Kenny Point

The payoff comes the following season when over wintered herb plants show their full potential and yield results that you don’t get from herbs that are grown as annuals. Here’s a look at some common herbs from my garden that show what a difference it can make to shelter the plants through the winter and into additional seasons of growth: Rosemary isn’t very hardy in my region, but when it survives the winter it will take on a tree-like appearance and become a very ornamental evergreen in addition to being a great culinary herb. During mid-summer the plant will be covered with tiny white flowers that bees and other pollinating insects can’t resist. But when it does survive you’ll wind up with enormous plants, plenty of leaves for cooking with, and a display of sage flowers.

I treat Winter Lettuce similar to the way that I grow garlic, it’s planted in late fall and allowed to over winter as a juvenile plant in order to get a huge jump on the spring growing season. It doesn’t require much space in the fall garden as the seed is sown thickly and the plants are crowded together in a garden bed or cold frame over the winter. . Mid-March is the time that I usually thin and transplant the patch of Winter Lettuce, and since I use raised garden beds I can conveniently transplant without the need for tilling or working the garden beds in advance. I don’t have that seed anymore but have been able to locate varieties such as; Landi’s Winter, Maule’s Philadelphia, Eva Snader’s Brown Winter, and Red Tinged Winter Lettuce that I am putting to the same purpose as that proven generic winter lettuce that I used to grow.

It’s been a couple of years since I began using the innovative Troy-Bilt FLEX System that employs a shared “power base” engine that connects to a variety of attachments to perform assorted tasks around the home and garden. Today I will share my experiences with a new addition to the FLEX line of equipment; the Chipper Shredder attachment

Kitty Litter (unused and unsoiled of course), Guinea Pig food, distilled water, plastic bags, and some mushroom spawn of varieties such as oyster or shiitake. Let sit until all of the water is absorbed by the kitty litter, then mix in one-third cup of Guinea Pig Food and three-fourths cup of mushroom spawn. You will eventually get budding and see tiny clusters of mushrooms start to pop out in various parts of the bag where they are receiving air from the tiny perforations that were made in the plastic bag. I haven’t tried this yet, but you should be able to let the bags rest for a couple weeks then soak them in water over night to coax a second fruiting out of them.