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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 31, 2019 17:17:22 GMT
The new crop of dill is doing well and the later seeds have also sprouted well. My basil plants are also doing well after being protected from too much sun. This week I bought a pot of cilantro. I repotted it with grave doubts because once I removed the cellophane cone, it just flopped down because those cones make it grow too high on fragile stems without any real support. But so far things are going better than expected. Most of it is still lying down but seems happy to relax and not die and other stems are standing up, so I am confident for the future.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 20, 2020 17:11:48 GMT
And this year's new crop of dill seems to be sprouting well. I am proud that all of my dill seeds come from the crops of previous years. I need to get some basil now.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 19, 2020 11:14:29 GMT
What are your favourite herbs, and which ones do you grow? I also want to ask (in particular Bixa, but anyone who is familiar with epazote about uses for and care of this herb.
I do not grow catnip as Livia and our neighbour Arya would dig it up in a matter of minutes...
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 19, 2020 16:09:03 GMT
I would say that epazote is one of those herbs which like its roots kept cool, but which wants its body in the sun. Reasonably good soil, regular water, and a sunny spot should produce good epazote plants. Its one point of finickiness is that it really hates to be transplanted, almost more than any other plant I can think of. If you have to transplant it, water it in well, wetting the leaves too. Then cover it with a piece of light-colored cloth, such as a piece of old sheet, draped over sticks arrayed around the epazote. Try to keep the cloth wet while the epazote recovers, which it will take longer to do than it has any right to.
If you get it going, it should wind up flinging seeds around and surprising you with volunteers later. But to be on the safe side, try to dry some leaves. "They" say that the dried leaves have no flavor, but that is not true and it's nice to have some on hand when there is none fresh to be had.
As for uses, probably one of the best known is in black beans. One thing you don't want to do, though, is to cook the epazote. Ideally, you'd drop a big sprig of it into the beans at the end of cooking time, then stand over the pot tasting until you got the flavor you wanted. Then you'd fish out the sprig and discard it.
Another essential use is in quesadillas -- heat a tortilla, mound on some shredded string cheese, squash flowers, & a few leaves of epazote. Fold over the tortilla & continue heating until the cheese melts.
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Post by mickthecactus on Jun 19, 2020 16:16:16 GMT
I can honestly say I’ve never heard of it.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 19, 2020 16:33:35 GMT
Me neither -- but that is not surprising because I have never heard of the vast majority of Asian spices, even though I have probably eaten them.
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Post by casimira on Jun 19, 2020 23:13:43 GMT
It grows here but I rarely have used it.
I did have some years ago and used it maybe once or twice.
Yes, in addition to Bixa's transplanting tips try to do it in the early a.m. or when overcast. My community garden pal taught me that trick for a better growing success. A number of Hispanic gardeners told her.
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Post by fumobici on Jun 20, 2020 15:50:39 GMT
I've found epazote here only in one Latin-American store. They had it frozen in ziplock bags, looking more like someone's hobby than a business effort. I don't think it gets used up here much, the Mexican restaurants don't seem to use it, which is fine with me the taste isn't something I miss. Of course I could once say the same about cilantro, and now I would miss it in various salsas.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 20, 2020 19:43:03 GMT
One of its names is wormseed, as apparently it was an American folk remedy for worming children. It seems a kind of compacted cake was made of the seeds, which was then fed to the little victims. I will never forget my first epazote plant. My first visit to Mexico was in the early '70s, which is when I became entranced by the food. On returning home, I realized I didn't have the slightest idea of how to reproduce anything I'd eaten in Mexico. Luckily I soon discovered Diana Kennedy's The Cuisines of Mexico and began to get some insight into how and why that food was so wonderfully different. There was a small ink drawing of a sprig of epazote in the book, which I scrutinized. One day, a couple of blocks from my house in the Irish Channel of New Orleans, I passed an empty lot where a restaurant had burned down. There was a small plant in the blackened soil which called out to me -- it all but had those line rays around it like in a comic strip. I approached, sniffed a leaf, and extracted it to plant in my garden. By the time I left the US almost 23 years ago, epazote was beginning to be featured in the herb sections of plant nurseries. Long may it wave!
