I’m a little late getting to the garden this year, but this weekend I finally got a few herbs planted in the beds around our house. I’m thrilled to finally have some fresh herbs growing, I can’t tell you how much I miss them in the winter!

Basil. I love you.

Sage. It’s a first for me this year, but I plan on using it tons, especially in this Browned Butter Ravioli with toasted walnuts and fried sage. I am completely bewitched with fried sage. It’s lovely with chicken and pasta. You should try it. Definitely.

Amethyst basil. Another first for me. But when I saw the beautiful purple hue, I couldn’t pass it up. So far as I can tell, it tastes just like regular basil, but how fun would it be to throw it in this Colorful Chicken Alfredo for a rainbow alla pasta?

Stevia. This is my third year to grow Stevia. It is such a fun herb. A bite of a leaf straight off the plant tastes just like sugar. I’ve been adding it to my water with lemon, cucumber and mint. At night I take 2 quarts of water, add one sliced lemon, one sliced cucumber, about a dozen mint leaves, and and about 20 or so stevia leaves. They’re small. And this plant grows quite large. I leave it in the fridge overnight to combine the flavors and drink throughout the next day, over ice. It’s also fun to use as a garnish for drinks and desserts. But I know I’m not using it to its full potential. If you have any other uses for Stevia leaves, I would love to hear them.

Thai Basil. It’s like spicy basil. AKA, an utter triumph. It was starting to flower, so I had to cut a few of the stems.

Parsley. My parsley plants always come back each year, but they look so pitiful, I always plant a new one. Just in case. One day I’m going to have an entire garden full of parsley. That’s okay by me.

Peppermint. I am in love with peppermint. There is nothing more completely intoxicating than catching a faint scent of this peppermint as I’m working in the garden.

Chocolate mint. What a wonderful mint. It’s the most cheerful of all the mints. And yes… This year I planted mint directly in my garden. I’m a rebel. I know it’s prone to spreading, uh, just a tad, and that’s okay by me. My life would be but for the better if completely covered in mint.

Common thyme. I’ve had French thyme and English thyme, but I keep coming back to good ‘ole common thyme.

Three years ago I planted rosemary and lavender in front of the house, right by the door, and now they are enormous. They’ve completely taken over. They’re beautiful. And anyone who walks up to the door catches their lovely scent.

Here’s just one sprig of rosemary in the foreground, with oregano behind it. My oregano comes back each year bigger than the last. It’s on its third year and going strong.

Now if only I’d planted my garden a month ago so I could go ahead and be using my herbs!

© kevinandamanda.com, 2011. | Leave a comment! | Stumble | Share on Twitter | Share on Facebook

Lemon basil. It’s taking over! I planted one last year. Note: I didn’t re-plant this year. But I woke up one morning and all these little lemon basil plants had taken over. I imagine by next year I will have an entire garden full of lemon basil.

Genovese basil. One tiny little genovese basil plant that self-seeded from last year, trying to make it’s way into the world. Aww, it’s cute.

A few weeks later… I’m happy to report that this little guy is growing! I think he’s gonna make it!

Sweet basil. It’s thriving. I just want to sit outside and smell sweet, fresh basil all day. If they could bottle this stuff I’d wear it as a perfume. And I’d need it if I were sitting outside in 90 degree weather all day. Have I told you about my odd fascination with smelling like food? More on that later.

Thai basil. My newest obsession. It’s incredible. And I have three plants of it. I am already planning the homemade thai basil pasta. :D

Thai basil has gorgeous purple-black blooms. But I have to keep them clipped if I want the leaves to keep producing.

Turning into delicious orange and red bell peppers. Hurry up little fellas!

These guys haven’t quite made it yet.

Zucchini. This is my favorite zucchini application, and it’s so easy: Take a zucchini, a red bell pepper, a red onion, and dice, then add a cup of frozen corn kernals. Toss with just enough olive oil to coat, plenty of kosher salt, freshly cracked pepper, and a minced clove of garlic. Roast at 400 degrees for 15-20 mins. A delicious, quick & easy, fresh & flavorful, and colorful side dish that goes with *everything*. I usually keep everything diced, frozen, and waiting in my freezer, just ready to be pulled out and turned into a delicious dish on a moment’s notice.

Green onions. I love green onions. I got a whole handful of green onion seed packets at the feed store for free earlier this year. They were two years old, and they were just giving ‘em away, and I didn’t expect them to do anything. I basically just threw them on the ground, tossed on some top soil, and hoped for the best. And much to my surprise… they grew! … a lot!

