Four Edible Plants You Can "Recycle" By Growing Again

So I had some trouble with the title of this post. I mean, what was I supposed to call it? 

1. "Four Plants You Can Grow From Nubs"

2. "Four Plants You Can Buy at the Grocery Store and Then Grow from the Leftover Remains" 

3. "Four Plants You Can Grow Not From Seed Because You're Going to Buy the plants from the Store and Then Sort of Recycle Them by Growing Another Plant" (yeah, that was a good one)

4. "Save Money by Growing Plants You Already Bought" (kind of like that one actually)

5. "Science Monday: Regrow Your Herbs and Vegetables"

You can see the problem here, but the point really is rather beautiful. You can buy these vegetables and herbs and then you can plant part of their remains and get more plants. Of course this saves money (sometimes those herbs can be really expensive). It also provides a good snow day activity to do with your kids. It also provides the starter for that nice little window sill herb garden you've been dreaming of. And finally, it's the perfect solution if you, like me, cannot seem to grow green onions from seed even though it should be crazy easy, but you simply cannot do it even in the spring/summer so you just keep trying and failing and then you have to buy a big bunch at the store so you can use, like, half a green onion for your soup and then... (Now that is what I should have titled this piece.) So it was finally a great way for me to get my green onions. And, although I've never had trouble growing basil from seed in the spring, I haven't ever been able to do it in the winter, but if you use a leftover bit of herb, you can grow basil in the winter and plant it in an indoor pot. 

Maybe this doesn't appeal to you. Maybe you consider this the type of crazy-talk that Pinterest posts are so famous for. Well, then, I can only hope that this gets re-pinned two jillion times like so many of those crazy-talk pins. 

1. Green Onions

Use the green onion. Save the bottom part--the white part with the root (or where the root once was).

(You'll use this top part in some cooking of course.)

Put this root end down in a pot with very wet potting soil (keep that soil really wet until this starts to sprout up).

You won't completely bury it--the top will show.

Soon it will sprout up. (Unless it rots, which did happen with one or two of mine, but I still got further than I've ever gotten with seed.) You can see a sprouted onion there in the back corner.

When it's grown, clip off the green onion and use it and it will regrow again from the nub left in the pot. It will do this a time or two, but be thinner each time. And then it will eventually poop out. Or at least mine always have. Still, this trick keeps me in onions for a while.

2. Basil.

Save a sprig of your basil. Put this in a vase like you would if it was a cut flower.

After a while it will start to sprout roots. When it's good and rooty, put it in a pot on the windowsill. Naturally I have never remembered to take a picture of my basil when it was good and rooty, so here is one from the internet. This blogger (thanks amykathryn) used a bunch of basil, but just a stem is necessary. Someday I will actually remember to take a picture...

3. Celery. My friend recently did celery. It's another plant I can't dream of growing from seed, but look what happens when you put a stump in a bowl of shallow water:



This is how it looks after two weeks. I'm totally trying this one.

4. Romaine Lettuce. This one's a bonus. I've never tried this or had a friend try it, but was enchanted by the idea and will try it next time I get a head of romaine (another thing I just can't seem to grow from seed). So go here if you want to try romaine. Thank you P's and Q's. Just like the celery, you put the nub from the romaine in a bowl of shallow water, set it by a sunny window and it will regrow. It's like magic.

As for my window sill pots (pictured up top), they were a gift from my sister. They are made from rice hulls and very pretty. I'm not sure where she got them (psst--she just told me she got them from West Elm), but I found some on Amazon. They were not intensely cheap on Amazon, but are awesomely cool since they last several years and then biodegrade. However a perfectly good window sill garden could be done with cheap terra cotta pots or whatever you've got. For indoor plants, you should use an indoor potting soil.

My Favorite Herbs and What They're Good For

And now a poem about herbs:

I love herbs.
It's one of those things that makes me a nerd(s).

Wow. If that has inspired you like it inspired me, here's some more stuff about herbs.

My number 1 favorite herb to grow.