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Post by mickthecactus on Jun 20, 2020 19:46:13 GMT
A picture would be nice....
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 20, 2020 21:05:19 GMT
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Post by casimira on Jun 21, 2020 11:43:14 GMT
Bixa, I have a vivid recall of you spying a stray epazote growing in the grass strip in front of my house. You saw "it" and suddenly, you lunged for what I had thought was a weed. As you were dive bombing toward this plant you exclaimed "Ooooh!! Epazote!!!!. It startled me so and I had no idea WTF you were talking about but, the unbridled enthusiasm you exhibited is etched on my brain all these years and I remember this episode every time I ever hear the word epazote.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 3, 2020 15:06:57 GMT
I have started my second crop of dill, in the same pot as my first crop which is still there (but almost ready for me to collect the seeds). All of the plants grew on one side of the pot, so the other side remained available. I have rotated it to give a better chance to the new sprouts. I almost never manage to use as much dill as I would like, but I very much enjoy the vigour with which it grows once it survives the early days. Most of the sprouts commit suicide for one reason or another. I have never asked them their motives.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 30, 2021 15:19:20 GMT
And now my first sprouts of the dill crop of this year have begun to emerge.
Yesterday I also sowed some seeds for some varied mixed greens that a kind Anyport member in England had sent me.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 2, 2021 18:05:53 GMT
I bought a pot of rosemary today for 1.99€. I'll put it in the window box. Actually, I was looking for basil, but it was sold out.
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Post by fumobici on Jun 2, 2021 19:27:50 GMT
I never considered rosemary as a window box plant. My current one in the herb garden would probably be 3 meters tall if I didn't keep it in check.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 2, 2021 19:42:12 GMT
This is a baby of course, and I'm sure I will kill it before it gets anywhere near adulthood.
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Post by mickthecactus on Jun 6, 2021 12:01:09 GMT
Chive flowers. The bees are going wild for them.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 6, 2021 16:11:04 GMT
Ohhh ~ love them!
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 13, 2021 15:03:48 GMT
With the warm weather, both my mint and my dill are growing like kudzu. I think my dill went up another 10cm overnight. I just planted my 1 euro basil plant yesterday, and so far it looks happy.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 27, 2021 15:20:44 GMT
I planted some parsley from seed today. I know it's a bit ridiculous since parsley is so cheap, but I hate the fact that I have to throw away about half of any bunch of parsley that I buy beause I never manage to use enough of it, even though I love it.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 10, 2021 18:26:56 GMT
My parsley is sprouting. So now I will have my own supply of parsley, mint, dill, rosemary and basil. I will be saving at least 0.30€ a week!
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 26, 2021 14:49:50 GMT
Something ate all of my parsley! Thank god the evil beings are not interested in the mint, the basil or the dill.
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Post by mickthecactus on Jul 30, 2021 17:02:26 GMT
Lemon Basil
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 10, 2022 16:26:52 GMT
I seeded my little pot for this year's crop of dill with all new soil.
I pulled out my dead basil plant from my rectangular window planter and what a bitch that was! Those plants look innocent, but they spread tough and devious roots in every direction, just as bad as mint. Not sure about herbs for the new season.
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Post by mickthecactus on Mar 10, 2022 16:34:40 GMT
Try French tarragon. Delicious with cold chicken and it’s a perennial so you don’t have to resow.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 10, 2022 17:00:22 GMT
Great idea, Mick! That's an herb that so nice when fresh. It's good with fresh peas and steeping sprigs in vinegar turn that vinegar into something rather elegant.
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Post by casimira on Mar 10, 2022 19:06:56 GMT
I sure do wish we could grow French tarragon here. I have tried so many times but nada. That and lemon verbena. Both desirable herbs that I would use in a variety of dishes and make both oil and or vinegar infused with either of them.
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Post by mickthecactus on Mar 10, 2022 19:17:13 GMT
I wonder why? Must be the heat as no problem here at all.
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Post by casimira on Mar 11, 2022 15:05:48 GMT
It's both the heat and the humidity Mick.
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