It's All About Nutrition!

Container Gardening with Herbs

Try growing an herb garden in your yard. It’s fun and easy and can really complement the landscape. We like to grow herbs in containers such as pots…this is done to keep the rabbits from eating them. In our yard, a specific area is allocated to just herbs. You can start off with a few herbs…the main ones I like to grow are basil, thyme, rosemary, and mint.

Every year I like to add one or two more herbs to the garden. This year the herb garden has been expanded to twelve different varieties…two types of basil (Italian and purple), thyme, rosemary, three types of mint (spearmint, peppermint, and chocolate), oregano, parsley, tarragon, lavender, and lemon verbena.

Herbs are great to use in recipes…there’s nothing like picking your own fresh herbs from the garden and using them in the kitchen. Two of our newest additions are chocolate mint and lemon verbena. Chocolate mint can be used in tea or added to chocolate desserts; lemon verbena can be used in tea, added to lemon desserts and fruit salads, and used to flavor chicken and fish dishes.

Have fun cooking with herbs…they are great substitutes for using salt.

Check out our other post about using containers to grow herbs

Being a return visitor it would be helpful if you would leave a thoughtful comment below...Thanks, Jeanne

Use of Herbs and Spices

on the Rise in the U.S.

Rising U. S. domestic use of herbs and spices reflects a trend towards the use of herbs and spices to compensate for less salt and lower fat levels in foods and marketing strategies to meet the demands of foods of an increasingly ethnically diverse U.S. population. Census projections indicate that Hispanics and Asians are expected to reach 20 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively, of the population by 2030. Also, flavor enhancement using herbs and spices may counter the effects of today’s rigorous processing technologies to make foods more convenient. Thus, it’s no surprise that the United States, which imports 60 percent of its annual spice needs, is the world’s largest spice importer and consumer, with both imports and consumption on an uptrend for the past 10 years.

This PDF report published by the United States Department of Agriculture discusses the following aspects of spice usage in the U.S. market.

What Are Spices and How Are They Used?

What Is the Nutrient Profile of the Spices Available for Consumption?

What Are the Retail Sale Levels for Spices?

How Much Spice Is Available for Consumption?

Click here for your copy of this free report

Planting and Growing Garlic Fact Sheet

There are many different kinds of garlic and most of them are different in size, color, shape, taste, number of cloves per bulb, pungency and storability. There are believed to be over 600 cultivated sub-varieties of garlic in the world. Most of them are most likely selections of only a handful of basic types that have been grown widely and developed their own characteristics over the centuries as local growing conditions changed.

Garlic (Allium sativum) is a hardy, perennial member of the onion family. Probably native to Central Asia, garlic has long been naturalized in Southern Europe. Unlike the onion, garlic plants produce a number of small bulbs called cloves rather than one large bulb. Each bulb contains a dozen or more cloves, and is covered with a thin white skin. The larger outer cloves produce the best garlic. Garlic has flat leaves rather than the round, hollow leaves of the onion. Garlic is used largely as a condiment and as flavoring in gravies, tomato sauces, soups, stews, pickles, salads, salad dressing and breads. Many cooks find it indispensable in the kitchen.

Garlic powder is made from ground dehydrated cloves and is used widely as a substitute for fresh garlic. Garlic powder is also used by the meat packing industry in prepared meats.

Garlic Soil Requirements:

Garlic grows best on friable (crumbly) loamy soils that are fertile and high in organic matter. Garlic does well with high amounts of fertilizer. As a general recommendation, apply three pounds of 10-10-10 fertilizer per 100 square feet. Follow soil test recommendations for your particular garden soil. The soil must be kept evenly moist, as dry soil will cause irregularly shaped bulbs. Heavy clay soils will also create misshapen bulbs and make harvesting difficult. Add organic matter–well-rotted manure or compost–to the soil on a yearly basis to keep it friable.

Planting Garlic:

Garlic must be planted very early in the Northeast (March or April) to permit full leaf development. Later spring planting is not successful. Long days and warm temperatures favor bulb development in the garlic plant. As soon as bulbing starts, leaf initiation ceases. For highest yields, therefore, the cloves must be planted early enough to permit the development of large vegetative plants during the short cool days of March and April. The yield potential of the plants depends on the amount of vegetative growth produced before bulbing commences. Select only larger outer cloves for the best garlic. Garlic seed is not available and is rarely produced by plants. Be sure that the cloves are free of disease and are smooth and fresh.

Plant garlic cloves three to five inches apart in an upright position in the row and set them at a depth of one-half to one inch deep. Setting the bulbs in an upright position ensures a straight neck. Be sure to allow 18 to 30 inches between the rows. Do not divide the bulbs into cloves until you are ready to plant–early separation results in decreased yields.

