New to the "gardens" this year include: sassafras (a tree), roseroot, eastern prickly pear cactus (Opuntia humifusa), and Monarda fistulosa (I have other monardas already). I'm also trying in the veggie garden molokhia (Corchorus olitorius) and kinh gioi (Elsholtzia ciliata).

I love sassafras as a tree and it is a wonderful herb. I've grown roseroot before but it didn't end up liking the location so I'm trying again. I love monardas so I've added the wild form. The others listed are new.

Oh yeah, I winter sowed blue vervain and it has finally sprouted so I almost forgot that one. I also winter sowed Asclepias tuberosa and those are doing well but I'll have to find a dry spot for those.

FataMorgana

stevia, hyssop, rue, pineapple sage & lets call "roselle" an herb too!

we love molokhia here it's a native and can be got in any local market. It's considered an "arab" food, as most europeans don't know it, but we get some every season it's sold. Totally yummy.

New this year? Well, the basil has all but died, but some plants are struggling to recover. Beet greens came up where the beets themselves never grew - I'll take what I can get. I'm still struggling myself - I garden in nearly complete building rubble and my compost is the only way I can improve the soil - it's a slow process. What I would really like to grow is sesame! Never seen it offered as a plant. Could I germinate regular (unroasted of course) sesame seeds, do you think? Anyone know about this?

The rue is booming, the cut back sage and wormwood have come back lovely and happy. The mint is ok, so's the lavender, the scented geranium will soon take over the neighborhood, rosemary is ok - probably needs to be repotted.
Our hot, hot, dry season is well underway, and watering has taken the top spot in gardening tasks. Veggies are doing well so far, one never really knows! The rest are flowers and one day I'll be able to cut a bouquet again, but I'm getting there.

Batya- Thanks for the info on molokhia! I try new stuff every year. Some things work out and some don't. My climate is about as far from yours as you can get so we'll have to see how it fares. But for the price of a pack of seeds, I can experiment. (If anyone is curious, I got my seeds here.)

I saw sesame seeds for growing at the same place, Kitazawa Seed, I got the molokhia from. I was curious about it but figured that would be a miserable failure in my relatively cold, wet, and short growing season. Here's their sesame page.

Renovating gardens do take forever. I've spent 10 years trying to rejuvenate and improve the vegetable beds. The previous owner was a huge gardener. It was her passion and the garden beds are numerous and huge. But she was from a different generation and a fan of chemical fertilizers to make things grow. The soil in all the gardens but especially the vegetable garden was poor. I've spent 10 years adding compost to the vegetable garden. Earthworms were almost completely missing from the vegetable garden when I started. Now they happily churn through the veggie beds in great numbers. They tell me I'm doing something right so does the increased veggie yields. It's a slow process, but you'll get there!

FataMorgana

This year I am trying lemon grass, lemon verbena, orange and ginger mint and zatar oregano. I did the zatar oregano from seed and am anxious to try it. Also trying Bloody Dock for the first time too. The words deer resistant caught my attention.

It sounds like I may be putting molokhia on my list for next year, sounds interesting.

Oh my -- you guys are great!! Thanks to batya and FataMorgana -- I'm off to get molokhia seeds for this year.

tishtoshnm,
You are going to totally love fresh LemonGrass. I grew it first time last year and it came back all by itself this year even though everyone told me it would never do so. I did not do anything to it - no mulch - just left the container in the yard over winter.

I forgot to mention that I am also growing Calamintha nepeta for first time this year.

DL

Here is a link that might be useful: Calamintha nepeta information

tishtoshnm, bloody dock is also a striking plant in the ornamental garden as well as the herb garden. Its green leaves with red-veins are quite eye-catching. I've found it short-lived but it will self-seed, though not aggressively so.

I also just picked up an "apothecary rose." I had one for years but the grafted portion died 2 years ago. The rootstock sprouted, but it isn't the same rose. So this one is a new and old one for me at the same time!

FataMorgana

So far I do not have much luck with things re-seeding, unfortunately. I hope that as my soil is built up, that may change. We may just be too dry. Apothecary's rose is on my list of wants. I was hoping to order it from Heirloom Roses this year but it was out of stock. Hopefully next year. Of course, if I have any hope of using the roses for anything, I need to control DH's trigger finger on the pesticides. Mine are too young to give me too many hips yet.

I may try grabbing a lemongrass to try in the ground and experiment with protection.

I ended up getting my apothecary rose from Forest Farm. I had gotten one from Richters previously.

FataMorgana

Oh my........

Apothecary rose !!!! I never knew the name of this plant. When my son was in Navy there was a thicket of what must have been this rose around the PX. On a visit I must have pick a gallon of the 'hips' but back in Virginia was never able to find them. Thanks for the reminder and the plant name.

A bigger boat??? Nahhhh I'm gonna need a bigger yard !!!!!

DL

Well, I'm not nearly as fancy as you guys yet... ;) This is only my 2nd year gardening, but I have 5 new mint plants (peppermint, chocolate mint, apple mint, lemon balm, and orange mint) and I'm also growing rosemary, flat-leaf parsley, cinnamon basil, I have a sage sprout that's getting big, and a Marigold sprout that's still alive but hasn't gone any closer to becoming a flower for a long while. :P Oh, and Lavender!

I need to start investing in BIG deep pots for my mint. Then I could use my current mint pots for my other herbs, I have a feeling they're going to need more root space before long, especially my cinnamon basil.