Using Burlap in the Garden
A few years ago, I discovered burlap and it’s many uses in the garden. It comes in very handy for a variety of applications and is very inexpensive. Burlap can be found at your local fabric/craft store by the yard.
The best use for burlap is as mulch. When you harvest an area of the garden, lay down a piece of burlap to cover the soil until you plant something else. It will help with moisture retention and to limit erosion of the soil you’ve worked so hard to build. We all know that soil is the most valuable item on our property and we should be doing whatever we can to keep it from eroding away.
Where burlap really shines is for direct seeding in mid-summer. With the heat and lack of rain most gardeners experience this time of year, burlap is a valuable tool to improve germination rates. I have found that laying a piece of burlap over newly sown seeds makes them germinate much faster. Not only does it help keep the area moist by preventing evaporation, it prevents seeds from being washed away when it rains.
I have found burlap to be essential when starting seeds that take a long time to germinate and prefer moist conditions, especially carrots, chervil, dill, and parsley.
To use burlap for seed starting:
- sow your seeds following package directions
- lay burlap over the seeds
- water when the soil gets dry
- check daily for germination
- when seeds germinate remove burlap
Burlap also comes in quite handy for wrapping plants in winter. If you grow things that are on the edge of your hardiness zone, they’ll appreciate a burlap blanket during the cold winter months. Plants like figs, hydrangeas, and boxwood all love a cozy warm wrapping of burlap. The wrapping doesn’t necessarily keep them warmer, it just protects them fro the desiccating cold winter wind. Sometimes plants don’t need wrapped for weather protections but to keep nibbling deer away. I usually wrap my blueberries for this reason. If you’re uncertain about how to wrap plants, here’s my post about it.
Burlap also comes in handy to protect the root balls of plants while you move them, especially if you can’t replant them right away. You can use small pieces of it in the bottoms of pots to keep the soil in. If you keep some in your garden tool area you’ll find that it comes in handy often!
Do you use burlap in the garden? Any great uses to recommend?
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Garden Tour: Side Garden
The next area of the garden featured in the garden tour is The Side Garden. This garden is on the Southeast side of the house. It’s a long narrow space, 10 feet wide by 30 feet long.
Bordered on one side by our two story home and on the other by huge 80 ft tulip poplars, it’s not the easiest space to garden. Even though I’ve been amending the soil in this portion of the garden for the past 10 years, the big trees suck up all the nutrients and water.
In order to deal with the heavy feeding of the large trees, I layer a large portion of my garden waste over the soil as mulch. Everything from garlic leaves to grass clippings is added to my thick layer of mulch around all the plants.
The deep shade also makes it difficult to grow much of anything. Lucky for me, hostas and hydrangeas love this space, and I love hostas and hydrangeas. There are a great number of hostas; those with huge corrugated leaves in colors of blue, yellow and green, along with more delicate hostas.
In the spring, there are a few bleeding hearts, tulips, lily of the valley and dogtooth violets that bloom beautifully. The bleeding heart came from my mom’s garden and the lily of the valley came from my grandma (my mom’s mom).
In summer, this garden is bursting with hydrangeas of all colors, from the multi-colored ‘Endless Summer’ and the classic ‘Nikko Blue’ to a stunning ‘Limelight’ that is about 10 feet tall and blooms profusely in late summer. There are also a few that aren’t mature enough to bloom yet, Golden oak leaf, Big Daddy, Penny Mac and a few others.
For the longest time it was a neglected space, but it changed dramatically this spring. After much thought, lots of back building digging, a curved walkway emerged and the garden was complete.
I edged the walkway with hostas, both to accentuate the curve and to add a nice mowing edge. The results were AMAZING. Lucky for me I had a huge patch of mature hostas on the front hillside that needed moved. There were just enough to line the entire walkway. It was instant beauty, no waiting around for the plants to grow and fill in.
Every time I give a garden tour people comment about the curved hosta lined walkway as soon as they round the corner. This is the view when you round the corner from the front lawn as it looked yesterday morning.
This is the view when you round the corner of the house coming from the opposite direction.
The shady nature of this garden makes the grass struggle to grow. I’ve been establishing a more shade tolerant variety of grass and white clover as well. As a result, the green walkway is looking better than ever, even with the drought of this summer.
This side garden is a working garden, it gets a tremendous amount of traffic. I find myself constantly walking through the garden with a wheelbarrow or watering cans. The outdoor spigot is also in this space, so the hose cart resides here as well. The air conditioner and sewer crock are also located in this space.
After long being neglected, The Side Garden has finally come into its own this summer. It is probably one of my most favorite spaces now.
What’s your favorite shade loving plant?
Chiot’s Run Garden Tour
The Middle Garden
The Side Garden
The Front Hillside Garden
Mr Chiot’s Mailbox Garden
Garden Tour: The Front Garden
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Garden Tour: The Middle Garden
Since this is my last summer gardening here, I’ve been trying to take photos of the entire garden every week or two. I want to have a record of how the garden progresses throughout the seasons. Many of you have asked to see a tour of the gardens so I thought I’d start posting a few photos of the various garden areas I have that I’ve taken throughout the season with an explanation of where the garden is.
