Not quite Provence, but close

Instead of booking a holiday in Provence, to get my daily dose of  lavender I just need to walk 5 minutes from my door to view, touch & inhale the mounds on City Hall's north lawn...

....and at the community garden's main entrance...

Ask me to name my favourite vegetable, tree, or garden writer, and I'll beg you to allow me at least three picks for each & several minutes of deliberation. But when it comes to my favourite herb & scent, I can quickly and easily pick one:

Lavandula angustifolia 'Hidcote'

This morning for a couple of hours I lost myself in Lavandula while I searched for informative & enchanting links to share. Here's a short reading/viewing list to get you started:

Lavender: Practical Inspirations for Natural Gifts, Country Crafts and Decorative Displays by Tessa Evelegh - on my "own it/often refer to it" list

Lavender: The Grower's Guide by Virginia McNaughton -- added to my "to read" list this morning

The Genus Lavandula by Tim Upson and Susyn Andrews -- also added to the growing "to read" list

Mountain Valley Growers' Lavender pages: Lavender (descriptions of 24 varieties), Lavender 1.2.3 (care and tips)

And for your viewing pleasure, I recommend searching Google images for "lavender and Provence".

Now I'm off to the community garden for a compost workshop and group work party. Naturally, I'll volunteer to weed the bed with lavender.

I'd love to hear about your thoughts about this aromatic herb. Do you have a favourite cultivar? Do you grow the plant, and if so, from seeds or cuttings or both? Please share your stories and tips in the comments.

Wordless Wednesday

Herbs, vegetables, and glorious sunshine

Yesterday was green, blue & bright yellow from dawn to dusk. (And if there were a few clouds, I didn't notice them.)  A perfect summer Sunday for crops to grow & gardeners to weed, water, inspect, repot and of course, view brilliant colour & light through the camera's lens.

Though most of the excitement & growth is in my community garden plot, I'll begin with the balcony's stars, all highly recommended for culinary, olfactory & aesthetic reasons:

Left pot: four varieties of thyme: 'Doone Valley', 'Golden Lemon', Tabor', Thymus fastinoi
Centre pot: 'Alma Paprika' Pepper
Right pot: Basil ('Red Rubin', 'Genovese' ), French Tarragon, Italian Oregano

Rosemary officinalis 'Blue Spire'

'Sea of Red' Lettuce - for those of us who eat with our eyes as well as our mouths

Now, on to Plot 6A, which totally astounds me when I visit it daily. I did not know plants could grow this quickly. Because light is limited on my balcony, I'm used to a much, much slower growth rate.

Front row, left to right: chard, spinach, cucumber, eggplant, tomato
Middle row, left to right: chard, tomato, beets, eggplant, pepper, tomato
Back row, left to right: peas, beans, carrots, beets, eggplant, tomato

In a future post, I'll describe the specific vegetable varieties as well as my planting strategy & design. I've held off because my approach has been evolving to what is now a "mash-up" of square-foot gardening & crop rotation following Mark Diacono’s sequence outlined in Veg Patch: River Cottage Handbook No. 4 (i.e., legumes -> brassicas -> roots & onions -> potatoes/Solanaceae).

A week of flowers

Sunday evening. Admitting to myself (and you) I can't keep up with gardening, blossom appreciation, Piper care, the bare minimum of housework AND blogging. (Not to mention my Monday to Friday, "9 to 5" work as a dietitian.)

So I hope you'll excuse me for publishing photographs without much commentary. But given the topic, a picture is much better than 1,000 words.