Basil. It just is. It's pretty. It's easy to sow from seed. It's great in pots or garden beds. I love to eat it. I make pestos like a crazed woman and then I freeze them in ice cube trays and eat it all year long. It flowers and attracts bees. It could go in a bouquet if you wanted to (and I've done this before). I just love it. If you have trouble with slugs getting it, surround it with cracked egg shells.

My number 2.

Rosemary. It smells like heaven to me. I could just rub it all over myself and be happy. I love to cook with it and the dried just doesn't compare for me. I grow it in a pot so I can bring it in in the winter since it usually dies in a deciduous area if left outside.

After that I fall apart and have trouble choosing, but here's a decent list that I've kind of sort of ordered according to preference.

Chives. Perfect garnish or stir fry or potato anything. I haven't had success with seeds so I recommend a start. They come back year after year. They taste amazing. They have pretty flowers. Perennial.

Dill. Easiest herb to grow if you're looking for that. Great with fish, soup, salad, summer vegetables. Annual, but reseeds itself like a beast.

Parsley. Pretty as a garnish. Tasty as an herb. Biennial (grows the first year, then grows and goes to seed in the spring of the second year).

Sage. Thanksgiving will never be the same for me without fresh sage. It's very pretty, there are tons of varieties. And it tastes much much better than its dried counterpart.  Lots of beautiful varieties to choose from. Perennial.

Thyme. Ditto the Thanksgiving thing. It's not so pretty (well, some varieties are, but the main kind I grow is just kind of gangly), but it sure tastes good with chicken, soup, and a lot of other foods. It's easy to dry because the leaves are small, so you can save some over the winter. There are many many varieties. You can get it tiny and creeping or bigger and flowering. Perennial.

Cilantro. I love this herb so much fresh that it's embarrassing, but I'm not always successful at growing it from seed (alas). That said, it's really easy to grow from seed for most people, so don't ask me what my problem is. Annual, but often reseeds.

Stevia. Must be grown from a start. I use this in smoothies instead of sugar during the summer and love it for this purpose. Also, when I am pregnant and chew the leaves, the taste it leaves in my mouth is awesome when everything else I eat when pregnant leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. I don't know why this is but because of it stevia holds a special place in my heart. Annual.

French Tarragon. I think tarragon can be pretty good dried, but it's even better fresh. Perennial.

There are others that I love for different, non-food reasons.

Scent and attract bees/butterflies:

Lavender (scent and attracts bees/butterflies). If you live in a deciduous area, be sure to get a hardy variety; others will die overwinter.
Bee Balm (beautiful blooms and attracts bees and butterflies)
Cone flower (i.e. echinacea) (pretty, attracts bees/butterflies and bugs)
Lemon Balm (lovely scent, great border plant or one you can stick in pesky open spaces that you don't know what to do with because it grows easily anywhere, attracts bees/butterflies after flowering)

Ground cover potential or rocky border potential:

Creeping thyme is my favorite looking, but not strong enough to grow well in our wet, then dry paths.
Winter Savory (great by rocks, also tastes great in pasta sauce)
Thyme (lots of different varieties so you'll have to ask your garden people for the lower growing types. I have one called caraway thyme that is not so low as the creeping thyme, but is much hardier, spreads better, and is still reasonably low for a ground cover)
Oregano (golden is good for this. It can get tallish later in the summer. you can weedwhack it or tromple it or something, but I like it)

Teas or garnishes:

Mint (Tea, ice cream, also so lovely in cold drinks--even water--delightful). My favorite mint is chocolate mint, but I love them all. Be careful with growing mint as it is invasive so put it in a pot.
Chamomile (Tea--you use the flowers of chamomile, not the leaves)
Lemon Balm (I don't use this in tea. I think it tastes like spinach, but other people successfully use it and have it taste like lemon. Maybe I let mine get too old or something.)
Parsley (curly)

Two years ago I wrote a post about herbs with more detailed info. So read if you are an herb nerd, read on.

