It is a sad day whenever I see a tree that needs to be chopped down. I never like it. The same goes for any other plants. This week, I needed to cut down one of my favorite trees. Or shrub. It is more of a tree for me, but I guess more of a shrub if you want to be 100% correct. The polygala myrtifolia or September bush is one of my favorite plants in the garden. Unfortunately, this one did not grow upright, it caused problems and my father did not like it covering half of his lawn.

In any case, in this post, I muse a bit about me cutting down a tree or shrub, I have magically grown some salad rocket (eruca sativa) in the summer, and I give an update on my amaranthus growing with lightning speed.

Cutting Down to Make Space for the New

Luckily, after establishing that there is a new plant growing close by to the one I needed to cut down, I made the choice to cut it down. Below you can see how skew it grew:

For years, I tried to get it slowly more upright, binding rope around it and slowly pulling it upwards. Nothing worked. And my dad's patience just ran out. He said I really needed to cut it down.

It is the second one of these plants that my dad wanted to cut down. The first one, twice the size of this one, grew outside of our gate and for some reason one day he just decided to cut it down. Luckily, the September bush grows very quickly and it makes a lot of seeds. Throughout my garden, I see seedlings of this plant, so out with the old in with the new.

Luckily, there is also one growing where I cut the old plant down. A baby one that I am going to help grow upright so that the same fate does not fall onto it. (Actually, there are two new ones growing from where the old one grew.)

Moreover, I am using the old trunk as dividers for my garden. So nothing goes to waste!

Very soon, the suur vygies (Carpobrotus edulis) will cover the dry patches of ground, and the tree trunk will help with keeping the grass out of my garden.

After cutting down the tree, there is ample space now.

Growing Rocket/Arugula in the Summer: The Last Bowl of Salad

I have never managed to grow salad rocket (eruca sativa) in the summer, even though I crave it. This year, for some odd reason, the seeds that landed on the ground where I harvested the previous batch, sprouted and now they are producing leaves. We had some colder weather, maybe this is due to that. But unfortunately, after only giving me one bowl of salad, they decided to bolt, like always when the warmer weather hits us.

Here is the last bowl of rocket leaves!

Check below, I find it very interesting. Two different rocket plants, the one midrib of the leaf is darker colored, the other one very light. I know the ones with the dark-colored midrib will bolt. The one with the lighter color might produce some more leaves.

Dark midrib

Light midrib

Maybe I have it wrong, but that is just how it looks to me. Check below, the ones already bolting. Salad rocket really does not like the summer temperatures.

Even the mustard plants that self-seeded are bolting. It did not even produce any leaves, it just went straight to bolting phase.

Update on the Amaranthus

Normally, I do not even watch the dates. So I would never really know how long things take to grow. This year, trying to be more active on Hive and HiveGarden, I am using this Journal as a way of seeing how long things take to grow. And wow, the amaranth grew quickly. It is not even a month and see how big their leaves are:

I planted the seeds about a month ago, according to my previous post, I planted them around the 15th of December 2022. The growth in just under a month is staggering. I already planted other ones throughout the garden because this year my appetite for these leaves has grown. I just love cooking with them.

It is a so-called weed, and I can see why. It produces so many seeds, and the ones that grow just take over in less than a month. But that point, from a culinary point of view, is a blessing. In less than a month you have nutritious leaves growing in abundance.

Postscriptum, or From death life will come

Seeing plants die is never nice, but I know this will become compost. What a tough life lesson: From death new life will come.

I hope you learned something from this post. Even if only to know how quickly amaranth grows.

All of the photographs are my own, taken with my iPhone. The musings are also my own. Happy gardening and stay safe!