This garden is located between the house and the garage. It’s a narrow strip, mostly paved with small gravel and it contains a deck. The deck used to be about twice this size taking up the entire area, but we reduced the size to make it more in scale with this area. This area is HOT HOT HOT, the gravel and the deck retain the heat and radiate it throughout the day. It gets morning sun on one side and afternoon sun on the other.
Mr Chiots build me a lovely cedar trellis that covers a huge portion of the garage wall, on it I’m growing hops and a few different kinds of clematis. In the flowerbed at it’s base you will find everbearing strawberris, lemonbalm, lady’s mantle, bergamot, Egyptian walking onions, hops flowering oregano, creeping thyme, and a few other small herbs.
The flowerbed beside the back door is dominated with a HUGE oakleaf hydrangea and a few hostas. There are also a few astilbes in there that are struggling with this heat and drought.
This area is also filled with many potted plants, the lemon, lime and fig trees I bought on my trip to Monticello along with some rosemary, boxwood, hydrangea, lemon verbena, ferns and an elephant ear plant that’s an offspring of my mom’s plant.
There’s another flowerbed at the the far end that has a beautiful hydrangea, oregano, the sage I was talking about yesterday and a few other plants.
This garden space is quite lovely this summer. All of the plants are pretty much their mature size now. This is one of the areas of the garden that I worked on first. This part of the garden is one of the ones that looks best all year long. I have my gardens divided up into sections based on light, sun, water, soil and location. All in all I have 7 distinct areas in my garden.
How many different garden areas do you have?
Chiot’s Run Garden Tour
The Middle Garden
The Side Garden
The Front Hillside Garden
Mr Chiot’s Mailbox Garden
Garden Tour: The Front Garden
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Saving Sage Seeds
I have a beautiful culinary sage plant that grows right outside the back door. It thrives in this location, with full sun and elevated dry soil. Since this is it’s second year in the garden, it bloomed beautifully and is HUGE. This plant was started from seed from Renee’s Garden. I decided to save seed from it because it’s such a hardy plant, definitely has genes I’d like to keep going. The hummingbirds and other pollinators LOVE it too!
Since sage is edible, I figured I could use the seeds for sprouting purposes. I’ve never had sage sprouts before, but I’m guessing they’d be wonderful on a turkey sandwich, sprinkled on top of butternut squash soup or a salad. Maybe they’ll be really terrible, but you never know until you try. I’m assuming the sprouts will taste like sage, the seeds certainly smell like it. Maybe they’ll even be great browned in some butter just like sage leaves are.
After the plant bloomed, I waited until the seed pods were brown and dry, then we cut off the flowering stems (you can cut the plant back by about a third or half if you want at this time). The seeds pop right out of the little dried buds.
Mr Chiots and I sat on the back deck one evening enjoying the cool evening while harvesting a good number of seeds. Of course Dexter was at hand to inspect our work and make sure we were doing it right.
I grow tons of herbs in the garden and enjoy them all year long both fresh and dried along with lots of spices purchased from Mt Rose Herbs. Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about how spices and herbs and super healthy, many of them containing more vitamins, minerals and antioxidants than fruits and vegetables. I’ve always loved spicy food so this makes me very happy. Even though we eat lots of herbs & spices already I’ve been trying to find other ways to add them to our diets. These sage sprouts should add a little healthy goodness!
I also saved tons of ‘Red Russian’ kale seed for the same purpose. When I have more garden space I hope to be able to grow more plants for just for seed. There’s nothing better mid-winter than fresh sprouts, they not only feed our bodies but it’s a great way to get in some gardening in during the long winter!
Do you eat sprouts? Do you grow them yourself?
If you’re interested in reading more about the health benefits of herbs & spices I have purchased a few books and really like them, the first one is my favorite and I’d highly recommend it for health information and because it’s full of fabulous recipes for using spices.
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Friday Favorite: Watering Cans
Up until four or five years ago, I’d never found a watering can I liked. I kinda felt like Goldilocks, they were all: too small, not balanced properly, water sloshed out while walking, or they just weren’t quite right. Then I found this one. I ordered one from I purchased a watering can from Gardener’s Supply after reading all the glowing reviews and fell in love.
I proceeded to order another one for myself and a few to give as gifts to my mom and a few gardening friends. Sadly this watering can is no longer available so I don’t know what I’m going to do when mine crack (they are plastic after all). I certainly wish I could have purchased these in galvanized metal so they would have lasted the rest of my life.
I LOVE this watering can because:
- It’s perfectly balanced, seriously – you can barely tell you’re carrying 25 lbs of water!
- Holds 3 gallons of water, reducing the need for extra trip and builds nice biceps in the process. I carry two at once which allows me to water a fairly large area with one trip.
- Easy to fill, easy to carry, easy to use, easy to clean.
- The crown comes apart for easy cleaning, which let’s face it, needs to happen often, especially if you harvested use rain water!
From what I hear, Haws watering cans are nice, but pricey. Perhaps when these finally give up the ghost I’ll spring for a Haws to see if they’re all they’re cracked up to be. So now I’ve got you wanting this watering can that you can’t find any more. Perhaps if enough people ask, Gardener’s Supply will start carrying them again. If they do, I’ll be buying a few!
How many different watering cans have you tried? Do you have one you like that you’d like to recommend?