Garlic chives. These would be perfect in this. Or on this. <<< BTW, have you tried that one yet? Oh-man it’s so good. Scratch my dinner plans. I making that with mashed potatoes and the sweet roasted vegetables mentioned above tonight.

French thyme. I’m diggin’ in. I grew English thyme last year and I have to say I’m really liking this French thyme. See the lemon basil in the background? There it is, tryin’ to take over again!

***

Thanks for looking! :)

© kevinandamanda.com, 2010. | Leave a comment! | Stumble | Share on Twitter | Share on Facebook

Last year was my very first attempt at gardening – of any kind. At all. My flower beds were in shambles. I’ve never been able to keep anything inside alive (I’m a houseplant serial killer). But I had gotten addicted to cooking with fresh herbs (basil & parsley), and was forking out 5 bucks for ‘em every week at the grocery store. So I borrow a friend’s tiller, dug up my flower bed, and planted a few of our favorite herbs right outside my front door, right there in that would-be (probably should-be) flower & shrub bed. Have I mentioned that I can never keep anything alive? I was nervous. But I’m happy to report that my little mini herb garden did great! It was a huge success. (And by that, I mean- nothing died. Everything lived. Yay.) It was so nice to just walk out my front door and have fresh basil, parsley, rosemary, lavender, mint, thyme, and oregano. I was hooked.

This year, in addition to my herb garden, I am so excited to be adding another little garden for our favorite vegetables (and a few more herbs too!)

Last weekend my parents were here and they brought their big tiller to do the job. My mom and I got up at sunrise on Saturday morning and headed out to weed the herb garden and dig up the grass so my dad could till the new vegetable garden.

This is the front herb garden- after we got all the weeds out!

It sure has changed from last year- the little baby rosemary and lavender grew up!

My oregano came back! :)

And it spread! This is all new growth. The original oregano plant was right in the middle, but I pulled it up because I never trimmed it back last year like I was supposed to and it looked pretty rough.

My thyme came back too but I accidentally pulled it up – thought it was a weed. *sob*

This is the remains of my parsley plant from last year – will it come back this year? :\ Or do I need to just go ahead and pull this sucker up and plant a new one?

This is the right side of our house- just to the right of the herb garden. It’s 20′ x 5′ and going to be the perfect spot for our vegetable garden – it gets gorgeous morning sun.

But we had to dig up alllllllllll that grass (about 100 square feet!) before my dad could till it. He & Kevin were in Tennessee for the morning, so my mom and I went out there with a pickaxe and just started hacking away- so it’d be ready to till when they got back. Now let me just tell you, my mom can dig up grass with the best of ‘em. She hacked circles around me! She put me to shame. I think I got about 1 square foot done. She did about 3/4ths of it. Eventually my dad got there and took pity on us – he finished the rest in like 5 mins and never broke a sweat. :P

Tilled & Edged – I can’t wait until I can get out there and plant! I know I want to do bell peppers- red, green, yellow, orange, any color I can get my hands on. I’m addicted to those things. And zucchini (love it any way you serve it- roasted, fried, and in lasagna) red onions, and green onions (love them on pizza). I’m giddy at the thought of just running out to the garden and picking some vegetables for dinner- and not having to get them from the grocery store! :) I’ll also have room for a few herbs- in the vegetable garden and in the herb garden up front too. I know I want to basil- sweet and genovese again this year, and last week I was at the Fresh Mark and I tasted thai basil- yum!! I totally want to do that too! I’m definitely thinking thyme again for the front bed, and possibly sage too? I just want to have parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme all in the same bed. :P Any other suggestions for me? :D

Oh yeah- I forgot to mention that Howie was a big help. He was the man of the house while Kevin was gone, and he made sure to help us womenfolk with the manual labor. He snoozed in the shade and supervised.

***

Are you doing a garden this year? What crop are you most looking forward to harvesting? I wanted to do corn this year, but ran out of room. But maybe next year… I have a whole back yard to work with… :D

More Garden 2010 pics to come…. :)

P.S. If you were looking for the Easter Dinner recipes, for some reason they didn’t show up in the email that got sent out. Bummer. Sorry about that! :) But if you want them, you can find them right here, on the blog. :)

© kevinandamanda.com, 2010. | Leave a comment! | Stumble | Share on Twitter | Share on Facebook

I have an herb garden! My first one! :) Every summer my lovely neighbor Michele always has a huuuuuuuuuge, absolutely gorgeous and LUSH vegetable and herb garden. Right out her back door! She has really gotten me hooked on cooking with fresh herbs. This year, the weather has just been so nice and I’ve been looking for an excuse to spend more time outside- I decided I wanted to  give it a try myself! :) We have a front flower bed that looked *pathetic*.  See, here’s a pic..

