Chervil

It has been hotter or colder than usual this year, a bit strange weather here and there in Japan. Everything seems to be harvested less than usual, our black beans in the tiny farm have not been ready yet. But chervils in some of our pots grow alright. As you see, they look sensitive and weak but actually they grow well you provide everything they like. They survive in the snow! Most herbs love strong sunshine but they are one of a few exceptions. They prefer cooler place where there's some shades like just a bottom of big trees. They prefer moist and fertilized sand. We put some leaf mould for it to keep them that way. If it's November, strong sunshine like in summer never kills them, so sometimes we put them in sunshine to grow.
They smells good in your mouth, just slightly though. One of our favorite herb for cooking :-)

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Harvesting herbs

As herbs started grwoing again as autumn had come. Have to harvest them as well as thining out.

Lemonthyme which has grown a lot.


Cut many branches enough to decrease its burden to survive winter.


Sometimes branches of thymes touch the sand in a pot, then some roots show up from joints there. If you cut the branch at the original root side, you can grow the new born roots as another pot by transplanting it. This sometimes happen for thymes, mints if you don't care for them enough lol.... :p



Sage harvested in our tiny farm. We hang sages and thymes in the shade to dry them out for latter cooking. We can harvest thyme anytime through the year, but if it's winter, it's not like fresh young ones like from spring through autumn as they grow slower in winter.

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One year for rosemaries

I transplanted 2 rosemaries into bigger pots 1 year ago ( September 2006). They looked like this below, then.



This below is at the moment.

I guess perhaps they grow little by little but while I see them everyday, a bit hard to notice it. It's good to know your plants still grow but at the same time honestly would like them to stop doing because it's hard to move them outside to get sunshine when it's fine and inside to avoid rain and snow.

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Lasagna

Cooked some lasagna, sprinkled some fresh rosemaries on top of the half of it to help digesting and to enjoy the flavor.



Common thyme topping at the rest half.

Better have it while it's enough hot.

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Harvesting & tasting herbs in our garden.

Harvested and tasted some herbs in our garden.

Pepper mint, common thyme, rosemary.
Cellfille, spare mint, lemon thyme.
Like as usual, we roll a piece of fried pork, sauce and favorite herbs with sunny lettuce to eat.

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Harvested oregano

We have some oregano pots in our place and sometimes need to harvest them. This is the third time for me to harvest oreganos this year.
It helps to make them stay away from humidity. Need to wash them to dry to stock.
We can use them for cooking. I think we will havest them again at least one or two more times by winter.

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To plant cuttings

I decided to try cutting plants as it was a little bit cloudy today, easily supposed it would be rainy. Would be survenirs for our overnight staying customers in this coming summer.


Spare mints and pepper mint I cut 1 week or 10 days ago. I put them into water. The left side ones which looks a bit lighter color with more wrinkles are spare mints, others are pepper mints.

It makes some roots come up from the end and joints to put them into water for a week or 10 days. This makes things a lot easier.


Just like this below. You can not expect the plants to stay completely vertically when you do this. This is not the same when you transplant some new pots which you buy in some flower shops. I just let them lean the edge of the pots. When their roots grow enough, they will grow vertically.


Hum... I should have cut them a bit shorter :(


Cut pet bottles for the roots to come up. You just need to fill some water in each bottle to put some plants for a week or 10 days. I will put some other cut mints late.


These below are common thymes. Their roots don't come up easily even if we put them in pots full of water. In that case, just put them in some sand directly.

Plants we can grow their roots first like basil, mints are easier for us to plant cuttings. Plants we can not do that easily e.g. thyme, rosemary are not so easy to do. Probably better to try another way to get some new pots.

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Two herbs

I put some thymes at some meatballs as thymes in my garden grow a lot.

I don't hesitate to add some herbs to some meat plates as I have already learned that they help to digest meat.


Camomile tea. Camomiles in our field getting in bloom. Smells like green apples.

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Transplanting some sparemints

Found some spare mints I devided last year had enough roots growing, so I transplanted them into size 5 pots.
Before transplanting


After transplanting


A lot bigger pot.
Befor transplanting.


After transplanting.

You had better note that you just transplant one into a little bigger pot when you do. This helps their roots to grow good. If you use a lot bigger pot, their roots don't grow good. You just make pots bigger and bigger little by little.

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Cutting oregano

Before


After



Spread the cut oreganos on a piece of newspaper for a some days to get them tried.
You can use some of them for cooking later. Most herbs are originally from Europe where it's not so hot and humid even in summer, so sometimes I do cut some herbs to let them survive in rainy season here in Japan. I don't think I really need to do this while I am in Hakuba, but would like to let them stay comfortable. Some herbs like basils are from semi tropical zone, so they are okay with hot and humid weather.

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Front in spring

After the Japanese narcissus finished their blooming, some other flowers are displayed in our front. How many flowers below do you know?


The pink one at the upper left : cyclamen
In front of cyclamen : one kind of ivy (I think ) Hedera
The yellow flowers left side of hedera : Freesia
The yellow and dark blue flowers : Primula
The thin leaves left side of Primula : Crocus
The yellow flowers at the deep right : Kalanchoe

Freesia smells the strongest of them, but even then it's not stronger than Japanese narcissus.



I hang some "Hoozuki (Japanese lantern)" at the left side of a blackboard. The roots of Hoozuki really widespread in the ground, so you'd better have some in a pot, not in a flowerbed. If you put them in flowerbeds, probably other plants can not grow good.


Zooming up to a pot of hedera. Iveys do survive even if they don't get enough sunshine. For example at the north side of a house, inside of a house. But they don't seem they like cold temperture, their leaves get redder if it's 5C or colder. So I always get them inside of my house when it's getting colder and colder before they get red.


I put rosemaries also inside of the house to avoid snowfall. But as we use them for cooking, they are losing leaves little by little lol..... They like sunshine pretty much, not like ivey. So when it's sunny, I try to put them outside to get sunshine on them. It's not impossible to have some fresh flowers and herbs even in winter in this snowy places if you try.

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Rosemary buds

Found some buds at our rosemarry plants. Rosemarries are usually in bloom in winter throughout spring. Very small flowers which you can find if you were careful enough.
We put rosemarry pots below some plastic roof in summer to avoid rainfalls. Rosemarries don't like humid weather, so that they can grow enough in sunmer. We cut some in winter for cooking, so our rosemarries usually get smaller in winter and they look like baby rosemarries in spring as we cut them too much! lol...
Probably we had better not cut them so much in winter because I guess winter is the time for them to rest. They don't grow much in winter - they always grow so slow through the year. But while we run an accommodation in a ski resort, anyway we get more guests in winter rather than in summer.

Hayaokidori website