Composting: A Quick and Easy Idea

There are things to do in by-the-book conscientious sorts of ways (income taxes, children's medications, truffles) and there are things that are still worth doing, but, you know--not so neurotically (housework for example or your daughter's hair). For me, composting fits into this category. You see, things have been decomposing for millions of years. And I'm willing to bet that all those things did not read glossy paged books about how it ought to be done. I'm guessing they didn't much care if the piles of leaf and muck was comprised of 50% brown matter and 50% green matter and layered correctly. I'm guessing they didn't consider the process of composition ruined if their pile of matter didn't steam. I'm guessing that earthworms weren't so much more brilliant then than they are now, but then I never did meet a prehistoric invertebrate. At any rate, my compost pile goes on my "do, but don't stress about" list.

I have two large Tupperware boxes (as long as they're not a recycling number 3 or 7, they shouldn't leach stuff). I cut out a square in the bottom of each and put them on the dirt in the garden. I add a bunch of kitchen scraps, grass, leaves, etc. to one. And then I let it sit and decompose for a season while I work on filling the other one. If I have time, I use a shovel to mix them up. If not, I don't. When I'm ready to plant in the spring, I break into the decomposed box and use the compost. When I've used it, I then begin filling it with new stuff and let the other one sit.

Here's the one I'm filling.

Here's the one I'll be using in the garden.

Seed Organization: A Tip

This is how I keep my seeds organized. It's not rocket science, but it works. I got a large index card holder with the little alphabet tabs and I put my seed packets in. 

If you want to be an overachiever, you can write the year you bought the seeds on the packet and you can keep a running list of seeds you're out of that you need to buy. But even if you don't want to be an overachiever, this is so much better than a drawer/counter/corner in your garage/basement/attic stuffed with packets of random seeds spilling out and reproducing with mouse poop to form mutant creatures that will eventually take over the world. 

Non-traditional "Pots"

Yesterday we had a post on things you can plant in pots. As I was writing it I could just hear people saying to themselves (or maybe that was me talking to myself) "but pots are so expensive." This can be true, especially if you are using a large pot.

Today I wanted to post a few ideas for inexpensive pots or pot-like vessels.

1. Cheap plastic pots redecorated. Buy them when they're on sale (or acquire them from freecycle or your neighbor's garbage) and then decorate them. We've done this with several of our ugly plastic pots. I usually just let the kids paint them because color, kid art, and abstract looking things rock my little world right now.

The kids did this one all on their lonesome. It was a good time. 

(This one's a little dirty, but you get the idea--it's got our whole little stick family on it; how awesome is that?)

Cost: Cost of your cheap or free pots and then about $1.00 for each color of paint you buy. I bought four colors of paint and we painted 4 large pots and still had paint to spare. 

2. Use the plastic tubs that are meant to store cold drinks. Drill some holes into the bottom and you've got yourself a pot.These are nice because they tend to be large. Pots that large would cost much more.

I got three of these in different colors last year--one for each of my kids--so they could have their own little "garden." This year I stole Mark's and put lettuce seed in it. Not sure how Mark will feel about such heresy, but I figured it was okay since I bought him an apple tree last year (whatever, I totally bought it for me, but he had wanted one, so I figured the new one could be "his"). 

Cost: $5 each--these are about 2 feet long and 9 inches wide. 

This big boy is for my potatoes this year (does it look big in this picture; it's huge).

Cost: This cost me $6 at Walmart last year. If I'd bought a plastic pot of the same size or smaller, it would have cost me at least $25-30. 

3. Tin cans. I haven't done this yet, but I'm a little gaga for all these pictures I see online. Have a look at this one. Or this one. Or this. I could go on.

Cost: free

4. Old watering cans. Apparently I don't take good enough care of my watering cans. They're always getting holes or cracks in them. This one got all bent up on the bottom and then wouldn't hold water anymore. No problem. I can hardly wait to see it with the red strawberries poking out.

Cost: free if you would have thrown this away.

5. Boots or old shoes. I cannot wait until we have some of these that get outgrown or worn out so I can try this out. They don't have to be cute and colorful rain boots, though. Have a look at these or these or these. (The rain boots are my favorite though.)

Cost: free if you would have thrown them out. But I bet you could find some cute things at yard sales too that don't fit, but would work wonderfully as pots.

Use your imagination and you can find or pretty up plenty of non-traditional items to use as pots. I keep thinking how beguiling an old tea pot would be--maybe with a couple of chipped tea cup baby flower pots thereby. Oh my. It's enough to make me want to start garage-saling right now. 

