What did you do in the garden today?

[CatInTheHenHouse]

Tried identifying most of my mystery Basil plants today. I’m no botanist or culinary expert but I don’t think I got any Cinnamon Basil out of my seeds. The mystery plants that were obviously not lemon or one of the other varieties tasted an awful lot like the Thai in the other packet, which makes me think it’s Spicy Globe.

 

[Justagalwithchicks]

Anyone ever can carrots? Thinking of giving it a go this year.

I can carrots. I use them when I make soup. We are a soup family, so it works for me .

 

[Minanora]

The year we bought our house, Michigan passed a law that caps how much property taxes can rise each year. So the assessed value creeps up, and the market value has shot up. Land is red hot here.

When the property is sold, the assessed value resets to the value of what the selling price was. So we pay about $3600-3800 a year (broken into two payments, February and September). The new neighbors who moved in a couple years ago are paying tax on the full $510K that they paid for their property (3ish acres). We're paying on roughly 1/2 of that on 25 acres.

They do have a MUCH bigger and nicer house, but that's ok. We like ours.

We have the same thing here. But they will also increase your taxes if you make enough improvements to warrant a reassessment.

 

[Minanora]

You’ve got quite the garden for a .31 acre piece of property.

Thank you.

I cram as much as I can in there. I need to share updated photos of the whole backyard.

I call it "high intensity back to chaos" gardening.

 

[jerryse]

Black raspberries. Finally, hollyhock other than pink. First one to open.

 

[cj2024]

Every year I prune the flower buds off my Genovese Basil and eventually let them flower out and save the seeds. This year I did something different, instead of saving the seeds, I crumbled the dried seeds off the plant and spread them around some empty filled pots, and they sprouted.

I threw out all of my accumulated saved basil seeds. All I need is a couple of plants. I will eventually use most of the young plants for pesto.

 

[cj2024]

I have been enjoying my Ung Choi or water spinach as a side dish with sweet potato leaves and Malabar spinach. I microwave them and place 3 separate mounds of each variety on the same plate with a dipping sauce. They have different textures and different taste.

I stuck some water spinach cuttings in potting soil and will make another permanent home for them. They keep growing back, it's good to have around.

I also planted some Dasheen Chinese taro from my supermarket and two out of four small taro roots grew new plants. The leaves and stems are edible on this type of taro, and the root bulbs are harvested small to medium size. In addition, the bulbs multiply like potatoes, but unlike regular potatoes, they can keep growing and multiplying indefinitely.

I do better with Dasheen taro and sweet potatoes than with regular potatoes. Aphids don't bother them like they do regular potatoes.

 

[Smokerbill]

I mixed up several gallons of diluted weed tea fertilizer and fed all the onions, shallots, kale, cabbages and beets. After it soaked into the ground I watered it in deeper with the garden hose.

Then I pruned back all the unruly chive clumps to about an inch from the ground to make them put out new growth. The trimmings filled up a 5 gallon bucket. I cut one clump back a month ago and now it has lots of new edible shoots about a foot tall. I think I read chives should be cut back completely 2 or 3 times during growing season.

I thinned out the extra butternut squash plants so now there are just 4 growing on top of the chicken run compost pile, one in each corner. And I pulled up all but one of the tall leaf lettuce plants and gave them to the chickens.

 

[WthrLady]

The sick thing is the same part of government that collects the $ assigns the VALUE of your home/property that the tax is based on. They're supposed to base that on what a house sells for that is comparable to what your place is to others within a mile of your place. Makes sense if you are in a city. In the boonies there are only a couple places within a mile of your place. AND NO house compares to another out here. Covid market rush screwed up pricing as people paid above value. And every since then it's been screwed up. Last evaluation they comp'd all of us against a guy building a NEW home. UM NOT FAIR.
We can contest the amount, but last time I did, the woman said you can contest it, we'll send a person out to to redo your evaluation, but your evaluation could go UP. I took that as a threat and dropped it.

This is why ppl are NOT retiring here. They live in Missouri or Iowa or Kansas and commute here to work until they find work elsewhere.

 

[WthrLady]

We have the same thing here. But they will also increase your taxes if you make enough improvements to warrant a reassessment.

AND since we had that hail storm, my assessment is about to go UP again this year, cause all new siding, deck, roof.....UGH PLUS insurance about to go up. All because of NOT MY FAULT!!