Herb Garden

     

It is the greenest winter that I ever remember seeing here! Out on a walk today (one of our favourite routes in our neighbourhood down to the local creek) I couldn't help but marvel at how green everything was. It looked like spring! At 14 degrees it almost felt like spring too!

                                 

The creek was actually a babbling brook! Amazing to think that six months ago everything was brown and dead and we could see the rocks and silt at the bottom of that creek bed! (when we were able to go out for walks in the summer due to the ubiquitous smoke haze!)

Amazingly in the garden we are still harvesting our herbs. One of my favourite Youtubers, Self-Sufficient Me, has the catch phrase, "You don't have to be self-sufficient in everything but you should be self-sufficient in something!" We are so far from being self-sufficient in everything but the one thing we are self-sufficient in is our herbs.

                                

We have basil in summer (and then dried and stored for winter), parsley, rosemary, mint, oregano and thyme. These are the herbs that we use most anyways so it is wonderful to have fresh and dried organic herbs on hand year round.

I use them all the time in pasta sauce, soups, casseroles and stews, roasts, focaccia, breads and pizza, just about everything savoury!  So tasty and they really do make a difference to your cooking. Even cultivating a little pot of one of these herbs (preferably the one you use the most) is worthwhile. The mint is also lovely as tea. I simply dried it in a very low oven and then crunched the leaves up into little "tea-sized" pieces. Add to hot water and enjoy!

Today we had such an abundance of herbs that I grabbed a few handfuls and gave them to the chooks. I read somewhere that oregano from the garden is a natural antibiotic for chooks so I was happy when they began pecking at it. Not that they are sick, but hopefully this will be a nutritious snack for them. As for the bunny, his favourite snack is mint - which keeps the crop in the garden under control (consider planting this one in a pot if you don't want it to take over your whole garden!!)