Have your own ideas or pictures for non-traditional pots? I'd love to hear about them in the comments. Happy dreaming.

Five Great Foods to Plant in Pots

(No, no, my plants don't look like this yet. This picture is from a couple years ago. Isn't it cheerful?)

You don't have to start thinking about your garden yet if you don't want to. Honestly, I don't know what my problem is. Even with storms whipping around us all day, I've been dreaming of pretty lettuces in pretty pots. Maybe it cheers me up. Maybe I just have an obsessive compulsive disorder. Maybe both.

Regardless of the variety of mental illness(es) I suffer from, however, it really is kind of fun to dream a little garden dream. Even if you're not ready to start gardening in March, it's nice to sit at home on a rainy day and think of the things you might be able to do when the weather cheers and warms just a bit.

But the purpose of this post isn't only to get you dreaming. The purpose of this post is to present some really easy ways to make those dreams a fairly inexpensive reality (does that just kill the romance or what; please forgive). Of course, if you've got the space, time, money, and inclination, you can dig up a garden plot and plant yourself a victory garden. If you do this, you might be sick like me. Not that there's anything wrong with that. We're healing the earth, my children, healing the earth. Except for when we spray pesticide on those super grody cabbage lopers that infest our kale every year.

If you have limited space or want to make your life a little easier, you can always do the ever popular square foot garden. However, these still take a little time and a decent chunk of change to get started (though after that I hear that they're pretty self-sustaining).

But this post isn't for those with time, money, or gardening knowledge. It's for those who want to get their little pinky toe in the water and give this whole gardening thing a whirl. Or those who really can't afford much. Or who have limited time. It's about a few cheap pots, some dirt, and some seeds. It's easy and surprisingly fulfilling. Go ahead, dip that ol' pinky toe in.

Note: For dirt, I recommend a mixture of compost, top soil, and peat moss in equal portions. And now...

Foods That Are Easy to Plant in Pots

1. Lettuce. Lettuce is fun because it's really quite pretty in a pot and if you want you can plant several varieties in a broad pot and it's super lovely. It's easy to grow. Lettuce can be started now if you wish although you can wait to April if you're not quite ready. It can be sown from seed straight into the pot. After that sprinkle a little dirt on and you're good to go. You don't need a deep pot for lettuce and you don't even need a big one. However, if you want to do the whole pretty pot with many lettuces thing, you'll want a pot that is somewhat broad. If you want to get heads of lettuce, you'll plant them 6-8 inches apart. However, if you plant loose leaf varieties (it should say on the package of seeds), you can plant them just 4 inches apart. Oh, and here's the other fun part. You can let them grow until they're about 4 inches high and then cut them off leaving about an inch on the bottom. You'll make your little salad and then the lettuces will grow up again. When they get to be 4 inches high, you can repeat this until the weather gets so hot that they bolt (grow up fast and begin to go to seed/flower and get bitter).

2. Herbs. Yeah, pretty much any herbs, except, like a mustard or bay bush or something. Again, if you have a large enough pot, you can plant several varieties of herb in your pot and it's very pretty. If you have small pots, you can plant a little row of different varieties of herbs, which is also really pretty. You can do a pasta herb pot with basil, oregano, and rosemary. Or a turkey herb pot with thyme, sage, and rosemary. Or a salsa pot with cilantro and a lime tree. Ha ha. Just a little joke there, but you can do cilantro and onions. Have a look at this post for information on herbs.

3. Tomatoes. I hear that you can plant any tomatoes in pots if you've got the right pot and know what you're doing. I prefer not to know what I'm doing and so I recommend planting bite-sized tomatoes in pots. I just have more success with the smaller varieties like Sweet 100's, cherry tomatoes, or even Romas. You'll need a fairly large pot. And you'll need to remember to water them as pots tend to dry out quicker than the ground. I recommend using starts from the store if you're new to gardening. They're only a few dollars each and will make your life much easier.

4. Peppers. These are also super pretty in pots. Especially those hot red varieties, although I never plant those because I am weak and can't eat many hot red peppers. However, I do like to plant regular red bell peppers. They're just so pretty. As with tomatoes, you'll need a larger pot and I recommend a start for beginning or even intermediate gardeners.

