Herbs, Herbs, Herbs

[karadekoolaid]

Hey, wonderful what you´re doing with your herbs - you´ve got a really good selection, Ginny.
I´ve never had any success with dill, or sage in Caracas. Probably too much heat.
However, basil, rosemary, oregano, thyme, epazote, tarragon - all grow great!
My purple basil just died off - after 5 years. I used to prune it every 3-4 months, flowers and all; made pesto with the leaves and dried the flowers for seeds (there were a lot of seeds already formed).

 

[pepperhead212]

That Tetra variety of dill is absolutely unbelievable - I've never seen one like that! It is unmanageable, in this type of setup, as you can see - in just 11 days it grew . Dukat seems best to grow this way, but I will try it outside, next spring.
11 days since I trimmed this Tetra dill down to the stubs! This stuff is on steroids. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Mass of roots of the Tetra dill, in the hydroponics basket. I removed it, as it was unmanageable. 12-13 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Harvest of the Tetra dill, overgrown 11 days after trimming down to stubs! 12-13 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[karadekoolaid]

Wow! That´s impressive! Might just be the way out for me to get some to grow!

 

[GinnyPNW]

Nice, Dave!

I love my indoor gardens. I started out with the desire to grow herbs for cooking. Since that worked out so well, I knew that I wanted to grow more. It is great to be able to grow them inside too! Nothing like fresh picked lettuce and tomatoes. And I love having flowers in the kitchen.

Rinse & refill day:


Newest flower garden...still growing up:

 

[blissful]

Old thread with lots of information.
We picked the sage, summer savory, and parsley yesterday, washed them in the big bowl on the deck. Set them to dry on a towel.
I dried the sage and summer savory overnight in the dehydrator at 105 deg F, crumbled them off the stems, baked them for a few minutes at 170 deg F just to be sure they were dry enough for storage, put them in labeled bottles to store.
I put half the parsley in the dehydrator, it's stuffed full. The second half will go in sometime this afternoon when it fits.

 

[larry_stewart]

My parsley lasted me all season. I planted a few rows late which will likely last the whole winter. pretty hardy stuff ( usually).

 

[pepperhead212]

I've had parsley last the entire winter, too. Unfortunately, the flat leaf types are simply too vigorous, to grow in hydro. And parsley is one of those herbs that doesn't taste right dried, to me, along with basil, cilantro, and a few others, so I always have them fresh.

On the topic of herbs, yesterday I saw a PBS show by accident - it was on when I turned the TV on, so I rewound it to the beginning, and watched it all - Movers and Makers - City Of Soil: A look at Philadelphia's Urban Agriculture. I couldn't stop watching it, and how some of these people were getting people into farming, when they had "never touched any soil in their life"! And I noticed this seed company, I had never seen before, that is sort of a local non-profit company, that actually sells seeds from many different farmers, and when I checked the website, I saw a number of unusual seeds I have seen before, and some I've gotten before, but not had luck with, so I tried them again! Every seed pack is $5.00 - not super cheap, but most with a good number of seeds, and it was only $4.54 for shipping 8 packs. Here's the link:

Vegetables & Grains

Truelove Seeds is a farm-based seed company offering culturally important and open pollinated vegetable, herb, and flower seeds. Our seeds are grown by more than 20 small-scale urban and rural farmers committed to community food sovereignty, cultural preservation, and sustainable agriculture.

trueloveseeds.com

The unusual herbs I got are HUACATAY - a South American herb, that is in the Marigold family, and is also called "Black Mint", and has flavor similar to cilantro, with other flavors. Tried this year's ago, but no germination.
QUILLQUIÑA - a.k.a. Bolivian Coriander. Another South American herb, also used in southern Mexico, which is what interests me.
SHEVID - a.k.a. Persian Dill. Piqued my interest, to see if it will be more for leaves, than seeds.
LEBANESE ZA'ATAR - The true za'atar, I got from Baker Creek years ago, but didn't do well, so I'll try again.

Another unusual thing that I ordered, that I grew one variety of years ago, from Trade Winds Fruit, was Pea Eggplant this one is
DARK PEA EGGPLANT - this one from Central America, and only 4-5' tall, compared to the one I grew that was over 8' tall! Similar bitter flavor, which I only use for Thai curries.

Another thing I ordered was a MIZUNA LANDRACE - a broadleaf variety I've never seen before, so I had to try it. There were a couple of other things I just ordered as replacements, for old seeds, not unusual ones, like the rest.

Update - I ordered this later Saturday night, and Monday I got an email saying that the order was being shipped!

 

[larry_stewart]

Nice find pepper, Ill got to give the site a look-see.

Speaking of Urban agriculture, I may have posted this in the past, but a few years back, I was taking a train into the city (NYC), and as we approached the city ( either Queens or Brooklyn, very urban), you an see all the make shift gardens on probably on govt property, just next to the tracks. It was so cool seeing how they took vacant , unused land and made use of it . ( it wasnt close enough the the tracks that someone could get injured, but I doubt t was their private land). I would have loved to get off and just toured the gardens. Probably a lot of immigrants growing cool stuff. I could have learned something im sure.

Another thing I do is often browse charity auctions. Sometimes they give tours of Urban rooftop farms, or indoor hydroponic farms. Haven't seen them in awhile but Id love to tour them too.