Port Potager

Back in the spring , one of the perennial herbs we chose for the garden was a small bay laurel plant from  The Herb Farmacy . I think it had about three or four leaves on it when I planted it outside. It's been pretty much forgotten all summer as everything around it got bigger, but before frost we remembered we had to bring it inside: Bay laurel is a Mediterranean plant that just won't make it through freezing temperatures, so it will spend the winter in the southwestern exposure of the living room window. We can plant it back outside in the spring when it warms up, or we can just keep it as a container plant for the patio.  As you can see, bay is a pretty slow growing plant. I think it put on maybe four inches of height this growing season. We haven't harvested any bay leaves from it at all yet because of its small size. Maybe in the spring, if we prune it to encourage some branching, we can have some leaves to dry and use for cooking.  I have read tha...

Despite the drizzle yesterday, I was able to plant out more of the herb garden. Here is one half: Several of the culinary herbs were planted a few weeks ago , but I had to wait for The Herb Farmacy to open in May to get many of the others. The Herb Farmacy is an organic nursery in Salisbury that specializes in herbs and heirloom varieties of tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. They have an amazing variety and a really knowledgeable staff. They are also super-nice. We forgot our checkbook (they don't take credit cards), and they let us take the plants and mail the check to the from home so we didn't have to drive back and forth. This place is awesome! Anyway, we added lemon balm, bay laurel, sorrel, horehound, and lovage to our herb garden. We decided on a plant change on the fly while we were strolling the greenhouses, too. We cut marjoram from our list because it is an annual here, and is pretty much just a mild oregano (which we already have two of). Instead we we...