Harvest and Storage of Garlic:

The bulbs may be harvested when the tops start to dry, usually in August. Bulbs should be dug up rather than pulled to avoid stem injury. Allow the tops to dry. After the bulbs have dried, the tops and roots can be removed with shears to within an inch of the bulbs. It is essential that the garlic be well cured before being stored. The mature bulbs are best stored at 32 degrees F. Garlic stores well under a wide range of temperatures, but sprouts will develop quickly at temperatures at or above 40 degrees F. The humidity in storage should be near 65 to 70 percent at all times to discourage mold development and root formation. Cloves should keep for six to seven months.

Garlic Pests:

The onion maggot larva is occasionally found in garlic cloves when harvested. An earlier symptom of onion maggot presence is the premature death of leaf tips. Sanitation is crucial to control; sprays are not available.

Adapted from Charles T. Behnke, Ohio State University Extension, 2000

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Four Herbs to Consider in Your Garden Part Four

Rosemary:
This herb is not extremely hardy and needs to be treated as an annual or overwintered indoors. Outdoors in the summer months, rosemary suffers from few problems, but indoors it may develop such problems as fungal disease and aphids. To help overwinter the plant indoors, give rosemary good drainage, air flow, and a sunny but cool location.

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Sage:
This herb will grow easily from seed, and although harvest will be small the first year, this strong-flavored herb will produce sufficiently for modest kitchen use. After the second year, sage needs to be trimmed back in the spring to avoid the center of the plant becoming too woody. If left to flower, it will produce blue blooms that attract butterflies. Plan on replacing sage plants every three to five years. Some types of sage are tender and should be treated as annuals. Among the tender sages, Pineapple sage is very popular as it produces scarlet flowers late in the summer and has a fruit-tasting leaf. Hummingbirds and butterflies enjoy this plant, too.

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French Tarragon:
This is a perennial that requires at least 30 (preferably 60) days of dormancy in cold weather. Gardeners with heavy or compacted soil may have trouble keeping plants from year to year. As French tarragon does not set viable seed, the plants are propagated by root division or stem cuttings and should be purchased from a reputable nursery.

Seeds for Russian tarragon are available, but the plant is not considered sufficiently flavorful for culinary use and has few, if any, attractive features in the garden. French tarragon can be recognized by its glossy green leaves in the spring, which turn brown in mid-season. Cutting back the tarragon in mid-season will help restore the attractive green foliage.

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Thyme:
There are over 300 species of thyme. The most common can be divided into two groups: culinary and ornamental. Common, English, and French thyme, which may also be mistakenly labelled Mother of Thyme, have small green leaves and an upright habit. Lemon thyme also has an upright form, as well as creeping and variegated versions. Silver thyme is primarily an upright ornamental with pretty pink flowers.

Thymes can also make a great lawn substitute or slope retainer. The low-growing thymes include Woolly thyme, Miniature thyme, Mother of Thyme, and caraway thyme . Flowers on the thymes vary from deep rosy pink and red to lavender and white. Garden thyme can be grown from purchased seed, but many of the cultivars can only be propagated by cuttings, division, or layering. Provide thyme with a sunny location and good drainage, and the plant will survive for many years without pest or disease problems.

If you found this post interesting or helpfull leaving me a comment would be much appreciated. Thanx Jeanne:)

Four Herbs to Consider in Your Garden Part Three

Marjoram:
Also known as knotted marjoram or sweet marjoram, this plant has a white flower and upright habit. It is in the same genus as oregano, but grows more slowly than the Greek oregano species and is not generally hardy in very cold regions. The name knotted marjoram comes from the leaves, which unfurl from a ?knot? form.

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Mint:
Of the many available species of mint, peppermint and spearmint are the most common. Pineapple mint, applemint, chocolate mint, variegated mint, blue mints, silver mints, and many more also can be found. Most are potentially invasive perennials that should be kept in a pot, preferably away from the garden. They will spread rapidly by runners that can break to the surface many feet from the mother plant. Some also will set seed, but the seedlings are rarely good specimens. Although the pale lavender flowers are attractive, they should be removed prior to seed formation. Plants should be heavily trimmed mid-season to retain vigor and fresh leaves. Grow mints in an easterly location if possible, as they wilt and burn in hot afternoon sun. Mints, particularly spearmint, require a higher moisture level than most herbs.

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Oregano:
Common oregano and Greek oregano are both easy to grow from seed and grow sufficiently well to provide a modest harvest the first year. Common oregano has a low growing habit and white or pink flowers, while the white-flowering Greek oregano has a more upright habit (18-24 inches).

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Parsley:

This herb is a marginally hardy biennial, so it should be sown from fresh seed each year. The seed has a tough outer shell that takes up to three weeks to soften, a process that can be hastened by soaking in warm water overnight. Once germinated, transfer the seedlings to a permanent position while still small, as parsley will develop a tap root as it matures. Rarely, parsley may survive and stay green during the first winter and send up a flower stalk in midspring of the second year. However, seeds from this flower stalk are unlikely to result in quality specimens. There are two types of parsley widely available: curly and Italian.

If you found this post interesting or helpfull leaving me a comment would be much appreciated. Thanx Jeanne