It’s the one on the right, under the window. Ok, it doesn’t look that pathetic in this pic. But you’ll have to use your imagination here with me. See how it has those 5 bushes? Well, we moved two of them- I can’t remember why now, leaving only 3. And it looked really sad and empty. Then one of the remaining three bushes died. Like two years ago. And we never dug it up. Pathetic. I know.

My lovely neighbor Michele has rosemary and lavender bushes in her backyard and they stay evergreen. I thought it’d be cool to replace those standard boxwood bushes we had (that everyone else in the neighborhood has too) with rosemary bushes- It would smell great and I would have fresh rosemary year round right out my front door! :) I asked Michele what she thought and she agreed and gave me the idea to use lavender bushes as well- she suggested doing 5 bushes like this: rosemary, lavender, rosemary, lavender, rosemary. Then in the front I could fill in with some other herbs. So this past weekend, that’s what we did! :) Kevin dug up the old bushes, then tilled the bed. We put some good soil on top and tilled it again. Then I got to work planting my herbs! :)

Here’s one of my little rosemary bushes. It’s tiny now, but I really hope it thrives and grows. Michele’s has *doubled* in size since last summer and it is huge! (It’ll be 3 years old at the end of this summer)

And here’s one of the lavender plants. They smell so good! :)

The herb closest to the house is parsley (Italian or flat-leaf)

Then there’s the sweet basil…

And Oregano…

Thyme…

And Stevia. Ok. I admit. This was a complete impulse buy. The salesman totally sold me on this and got me to buy it. :D Since this was my first trip to the nursery, I had someone walk around with me and hold my hand the entire way. ;) In the herb greenhouse, he picked off a leaf of practically every plant and was like, “Here! Eat this! Here! Try this one!” He even cut off a little baby asparagus head and was like “Here! Eat this!” LOL. When we got to the stevia plant, he was like, “Here, you really have to try this one!!” I did and OMG. It’s so SWEET! Eating one of the leaves tastes like eating a spoonful of sugar!! He said you can dry the leaves and crush them into a powder (I’m going to try it in the blender) and use it as a sweetener! Freaky! I totally have to give it a try. :)

And here’s a view of the whole bed:

That’s the rosemary and lavender you see in the back row, and in the front row, starting in the bottom left-hand corner and going to the top right-hand corner, that out of focus plant is parsley, then basil (the only one in focus! :P), then oregano, then thyme, then the stevia. Got that? ;)

I also got two more plants to sit in pots on my front steps.

This is spearmint. Pop one of these leaves into your mouth and it tastes better than spearmint gum! :) It also works better as a breath-freshener than those Listerine strips. ;)

And lemon thyme. I’ve never cooked with lemon thyme before, but this stuff just smells soooooooooo good. I just couldn’t pass it up. :) And I bet it’d be great on chicken!

So that’s it! I hope all my little plants thrive and grow- and I especially hope the rosemary and lavender fill in and grow up to be nice landscape bushes. Keep an eye out over the summer and I’ll keep you updated with how they’re doing- and any yummy recipes I’ve made using them! :D

And if you’ve never grown herbs before, let me encourage you try it! :) Now’s the time to bring them home from the nursery and get them planted. Even if you don’t have a bed to put them in, you can pick up a one gallon pot and sit them outside somewhere where they’ll get plenty of sun. (Ask the friendly folks at the nursery how much they need to be watered.) At least get you some parsley and basil! :) (If I could only have 2, those are the two I’d get :))  And if you have any questions, I’ll be happy to try and answer them as best as I can! :)

And before I go, I have a winner to announce! :) The winner of the Scrapista 2009 mega scrapbooking prize pack is #4 Megan! :)

Congratulations, Megan! Your suggestion of a color class was a very popular one!! :)

Thank you so much to everyone who commented, I had a wonderful time reading through all of your excellent suggestions!!! I will have a hard time narrowing it down!! :)

Thanks for looking! :)

© kevinandamanda.com, 2009. | Leave a comment! | Stumble | Share on Twitter | Share on Facebook