As the snow melts.....

......spring does start to show up

The Rhubarb is showing off it's love of spring's cool weather and starts to pop up.  Course around the rest of the yard you see the grass starting to poke through the remaining snow but here in this garden that gets full sun we see the rhubarb is growing.  I am wondering if I need to cover them or just let them do their own thing as they seem to be doing ok just as they are

 Mean while in the greenhouse signs of spring are popping up everywhere.  In there the snow never covers the ground but the melting snow does water it.  Here you can see the garlic chives starting to grow.

Here the apple mint is fighting with while clovers for growth.  Looks like the mint is winning but you never can tell with those pesky clovers.

So what is showing off it's spring growth in your garden?

HEGT - June 2012

A few days late but here we go....it's time for the June edition of the Harvesting Edible Garden Tour.  Every month on the 21st (supposed to be anyways) we gather together around the blog table and read what everyone is harvesting that month.  Since I started the Farmers Market I harvest herbs every week and this month the 21st landed on Market day.  But that doesn't mean I didn't take pictures of what I was harvesting.....so fresh from the Market here is what Irish Gardens harvested this week.....actually all month.

Ok so the Rhubarb I didn't harvest all month just Thursday.  From left to right the herbs are:
Sage
Mint
Dill
Rosemary
Lemon Balm
Chocolate Mint
Marjoram
Chives
Oregano
Basil
Rhubarb

So what do you have that you can harvest in your garden?  Any veggies out there?  Add your post to the link below so others can visit and see whats harvesting around the blog table.

Good bye 2011 a year in review

2011 was an interesting year.  A lot was  grown and a lot was harvested.  Take a walk with me through Irish Gardens and see what the year was like here.

Colorful foliage was found and pictures were taken in January

 February brought Daffodils into the house

 as well as coke water bottle greenhouses were introduced.

 March brought in sweet n neat tomato's inside the house and.........

......and signs of life outside as the Daffodils began to grow.

 Hosta's began to show off their strips in April....

....and new gardens were created as the others began to be planted for the season.........

......the Greenhouse got a new look and then was planted.

 The front porch got some fresh new color in May after the Rhodadendrun was transplanted by the front porch.....

....flowers were found on the polk-a-dot plant from back in January

 June brings flowering grape buds......

 .....another new garden bed.....

.....and the gardens showing lots of new growth and begun to burst at the seams.

 July shows up with heat and a whole lot of growth in the new beds so a new look was needed.....

.....a few back aches and sore thumbs later it looks a lot nicer...

 ....a new wild herb was found growing like crazy in the back yard.....

.....and the Strawberry Spinach plant began to ripen

 After hurricane Irene in August, large Cucumbers were found growing in the garden.....

.....Eggplant was harvested in multiple sizes.

September came in with new baby spider plants beginning their new life......

....and the chives found them selves blooming beautifully.

October brings in changing leaves and cooler weather....of course this October brought a foot of snow too.

 Novembers abnormally warm weather brings new growth to the mint in the Greenhouse

Although still no snow in December the Holiday Cactus inside is right on time.


Hope you had a nice tour through the gardens.

Harvesting Edible Garden Tour October 2011

It's the 21st!  Harvesting Edible Garden Tour day.  Whats harvesting in your edible garden today?  Here is what I have that needed some harvesting today.

 Nice fresh sage anyone?

 Lots of beautiful parsley leaves.

 Basil.  The last harvest of the season but they look great.

 Not a lot but some rosemary was ready as well.

 Lemon balm oh what a smell that was when I cut these stems off.  Lots more to harvest still this season but not today.

 These darn hot and spicy peppers are still growing and ripening.  Granted the few sweet peppers I have are still growing but much slower than these guys.
A few accidental cuts here as you can see.  There are so many that sometimes getting to the red ones is hard.

I  think this herb has to be one of my favorites I add it to everything.  My garlic chives once again needed a good trimming.  I am sure I will get at least one more harvest before they die back for winter.

So what do you have that is harvesting?  Post and add your link below.  I would love to take a tour of your edible gardens.

Harvesting Edible Garden Tour - September 2011

Welcome one and all to the Monthly edition of the Harvesting Edible Garden Tour.  A place where you can come and find out what is harvesting all over the gardening blogospere.  So what you say could be harvesting in Irish Gardens at this time of year?

 My greenhouse still gets warm most days so I still have Eggplant harvesting.

 The sweet peppers that have been growing in the greenhouse - The only sweet pepper plant to survive the crazy summer weather finally had a pepper ready to harvest.

 Chives chives and more chives.

 Still got a few tomatoes left that came ready this morning.

 Green beans finally are plumping up enough to harvest as well.

Carrots - finally after watching all summer the plants very very slowly get bigger I had carrots ready.  Guess they didn't want to get bigger than this just like last year.

So lets see what is edible and harvesting in your garden?  Post and leave a link below.

I'll take a BLT w/ MBC

So who wants to take a guess as to what that mess of letters mean?  I bet you'll get half of them right....maybe more.  Here is a hint.

Almost all the letters are on the table.  How many can you guess?  Give up.  BLT - Bacon Lettuce Tomato sandwich w/ Mayo Basil Chives.  A meal from my garden.  Mayo and bread were the only items on the menu that were not grown here by me.  I added the chives and basil just because.  Well I see basil and tomato all the time together so I thought why not?  Then the garlic chives well I put them on everything.

 Look at the size of that tomato.  I mean really...one slice was all I needed and then some.

Not the best picture in the world but you can mostly see everything.  And let me tell you it tasted a whole lot better than it looks.  So in case you don't know how to make these wonderful sandwiches here is what I used to make them:

1lg Tomato - sliced
1pkg bacon - cooked
2 handful's of lettuce - cut to sandwich size if needed
1 stem basil (about 6 leaves) leaves removed and cut in half
small handful of garlic chives - chopped up
bread
mayo

Put them all together and enjoy.  Although the order doesn't matter it's best to put the mayo on the bread and then all the other ingredients between the slices of bread.  But don't let that stop you either.