Beauties in the Herb Garden

After a years worth of posts (365) it's a good time to look back over and see what is still working. We may have some gaps in the herb garden, but here are a few herbs which have made it  not only through the brutal summer, but are thriving in the unusual not-so-wintery weather.

Oregano -- It's making a beautiful carpet near the front door and has always been plentiful enough to use whatever is necessary for cooking.  We've even had to toss some of the trimmings when it was just too much.

Lemon Thyme -- We thought it was a goner, but it is making a comeback.  Only a few months ago it was down to about 2 stems and a few dozen leaves. Excellent in cookies.

Rosemary -- This is only one of our three bushes.  While the other two are upright, they are all as glossy and healty as this guy.  Always a pleasant smell as guests arrive and rub against it on the way in.

Cilantro -- This annual is only looking bigger and prettier in the middle of February.  A self seeder, it's come back for a few years now and just in time to miss tomato season.  May have to dry a good bit of this for tomato sauce come summer.

Chinese Parsley (Cilantro)

It never ceases to amaze me how little research is done into a plant. I can understand television series writers not taking the time to verify facts, it's fiction anyway and if you decide to pick a show apart it's your own fault for not wanting to enjoy the show.

On the other hand, when you are writing an informative piece on the use and history of a plant and entirely leave out a huge portion of the available information, not even hinting on it then you have really gotten yourself into a pickle. I mean seriously, you can use it in pickeling, it's not just for dill.

The chinese have used cilantro for who knows how long. The problem with most people is that they hear cilantro and instantly think about salsa or guacamole or some other favorite dish that includes this green leafy plant. This makes perfect sense since the very word cilantro is spanish and most of us don't speak a lick of chinese much less be able to recognize the word if we saw it.

The chinese use cilantro in soups and fish dishes. You probably haven't had it at your local chinese fast food take out place, at least not down here but these are usually americanized versions of the food anyway.

Chinese parsley can also be readily found at asian markets. and a lot cheaper than your big chain supermarkets. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't grow any though. Chinese parsley is a great plant to grow and it survives in some terrible conditions. I have it along my driveway where the worst heat of the day is.

Weeding the Cilantro

Bean soup is a wonderful way to wee the cilantro from the front walk way. Just pulled up the plant root and all and chopped it up sans root. A little lime and seasonings and good to go.
I dare not tell my neighbors to have at it since they could probably go throught the entre plant population in a couple days.

Winter produce (I ate part of it)

Besides the sweet potato which I already ate there are a lot of plants still doing very well in my garden.
For instance there are a few garlic plants still sprouting green tops and some even splitting. This one is splitting into four garlic cloves.

The onion is doing the same although not as impressively as the garlic. I think it just doesn't want to steal the show.

The cabbage likewise is forming multiple heads. Maybe four but I might thin it a little to make sure all of the heads have room to grow.



The beets are still growing and the foliage which withered a little during the cold has sprung back up and growing well again.

I don't know what kind of lettuce this is but it, along with several others, is doing great. We recently had a rain and you can see some of the drops still on the leaves. Mind you there is still a little bug damage but I don't think they will be bothering it again for a while.

My strawberry plants are shooting off new leaves again. If I keep them protected further then I expect to have a good early crop.

I don't really care for leeks but they seem to grow anyway. The french people, and I know this becuase I read it in a book and asked a real french woman from France, love leek soup. Of course it's not just leeks in a pot of water but neither is tomato soup just a bunch of tomato in water.

Cilantro grows like weeds. In fact these are currently classified as weeds since they are growing out of the specified area for cilantro to grow. There are also cilantro plants across the yard and driveway. Possibly some too in my neighbor's yard across the street. Who knew?

Lastly is the monster carrot. Thst is my hand in the picture. This carrot was the only one to get bigger than my finger and it got a lot bigger than that as you can see. I think the ants had something to do with it though.

This isn't the best picutre in the world but if you click on it you can see the detail and the little sugar ants crawling inside the cracks. All I can say is that at least they aren't fire ants!

Seedy little plants

I went outside today and looked over the front garden and saw tiny little plants growing in the gravel walkway. I knew there were some weeds creeping in and trying to make it a weed bed but I was a little surprised to find some other plants sprouting up there. Mainly, besides the weeds, there was cilantro. I really like cilantro, as long as there's not too much of it at a time, but now there are dozens of little plants along the edge of the gravel and I'm afraid I will have to uproot them and toss them to the side like the rest of the plants. They have journeyed to the realm of weeds since, as we all know, weeds are merely plants that are growing where you don't want them to.
Another newcomer to the weed family, in my case the plants that are growing in my gravel walkway, is fennel. There are only two fennel plants sprouting where they shouldn't but that's still too many. It's hard enough to keep the grass out.
I wouldn't have this problem if they weren't so reproductive. Both plants produce many seeds every year and have no problem dropping them where they shouldn't. Ok, so it's partly my fault for trying to harvest some of the seeds for cooking but I don't want to complain about myself...