Herbs: grow them, love them, preserve them, cook with them

We always used herbs--a few but not very many and we were not using many fresh ones. That was before I tried growing them in the garden. We fell in love with purple basil and when I learned to make a good pesto--sweet basil. I got cutting from friends and started more kinds of herbs. Now we were on the lookout for recipes to use sage, cilantro, thyme, and more. I have found that putting them in medium sized pots seems to keep them in control and a bit smaller than those in the ground. It has also let me rearrange them and share them more easily. Found a great website about their growing habits and so in not reinventing the wheel: http://culinaryherbguide.com/herbgardens.html

I learned how to make the plants multiply by doing cutting and rooting in water but was loosing many cuttings to rot. The last cuttings I rooted in wet sand and they all took. Now I  am trying a batch in seed starter with sand and they also seem to be doing very well. I volunteered at Johnson Farm this summer and one of the days we did mint cuttings and planted them that way. The advantage is they grow faster and true to the parent plant. It worked well on the sage, begonias, lemon basil and mints.

I have tried out several ways of putting herbs up so that we have them fresh when we want to use them. I use my Foodsaver and make  small vacuum bags then fill them with damp herbs, seal and freeze. I have also made up pesto packs with just a bit of oil so they need to have oil added to serve them. We also made parsley - garlic butter and thai basil butter. The mint kept really well in the refrigerator so it has not made it to the freezer. Now to find recipes using rosemary and more using fresh cilantro. drying and freezing herbs
We grew chamomile in the school garden last year but I have never grown it. Great for attracting bees so I need to add one and the tea is not bad either.

Heather shared a printout at our last garden guild meeting on growing herbs from A&M http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/fallgarden/herbs.html and brought several different herbs for members to touch and smell. We discussed and demonstrated how to take cuttings and start new plants for ourselves. Great short video on this at Propagating Herbs video on youtube.

Fall gardening into full swing with brassicas and root crops

I couldn't wait for fall so I could replace the under-performing plants that lived through the heat with the broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and beets/carrots that we seem to be able to grow in great profusion. I started all of the plants except cabbage from seed and am spending time fine tuning the soil with my little test kit and transplanting the little seedlings into the garden. I am also looking closely at companion plantings. The cool mornings are enticing me from many other tasks but the rewards are going to be many.

I found an interesting lettuce tower on Pinterest and got it made up with a few sprigs of red sails lettuce. should be fun if nothing else. I am trying fall green beans and peas to see if they do better. Seems that last fall the green beans did pretty well. I have a new really short season variety to try. 

The herbs are going strong compelling me to find recipes to utilize all of them. Sage stuffed pork roast was terrific, the Thai basil and garlic parsley butters are great on bread, potatoes, rice --the list goes on and on. I have  dozens of packets pesto in the freezer waiting to be  spread on pasta, bread, crackers and more. The lemon basil has appeared on chicken and on a zucchini torte.  George is using a lot more mint in his tea too. I haven't tried out rosemary dishes but will go there next. Garlic cloves are on their way from the grower so next year we should have really tasty garlic to use too. 

I participated in a few plant swaps in the last few weeks and have added a number of perennials to the beds and bringing in new color and textures. I got half a dozen coleus plants of various leaf types and rooted most of them to double or triple the plantings. Looks pretty good out there even with all the heat.

Creating an herb garden to accent the yard

 We have been talking for a year about doing some kind of plantings around the oak tree at the corner of our front yard but have spent way more time on the other beds. I did put stones around the tree and put down weed cloth topped with grass clippings and some weedy grasses. Last weekend we finally put down a load of compost/mulch and got it spread out. Suddenly it was plain that if I grouped all the herbs there that they would help water the tree and get a bit of protection from the blazing sun and heat we started getting this week. 

I wound up moving the plant stand too so it would be closer and open up the path area to the chairs a bit more. This may be our permanent grouping or we may move things around a bit more. I'd like to pot a couple of the coleus to get a bit more color in the area but need to monitor the sun a bit more yet for that.  I am getting lots of comments from people walking by on the garden and the mix of flowers and vegetables. The bamboo teepee is attracting a bit of attention now that the malabar spinach is climbing well.