fragrance.

A curry plant will be right at the top of my priority list because the smell is just amazing, although it's not actually used in cooking.

It's not the same as the curry tree which, having just looked it up (to see if it was) I see has poisonous seeds within its berries. Perhaps not a great idea with niecelings around.

[ser-kai.livejournal.com]

tomatoes(especially cherry or grape/pear), bush green beans, pick again-type lettuces(not iceberg), spinach, zucchini, beets, silverbeet/chard, rosemary, garlic, dill, basil, mint in a container, chives, parsley, sage, thyme, lemon balm, oregano, tarragon(my kids eat the leaves like lollies-- has an anise flavour). Those are all high yield, low space, kid friendly. If you pick leaves from the outside of the lettuces, spinach, chard and parsley making sure to take all the leaf and stem including where it is attached to the plant, you can harvest them for a long time. If you pick the leaves from the beets(they are quite edible) as they get big, you can get a lot out of that plant too. Pick over a zucchini plant as they mature and you'll be surprised how long it can last and you can eat the male flowers too!(They're on long stems). If you plant them all together and add marigolds, keeping the garlic from the beans, you'll confuse most pests. If you get pests, the smartest thing to do is squish some, leaving the corpses to attract predators. If you keep having problems with slugs & snails, there's lots of safe ways to discourage/eliminate them.

I can't really comment on ornamentals because I only grow australian natives in my ornamental gardens and don't know enough about your soil type, etc.

As for healthy veggie garden soil, add as much organic matter as you can find, including burying kitchen scraps(fruit & veggies only, you don't want to attract feral animals), peat & manure. Add lime and potash and you're good to go. It's a good idea to mulch with the peat or straw or something similar. You can also grow potatoes in layers in tyres. Kids find that especially cool.

If you need more info, just let me know. ;-)

[ser-kai.livejournal.com]

They need a lot of sun but I agree, artichokes are cool.

[ser-kai.livejournal.com]

Radishes of course! Not sure if the nieclings will like their sharp taste but they're easy to grow.

[erinlin.livejournal.com]

Basil!

[conuly]

What type of basil?

Scented garden

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Old roses (like rosa mundi and the apothecary's rose) are much more aphid-resistant than modern hybrids, and usually smell stronger, too.

I particularly LOVE scented-leaved geraniums. They come in all kinds of scents--rose, lemon, mint, chocolate, ginger....And since the scent is the leaves, not the flowers, they stay scented through frost. (Not hardy, alas, so you have to bring them in for the winter or treat them as annuals.)

Other perfumed garden favorites of mine are sweet woodruff (marketed as a groundcover), lavender, lemon balm (it spreads worse than mints, plant it in a pot), nicotiana (strongest at night), the aforementioned lilacs if you have room, and violets (they spread too, but not aggressively).

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Just keep the tomatoes up off the ground and slugs will be minimized. We've never had slugs in the tomatoes, although they plague the strawberry rows.

[failstoexist.livejournal.com]

I don't remember having a big problem with slugs. We used to have rabbits and squirrels in our garden.

I've never seen/tasted a mulberry before. depending on the size of your yard and the tree, it should be OK though. You can always make them some nice jelly to apologize for the mess ;)

[conuly]

Oh, no, you have no idea. Mulberries get wide, and they drop berries profusely, staining everything this lovely purple, well, "mulberry" color.

[failstoexist.livejournal.com]

I guess it's pretty obvious I've never seen mulberries before. :) OK, maybe giant purple stains aren't the best thing in the world.

[conuly]

It's what moggy said earlier - trim it down to nearly nothing every year. Those things regenerate like... I dunno, kudzu or something.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Honeysuckle smells nice and is fun to eat, although not very filling. I also agree that lilacs smell great.