Mulching and Dehydrating - June 13, 2019 @goldenoakfarm

Friday morning was a lovely, cool, partly sunny morning. My helper foliar fed the few vegetables, many herbs, and the flowers needing a boost prior to transplanting.

I finished off the first round bale mulching this area between the garlic. It has a few volunteers: nasturtium at the end of the 3rd row of garlic, catnip down the middle, and 2 -3 cleome flowers at the far end. Then I started on the 2nd bale. Just as I finished this section, my helper finished the foliar.

He started cutting sections off the bale and rolling them into a size that could line the south fence, to keep grass from coming in. We were able to do the whole fence and 1 part of the walkway before he had to go. I’d been mulching for 2 hours and had reached my limit.

So I decided to fill the dehydrators.

From bottom: rugosa rose petals, sage flowers, tansy, wormwood

Every day or so I collect what there is of the rugosa rose petals. My Damascus rose has grown a lot, in the east lilac where it had come up. It’s covered with buds, so I should have a lot of delicious flowers in a week or so.

Sage flowers

Neither of my sages is doing well. I’d read they should be replaced every 3 years or so, and it’s been 3 years for the one in the New Herb garden and even longer for the one in the South Herb garden. So I’m not going to get a lot of sage this year, I don’t think.

Sage flowers for dehydrating

I wanted to finish the tansy jar; it needed 2 -3 more trays for that. And the wormwood was doing well in both herb gardens, and it is a ½ gallon jar, so I thought I’d get started on that.

All these just filled 1 dehydrator and I stopped there. Now the violets are done; others finished: tansy, plantain, comfrey, marjoram, bee balm, raspberry leaves, and yarrow. So about 1/5 of the way to filling the 42+ jars.

Today is tag sale day, not many listed but maybe we will find more as we do our route.

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