Jackie, Jackie, strange and wacky, How does your garden grow?

... With marjoram leaves and basil stems, and pretty mint all in a row!

Aedan and I worked on our herb garden today. We planted Sweet Basil, French Tarragon, Curry Plant, Curly Parsley, Mint, Salad Burnett, Rosemary, Lavendar, Thai Basil, Dill, and Sweet Marjoram. We have a chive plant that was already here before we moved in and since then I have transplanted it a number of times and it is still alive, it never fails to impress me. We also have two hearty Oregano plants from a few years ago. (I love it when they keep coming back...)

I love having all these fresh herbs so close to the kitchen! Last year I discovered that parsley grows really well here and it made a huge difference in my cooking. Raw fresh parsley is amazing and is quite nutritious - it is packed with Vitamin C and iron, has some protein and fiber value too . Wikipedia says that when it is crushed and rubbed on the skin, parsley can reduce itching in mosquito bites - I might have to try that although I'm hoping I won't need to. Last year I dehydrated what parsley we had left and even that tastes much better than store bought dried parsley (even beats out my favorite Penzey's spices, now that is saying something!)

The salad burnett and curry plants are a bit new to me so we will see how it goes. The salad burnett has a cucumberish taste and I need to see what else I can use it for other than salads. The curry plant is not all I was hoping for as it seems it has a mild curry flavor although it smells just like curry. It seems it works best for deviled eggs, rice, or vegetables. Should be interesting.

I found a small pair of working gloves for Aedan at the nursery and he was very excited to be able to get his hands dirty, so to speak.

Like I mentioned in our last post, the previous resident must have really been into gardening because these terraces were here before we moved in. In the top level we will have some pretty irises soon. There is another set on the opposite side of our back patio which are also filled with herbs and flowers.

We also planted a lavender Chrysanthemum, Allyson purple Mexican Heather, and 'Soprano' Light Purple Osteospermum hybrid flowers (this is our lone flower pictured above). I'm trying out some things with our camera - I love closeup flower shots!

While working in the back yard, a guy from our electric company came to change out our meter for market pricing so we are another step closer to reducing our electric bills! Just in time for summer too.

I am really going to miss having a garden this year - in particular I am going to miss all of the tomatoes. It looks like I will be hitting the farmers market more often than not. All of this gardening made me crave a vegetarian dish so I made Ratatouille's Ratatouille again for dinner, this time with a side of Quinoa. I just love a good hearty meal from good ol' Mother Earth!