5. Strawberries. Talk about pretty. Also, strawberries can be susceptible to mold and prey to slugs. Planting in pots will help you keep those things under control and give the strawberries nice drainage. Of course, by planting in pots, you're not going to get enough to make jam or anything, but you can get enough for some pleasant snacking. You must plant strawberries from starts as they don't grow well or true or usually at all from seeds. They will produce in their first year, but they will produce more in their second year. After their third year, they'll start to wane a bit in production and you might want to replace them.

Now for a few I plan to try this year...

6. Yellow Summer Squash. Okay I totally haven't tried this yet, but I'm going to. They are supposed to be incredibly beautiful in pots and the pots will give the squash better drainage. Here in southern Indiana, it tends to be hot, humid, and wet and my summer squash plants tend to reflect that with bug problems and rotty problems and other problems I don't really understand. We'll see how the pot thing treats us.

7. Potatoes. Okay I haven't tried this one yet either. But after our flooding last year, I bought a big pot. Actually, I bought a big thing that people use to put ice and beer/soda into because it was way cheaper than a pot would have been ($6 vs. $25). I'll have Kip drill some holes in the bottom and then I'm good to go. To plant the potatoes, you put a shallow layer of soil on the bottom. Then you just lay your seed potatoes (little potatoes you buy to plant because they haven't been treated with anti-sprouting stuff like the grocery store potatoes have been) on the dirt. Then you just cover them with dirt. Talk about easy and lazy, but wait, it gets better. They'll begin to grow and as they do, you'll keep piling the dirt on top of them. So they'll grow up to 4-6 inches and you'll put on a bunch of dirt so there's only an inch or so sticking out of the soil. Then they'll grow some more and you'll do the same thing. Eventually, they'll flower and then they'll begin to die back. When they die or begin to die, you just take you big pot and dump it out and hunt for potatoes. How fun is that. Yes, I can't wait. It'll be like Easter egg hunting all over again.

Join us tomorrow when I take pictures of some cheap, um, "pots" that I've got. It's not quite Martha Stewart, but it's fun and colorful and useful and that's good enough for me.

Spring: A Couple Reminders

Spring is on its way.

Have a look here if you're interested in making a cheater cold frame. And by 'making' I don't really mean 'making' as in 'constructing' so don't be intimidated. If you get one going now, you're stuff will be perfect and ready for planting in May.

Have a look here if you'd like the skinny on my favorite herbs. I was trying to think of my very very favorite one today. It was kind of a struggle.

Ripening Green Tomatoes

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on less than $10/day.

Ready for a confession? Well of course you are.

Until this year, I'd never had a successful enough tomato crop to really have a whole bunch of green tomatoes left over. My tomato crops have always been super lame. Last year I had just a few green tomatoes and made a green tomato chili and some fried green tomatoes. But this year we had many. Also, as they were ripening (oh so slowly) this fall on the vine, they were going bad. Some were succumbing to tomato bum rot. Many many were cracking so bad from the burst of water we got a week or two ago that they were gross and also being infested by little bugs crawling into the cracks (yum). And some plants were flopping over, causing many of the tomatoes to sit on the wet ground and rot that way since my tomato cages are a little tipsy in some parts of the garden. So in addition to having many many green tomatoes, I had some motivation to get them off the vines and into the house. But what to do with them?

Well, I made some green tomato relish (recipe coming soon), but you can only eat relish so much, so I did the lazy expert home storage thing to do and laid them out to turn red. Inspired by Farm Girl Fare and her lazy practical approach, I didn't wrap them in paper or layer them in straw or keep them at a steady temperature or do anything special at all. I left them on the counter till that made Kip batty and then I took them to the basement storage room and laid them on storage boxes. In the picture above they're sitting on our box of sport equipment. And by gum they're turning red.

Will some rot? Yes. Just pitch them. Spread out in a single layer, a rotten one won't have the chance to spoil the barrel.

