Cynthia Meredith has been gardening with herbs, reading about herbs, and discussing herb gardening in Texas for more than 20 years. She has owned The Herb Cottage (www.theherbcottage.com) for over 10 years, selling herb plants to people all over our state.

Yesterday was the first day of autumn, and we had a lovely cool, cloudy and rainy day. I know the hot weather isn't over yet (it's supposed to get up into the low 90s this weekend), but even that is a relief from our brutal summer. For now, I'm enjoying the cooler weather and the rain.

My newly planted bed has responded to the rain with a growth spurt of everything—including weeds! Well, what did I expect, you might ask? I've been wishing for rain and watering when it didn't rain. Those weed seeds were just waiting for some moisture to show themselves. And, show themselves, they have.

Weedy crops

Guess which one is the weed? Why the most prolific one, of course!

The most prolific weed I'm seeing is only a weed to some. To some, it's a salad or a braising leafy green. I also feed it to my chickens because it's healthy for them, and they love it. It's a relation to our more common weed known as pigweed. It's got a pretty green leaf with red accents. Can you guess what it is? If you guessed Lamb's Quarters, you'd be right.

Lamb's Quarters, (Chenopodium album) is a nutritious wild plant that grows almost everywhere throughout North America. The leaves can be harvested and steamed or braised like spinach, chard or kale. Young leaves are added to salads. Lamb's Quarters is also related to Quinoa (Chemopodium quinoa) the grain we eat. It is also related to beets and our common spinach.

Small Lamb's Quarters (Chenopodium album)

A large Lamb's Quarters plants can take the form of a tree with quite a large central stalk. The stalk of Lamb's Quarters, or Goosefoot, as it is also known, due to the shape of its leaves, has been used as a walking stick for centuries. According to Wikipedia: "In China, the stalk had been used as a walking stick since ancient times. For example, the following passage comes from Romance of the Three Kingdoms/Chapter 1: ... the old man had a youthful countenance, and was carrying a walking stick fashioned from the hardened stalk of a goosefoot (Chenopodium album) plant. (Wikisource translation)"

Tree-like, large Lamb's Quarters plant.

Like the common pigweed or amaranth, Lamb's Quarters throws lots of seed. And, I mean lots. The bed I just planted is near a large plant I keep mostly to feed the chickens. So, the new bed was literally covered with tiny seedlings after I started watering. I've hoed quite a bit of it, but since I direct seeded the bed, I could not get too vigorous with the hoe where tiny seeds were just a quarter inch or so below the soil. So, I've been waiting for the new seeded crops to emerge so I could weed around the new seedlings and not have a whole bed of Lamb's Quarters instead of the nasturtiums, parsley, spinach and minutina that I planted on purpose.

And, so it goes. The plants we want with the ones we don't. Who said something like: a weed is simply a plant in the wrong place? Now that we're getting some rain, I'm planning to transplant some of the Lamb's Quarters out to the chicken yard so it's closer to the chickens. I'll plant it where they won't have free access to it, or it would never survive!

"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Cynthia Meredith has been gardening with herbs, reading about herbs, and discussing herb gardening in Texas for more than 20 years. She has owned The Herb Cottage (www.theherbcottage.com) for over 10 years, selling herb plants to people all over our state.

Rain. Rain. And, more rain! We here in central Texas couldn't be more pleased with the change in the weather. It's cooler and the roadsides, pastures and lawns are actually turning green. As I look out the window by my computer, the overall look is greenish rather than dusty brown. What a lift for our spirits as well as local gardeners, ranchers and farmers. If this keeps up, and I hope it does, we may have to mow the grass this fall.

As I mentioned last week, I hoped that I would be able to plant parsley in one of my beds soon. Well, I did get a chance to plant the parsley and I couldn't stop there. Since the bed is right outside the back door, close to the kitchen, I decided to also plant some spinach, minutina, nasturtiums, and a mesclun mix as well.
 
Johnny's Selected Seeds says this about minutina:

"Minutina (Erba Stella)
(Plantago coronopus)
Especially for winter salads.
Along with Sylvetta arugula and Claytonia, a cold-hardy salad plant for fall, winter, spring, and summer production. Small plant with a rosette of slender green leaves. Provides a crunchy texture to salads without fiber. Flower buds are edible. Regrows after cutting, but succession sow for best quality and appearance."

 
Photo courtesy of Johnny Selected Seeds 

I've never grown minutina during the summer, but it would be worth giving it a try, especially if you live where it's a little cooler.

