Monday 5 April 2010

Spuds in, first shoots, and a mystery herb

Potatoes planted! Hooray! 30 Kestrel, which always perform fabulously for me, and 30 Maris Piper, which I haven't tried before. I won't bore you with a picture of the bare earth under which they lie...

Instead, look at this!

I was very jealous when I read yesterday that Soilman's asparagus was shooting up already, so I had an extra careful look today and found this little spear just showing its tip.

So spring springs on. The tadpoles have hatched, the fruit trees look fantastic covered in buds, the herbs are coming back to life, and yes, the weeds are starting to grow. And so are the pests...

Something has mown down or pulled up ALL the broad beans, which is a major bummer. Slugs or birds? We strung a loose cage of strings around the plants which I thought would keep the birds off, and considering the number of empty snail shells lying around everywhere, I thought the rodent problem (they keep making nests in our compost heap) was doing a pretty good job of combatting the slug problem. I always put organic slug pellets down too! No fair... I will plant another trayful just as soon as I've written this.

I have a mystery herb growing in my herb patch! I didn't plant it - at least I'm pretty sure I didn't - and I just don't recognise it. It's really aromatic; quite similar to lemon balm but without the lemon, if that makes any kind of sense... Quite like feverfew, but the leaves are fleshier. Anyone got any ideas?

6 comments:

Sue Garrett said...

Is it definitely a herb do you think.

Could it be angelica? Not sure whether of not that has a secent as you describe.

Nome said...

Well, it definitely smells like a herb. With the weeds in my place, it could be anything, but it's a very tasty-smelling weed!

I'm not familiar with angelica, but I've just looked at some pictures and it doesn't really look right.

The mystery goes on...

Roger Distill said...

Wow! This is all good! SO good to see you allotmenteering(?) and blogging again. Have a good season!

Roger Distill said...

(Feel free to replace the word "good" with other, suitable adjectives in the last comment.)

Soilman said...

I've got this bloody 'herb', too, and it must be a weed because it's ineradicable. It grows from the root, like couch grass, and even if you leave the tiniest bit of root behind it springs back again. It will drive yo insane.

BilboWaggins said...

Is it feverfew?

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