Will they be as good as homegrown vine-ripened tomatoes? No. Unless, of course we're talking about those vine-ripened ones I was getting that were bug-infested and rotten. But, no, you can't compare them to a good heart-of-summer tomato. Still, I think they'll make a fabulous oven roasted tomato sauce, and I plan to attempt oven-drying some of them.

Got any great recipes or fabulous ideas about what to do with green tomatoes? Please share them.

Basil: A Tip

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on less than $10/day.

Yeah, it's not a glorious picture. The good news is that it's not supposed to be.

See that whacked off basil plant there in the middle; that's what we're going to talk about today.

Yesterday I made a booty load of pesto. I cut off all my basil plants to the tune of 12 C of basil leaves for my pesto. However, when I cut them off--and here's the tip part--I leave a few leaves at the bottom--sometimes even some teeny weeny ones will do. These will grow into another branch. Depending on how much summer/mild fall you've got left, they'll grow back a lot or a little. But the point is that you can have your pesto and eat your basil too. I made a LOT of pesto. And I'll still have enough basil leaves to meet my current basil needs until a frost hits and does the little guys in. On a very good year (i.e. and Indian summer kind of a year, or a year when your basil is ready early), you might even get the little guys to grow up enough to get another batch or few of pesto out of them.

Oh--and if you haven't made pesto before, and if you have a source of cheap basil, you really really should make pesto. It's good; it's easy; it makes you feel special.

Tomato Bum Rot

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats quite well on less than $10/day.

I have, sadly, no recipe to post today. My last several have been a bust. In fact, if I ever open a pastry shop, I'm going to call it The Ugly Crust. (Oh my gosh, I just wrote a poem with meter and rhyme without even meaning to. Perhaps I've been reading too many children's books plays by Shakespeare.) The Ugly Crust being the least of tonight's dinner issues.

And then I went out to the garden tonight and was greeted by these rotten bottomed tomatoes. They were all from the bush with Romas. And so I thought I'd take rotten bottomed tomatoes and make rotten bottom tomato juice--no, no, that's all wrong (although I do wish to point out the internal rhymes that I also just inadvertently created). What I mean to say is that I thought I'd take a bad situation and try to make it better. So I thought I'd ask ye ol' internet community: Does anyone know why this tomato bum rot happens and how to stop or prevent it? If so, don't be shy--let me know. Because, not to be threatening or anything, but if you don't, you might be getting some wonky recipes on this site (tomato bum stew, tomato sauce with rotten splotch [ooh, a slant rhyme]), and surely some accidental  angst-filled poems as well.

Eggshells in the Garden: Protecting Against Slugs

Cheap Eat Challenge: Watch as our family of 6 eats on less than $10/day.

I thought the ship had sailed for this post this year, but see that scrawny little basil...it's had a rough spring. We had flooding where our water table was so high and the temperatures so cool that the garden would squish under your feet. I didn't plant any seed. And then we had weather hot and dry and blistering and I didn't plant any seed. And then finally at the end of May things sort of evened out and I planted my garden, but the basil still didn't get going. Then finally, finally it began to grow. And then I noticed little bits of leaves missing from eager slugs having a nibble. This often happens to basil (as well as zinnia, sunflowers, strawberries, and surely other things too). The slugs eat the seedlings (or fruits in the case of strawberries) so voraciously that they will often entirely consume or at least kill the plant. If you notice this happening to your seedlings, crush some eggshells and create a barrier around the plant (about 2 eggshells per plant). The slugs will not cross it. It is cheap. It is easy. Though it may drive your better half crazy that you're keeping empty eggshells on top of the fridge. Don't worry--he'll forgive you later when he eats your spaghetti sauce.

Sea of Sunflowers: A Tip

Cheap Eat Challenge: Watch as our family of 6 eats, or tries to, on $6/day.

I have a thing for yellow flowers. I especially like sunflowers. Did you know their heads actually follow the sun as it moves across the sky during the course of the day. As if that's not exciting enough, they attract birds (and sometimes squirrels) and if you are a person of dedication, or a child, you can sit there for an hour popping the seeds open once they're ripe and it makes for a lovely morning. Admittedly, I prefer watching my kids and the birds go at them than doing this myself. I guess I've gotten too grown-up and efficient, or at least efficient-wanna-be.

