Starting An Herb Garden! (This was not really the plan…)

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time you probably know (or have figured out!) that farming is not my dream…  but the idea of an herb garden does appeal to me!  So I picked out the perfect spot and asked Papa the Farmer to till it up for me…

I have big dreams of turning this spot into herbally-medicinal wonderfullness that will grow back year after year.  Yesterday was the last day of The Heard Museum's Native Plant Sale so off I went to find some native goodies!  (Ok, and I also stopped at two local garden stores on my way home).  I won’t show you everything, but let me share a few of my favorite finds:

 

Stevia!

Last November a friend showed me her stevia plant that she bought at last year’s Heard Museum Native Plant sale.  The leaves taste so sweet!  I have been waiting ever since to get my own plant!  Stevia is a natural sweetener from Paraguay.  It is reported to be 100 times sweeter than sugar, but it is virtually calorie-free!  I am so excited to try this in my tea!

 

The Greek Oregano was smelling wonderful!  Had to get some of that!

 

These pictures are both different varieties of basil.  Isn’t it amazing how God creates plants that are so different and yet so the same, all at the same time?  On the left is Boxwood Basil and on the right is Sweet Basil.  Last year I was on a green smoothie kick and I experimented using the Basil to make green smoothies (like the recipe in the book said!).  That was definitely a mistake, so this year we’ll be making pesto!  Mmmm! 

 

I found this Citriodorium Geranium in the herb section at the plant sale, but I’m thinking it’s probably not edible.  It smells wonderful though and I immediately fell in love with it!  (Which is saying quite a bit, because I’m really not a plant person… This whole farming idea was not my idea, remember?)  It has a very strong lemon scent and so I am going to try steeping the leaves in water and using it to scent my home-made soap!

 

This is Pineapple Sage… and let me tell you, it smells exactly like a pineapple pizza!  Mmmm!  I said that to Papa the Farmer and he just got a weird look on his face and said, “It’s obviously been a long time since you ate pizza.”  Ok, whatever.  It still smells pretty good and I’m not the only one who thinks so:

 

My final super-duper find of the day was cilantro:

I must have had cilantro on my mind, because I only intended to buy 2 plants… and I did… I bought 2 plants everywhere I stopped!  Oops!  Well, you can never have too much cilantro, right?  (Oh, and if you are reading this and you happen to be my neighbor… You’ll know where to come for cilantro this summer!)

 

So anyway, those were all my exciting finds from yesterday’s plant excursion!  I figured I would come home and just pop all the plants into the beautifully prepared, weed-free garden that Papa the Farmer would have waiting for me. 

   

Well, it didn’t exactly work out that way.  Papa the Farmer tilled up an herb bed for me, but there’s still a lot of weeds in it.  I need to lay black plastic down and leave it there for a couple of weeks until the weeds die off:

    

See?  It doesn’t look so good right now.  But it will!  Now if I can just keep those plants alive for the next couple of weeks I will have a beautiful place of herbally-medicinal wonderfulness!  I’m so excited!