So far, a few nasturtiums have poked their big leaves up; the minutina and mesclun mix is up; and a few thin leaves of new spinach are showing. Parsley takes somewhere from 14 to 21 days to germinate, so I'm not surprised that it's not showing yet. And, if the seeds somehow get disturbed from my guinea fowl poking around in there, I'll have potted parsley plants in about 4 weeks that I can put in.

I just love the winter herbs and vegetables. Here, everything grows so well, stays a rich green due to the cool weather, and most winter herbs and vegetables are quite hardy for our mild winter. If you live in the more northern or western part of the state, your season is more limited, but you still can have a fall crop of cilantro, chervil, cutting celery and dill. The winter salad vegetables that grow so well with herbs will do well with some protection in your area. Spinach is very hardy and even if it freezes it'll come back. Arugula is another one I find to be very hardy.

And, don't forget about the edible flowers. Nasturtiums are frost tender, but violas, pansies and even calendula can take pretty cold conditions and still grow and bloom to add color to your salads. Just make sure you grow them without pesticides if you're going to eat them... just like you do your herbs. 

An easy way to grow winter herbs and vegetables outdoors in a cooler winter climate is to make a simple cold frame. If you have access to hay bales, you can make a square out of them with about 6 bales and cover it with an old storm door or windows. You could even cover it with plastic weighted down with bricks or boards. Make sure you can lift the lid, not just for harvesting, but to keep it cool on those warmer, sunny days. It'll get really hot in there otherwise!

Here's a picture of a hay bale cold frame with leaves piled on the plants inside to really insulate the contents during a hard freeze. This is done instead of using a glass or plastic cover. This could be covered with glass or plastic for more protection and to keep wind from blowing the leaves out of the area. If you live where it is cold with high winds, which will really dry out your plants, hay bales are a good way to protect the crops.

You can make your area as large as the number of bales you have available or however large you need the space to be. Then, in the spring, use the hay for mulch in the garden beds.

Growing herbs and salad greens in pots is another way to go, of course, for the winter if you are concerned about crops freezing. That way, you can move the container to a protected area during a cold snap.

There are as many ways as there are gardeners to grow a fall/winter garden in Texas. Look for seeds of easy to grow fall herbs such as cilantro, dill and arugula. Lettuce and other salad greens grow easily from seed as well and combine beautifully with herbs to make an attractive as well as tasty winter garden.

"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."
—Marcus Tullius Cicero

Cynthia Meredith has been gardening with herbs, reading about herbs, and discussing herb gardening in Texas for more than 20 years. She has owned The Herb Cottage (www.theherbcottage.com) for over 10 years, selling herb plants to people all over our state. 

Well, much to my delight, we had rain this week! Two inches fell yesterday and it's raining lightly now as I write. I couldn't be more pleased. The leaves on the grapefruit and blood orange trees have finally unfurled after months of being curled up to prevent transpiration as best as they could. Poor things... they were so stressed.

What about the herb garden, you may ask? Well, I had cut back more herb plants about a week or so ago and already they are showing new growth. Of course, I have been watering them, too. All the cooler season herbs I seeded in flats are doing great: cilantro, thyme, dill, chervil and arugula are all almost ready to pot up.

If it stops raining later this afternoon I'm going to seed parsley, both curly leaf and flat leaf, in one herb bed. I'm going to do the curly variety as a border, with the flat leaf behind it. Later, I'm going to plant lettuce and mesclun greens in that bed since it's near the back door, handy to the kitchen.

The large potted plants, big basil specimens, blue spice basil — a great butterfly attractor when in bloom — olive trees (yes, the olive is considered an herb) and rosemary look so much better with the rainwater rather than the well water they've been getting. Rainwater is so soft compared to our mineral-rich well water, the plants prefer it. Alas, I wish I could give then rainwater each week, but that is not how it's been going here, as you know.

I have a couple of large lavender plants outside the yard near some olive and pomegranate trees I put in the ground; this is my little Mediterranean garden. Lavender sits in the middle of the area with pomegranate on the right and olive on the left in the background behind the lavender group. I have not watered any of this area at all during the drought. Now, I'm a little concerned about the lavender. Here in our area, after lavender has been growing in very dry conditions for a while, rain can cause fungus to attack the plant and eventually compromise it so much it dies. I hope that doesn't happen!

With the rains, the bay laurel looks a lot happier, like it can relax and enjoy being alive rather than being stiff and closed up to keep what little moisture is in the leaves. I know I feel more relaxed and  a lot happier with the rain. And, I have more hours in the day to tend  to plants, seed more flats and do other things — like write — because I don't have to spend time watering. I hope, if you need rain, you're getting what you need. And, I hope you're enjoying the late summer with your herbs.

