Herbs: Use Them Liberally

You must be getting tired of me and my plants by now. Honestly, I had no clue how obsessed I was with flowers and gardening until I looked back on how many posts have been about at least one of those topics, and here’s yet another!

I grew up with vegetable gardens. My grandfather always had these lush gardens filled with tomatoes, squash, string beans, cucumbers, scallion (green onion), and thyme. When my family would visit on the weekends, four year old Brittany would put on her special overalls and head down to the garden to “help” water all the plants (which we did by hand, with buckets). When he passed away when I was eleven, my parents and I tried to keep up the tradition but quickly discovered that taking care of his large garden was a full-time job, not something we could feasibly do with work and school.

Since then, we’ve kind of had a memorial garden at our own home where we grow tomatoes and scotch bonnet (a super-hot pepper from Jamaica). We’ve slowly but surely expanded the garden to include strawberries and raspberries, and I am desperately trying to convince my parents to get a fruit tree (to no avail…yet).

My latest additions to our garden though are herbs! I’m really not a huge cook, but the thought of being able to go into the garden and pluck some mint leaves seemed like such fun. And dried herbs pale in comparison to the fresh stuff. As an added bonus, the herbs smell lovely.

We now have mint, sweet basil, rosemary, and sage growing in a little planter on our patio. The mint is definitely going into some iced tea this summer, and a few cocktails. The basil will go so well with our homegrown tomatoes and some mozzarella—Margherita pizza, anyone? As for the sage and rosemary, if any of you have some recipes, I’d love to hear them!

Secret Garden

I’ve been waiting for the weather to finally be warm enough to garden. Our winter lasted forever, and it’s only been since mid-to-late May that it felt even remotely spring-like. But even then, the temperature would still drop to wintry temperatures overnight. Not ideal for planting young flowers and shrubs.

Gardening is a family affair for us, which is something that I’ve come to enjoy. My parents and I wake up early on a Saturday, hoping to beat the crowds at the local plant nurseries. Mom and I pick the flowers (Dad always insists on some blue or purple varietals), and Dad is in charge of paying and then loading up the car. The rest of the morning is spent in the dirt (literally) until every flower has a new home. The end result is a yard filled with bursts of color. It’s so refreshing after a gray, colorless winter.

My favorite flower (if you don’t already know) is the rose, so each year we add a few roses to the collection. This year we added a sherbet colored one and a red and white speckled one. I’m a huge fan of both! They seemed so unique to me. Because Dad favors purple and blue flowers, we have a lot of those scattered about as well. We’re still waiting for our lilies to bloom though, but they’re coming along nicely.

There’s something therapeutic about gardening for me. It’s peaceful, especially since we garden first thing in the morning. Our neighbors still haven’t emerged from their houses, so it’s just us and maybe some birds chirping. It’s nice, too, that it’s time spent with my parents. The older I get, the more I appreciate that quality time I have with them. And gardening is creative too. You spend so much time picking flowers and then laying them out to create something aesthetically pleasing. The yard becomes like an empty canvas, the flowers different tubes of oil paint.

 

Do any of you garden? What are your favorite flowers?