This is my little water garden with raindrops. The pipe on the left attaches to the gutter on the house and brings rainwater into the pond. We set it up when we think it's going to rain. Notice how completely brown it is around the pond. That should be green, growing grass. But, not this year! Of course, it cuts down on the mowing!!

"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."
—Marcus Tullius Cicero

Q: What is the best way to grow and dry garlic? I live in Minnesota, is there a list of herbs that I can grow, harvest and dry for my personal use?
—Sent via e-mail from J. Werlinger

A: Growing garlic is fairly easy. However, harsh Minnesota weather isn’t exactly the ideal growing climate for garlic.

Photo by graibeard/Courtesy of Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8393288@N04/ 

Growing Garlic

Latin name:  Allium sativum L. 

Soil condition: Garlic thrives in well-drained soil with a pH level between 4.5 and 8.3. If you are not sure if the soil to too acidic or too basic, test the soil by purchasing a pH test strip from your local garden store. Garlic is not drought tolerant and does not do well in extremely wet soil.

Temperature: Garlic will typically germinated in 60 to 80 degree weather.
Maintenance: Keep an eye out for these pests: Onion thrips, armyworms and onion maggots. Although pests are not a big issue with garlic, it is something to keep in the back of your mind. If you are planning on growing garlic, make sure you stay on top of weeds, as garlic does not fare well against them.

For additional reading on growing garlic in Minnesota, visit The University of Minnesota: Extension.

Drying Garlic

Regardless of which method you choose to dry garlic, the most important component is good air circulation. You will want to store your drying garlic in a dark and cool location.
Hanging garlic: This is the method I recommend as it efficiently dries the garlic and minimal space is required. Tie 7-12 garlic stalks together to forms a bundle. Check on the garlic maybe once a month. The type of garlic will depend on the drying time, however, the process will take anywhere from 6 to 8 months.

For additional reading on drying herbs, read DIY: Drying Fresh Herbs.

Growing Herbs in Minnesota

The USDA Hardiness Zones notes that Minnesota's average minimum winter temperatures range from -20 to -45 degrees. That being said, growing herbs indoors throughout the winter months is a great option for colder climates.

Growing Herbs Indoors

Growing herbs indoors is a great way to enjoy summer flavors during the cold winter months. These herbs do fairly well indoors: basil, bay, cilantro, chives, dill, ginger, lemon verbena, marjoram, mint, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage and thyme. Keep in mind each herb’s growing requirements (watering, sunlight, fertilizer, etc.).

For additional reading on this subject, read long time herb gardener Betsy Strauch's article Wintering Herbs Indoors. If you are interested in creating a winter herb drying display basket, read Rosemary McCreary's An Indoor Visual Feast. 

Do you live in a cold climate-growing zone? What herbs do you have success with and which do you bring indoors during the winter months? Drop me a comment or e-mail me at: snelson@ogdenpubs.com.

We seem to be over the hump here in south-central Texas for summer heat. The temperatures have remained in the high 80s for the last week or so, just reaching into the low 90s by late afternoon for just a short time. The night temperatures have dropped, too. Plants are less stressed, flowers are beginning to bloom again and herbs in gardens and pots are putting on new growth, looking decidedly perkier than they did just a few weeks ago. What a difference cooler weather makes!

When I was younger, I would often mix up the herbs in my mother’s potted herb garden. Fortunately, I can now distinguish most herbs apart.

A few weeks ago I left town and asked a good friend to house sit for me. I made the assumption that my friend knew the differences between my potted herbs I have in my apartment: oregano, basil, sage, thyme, lavender and rosemary. A few hours after I left my apartment, I received a frantic call from my friend regarding which plants were what. I came home a few days later to find post-it note madness. A sticky label graced every one of my potted herbs, identifying which herb was which. As amused as I was, I thought a more permanent label might be handy for the next time I asked a friend to house sit.

1. Gather painters tape, terracotta planters and chalk to make these easy to maintain herb planter labels. You can purchase chalkboard paint, which converst most any surface to a chalkboard, at most art supply stores.  

2. Place painters tape on the planter in a rectangle formation.

3. Apply chalkboard paint in the exposed area.

4. Once the paint is dry, pull the tape off of the pot.

5. Using chalk write the name of the herb on the chalkboard area.

How do you keep your herbs straight? Drop me a comment and let’s chat about it!