Sunflowers can make a quick summer border. And if you've got space for a little sunflower patch, they're really really beautiful. They're also super easy to grow--just loosen up the dirt, throw the seeds on it, and smooth and pat them in. However, if you're planting a lot of them, it can get expensive. The little seed packets usually cost at least $1. Instead, head on over to a store like Rural King that sells bulk seeds--seeds which you use to fill your bird feeders. A handful of these cost only a few pennies (if that). You can now afford to share a few with the snails.

And speaking of snails: If they really are a problem--eating your sunflower seedlings or your strawberries or your zinnia, I crush eggshells and make an eggshell border around my plants. It works very well for me--the snails don't like sliming their way over the sharp shells. And by the end of summer the remaining shells are as good as compost.

So go buy yourself a handful of seeds and throw them into that abandoned spot in your garden. Or that ugly place that's always bare next to your AC unit. Or the corner of your yard that depresses you. Or, heck, if you've been too busy to get a garden in at all yet this year, have a little fun and just spread it with sunflower seed. It'll give you and the birds something to smile about.

Homemade Hummingbird Nectar

Cheap Eat Challenge: Watch as our family of 6 tries to eat on $6/day.

I've been wanting to post this "recipe" for a while, but I really wanted to get a picture of a hummingbird at the feeder. Unfortunately when a creature's wings beat at 55 beats per second, and I move at oh so slower than that, well I just never managed.

Hummingbirds are really amazing animals. They're fast, small, and exotic-seeming, although hummingbirds of some variety are found in most parts of the country. If you have a feeder or several, you'll find that they're fairly brave animals as well. I guess that's what happens when you're super speedy. We used to have several feeders and they'd zoom right past us--just over our heads and in front of our faces. It's almost frightening actually what with those long pointy beaks they've got. Sometimes they'll even battle over a feeder using their beaks like swords (I'm totally not kidding; it's crazy.) We bird-watchers--we have some pretty wild times.

I knew it was time to get the feeders out when I saw a hummingbird trying to feed off of my red watering can (and just about any other brightly colored thing on the deck). Unfortunately, our feeders had met an unfortunate end in the dishwasher at the end of last season (Note: Do not, I repeat do NOT put your cheap plastic hummingbird feeders in the dishwasher--top or bottom shelf.) So I hopped on over to my spending Achilles heel: Rural King. They had plenty of feeders to choose from and next to all the feeders, they had that hummingbird nectar that they sell. It usually looks like orange or red syrup. And it costs a lot (I believe these were $4.99 a pop). I saw a lady standing there in front of the "nectar," reading a box. And I really really really wanted to stop her and tell her she didn't have to buy that expensive colored corn syrup and that she could make her own for super cheap. But then I was worried that that would be weird or creepy. Especially since I'd gone to Rural King dressed, as usual, in my best (cough) yard work clothes.

To make up for it, I will stop you. Do not buy that silly hummingbird nectar. Make you own. My mother-in-law--an avid bird lover/watcher--gave me this recipe for hummingbird nectar. It has worked for us for years. Super easy. Super cheap. I can hear the hummingbirds whizzing now.

Homemade Hummingbird Nectar
Prep time: 1 minute
Cost: $.05 for 1 cup (that's opposed to nearly $5.00 for not much more than a cup)

1 part white granulated sugar
4 parts water

Mix it up. I allow the sugar to dissolve. Pour into your hummingbird feeder. And they will come. (Um, probably--like, if you've got them in your area and all.) It can remain good for a few weeks (if the hummingbirds don't gobble it up), but if the nectar gets foggy, change it out and clean your feeder (not in the dishwasher) because something has likely contaminated the nectar.

A Few Good Herbs

Cheap Eat Challenge: Watch as our family of 6 tries to eat on $6/day.

Growing up, my parents grew their fair share of tomatoes and monster zucchini. And my mother always had a flower garden of some sort. They tried their hand at other things too--things that lived only into the family lore of gardening failures. But I never remember them growing herbs. They must not have been in vogue. Our herbs came to us, as far as I can recall, dried and in containers from the grocery store. To be honest, I didn't know they could come from anywhere else.

And then when Kip and I had been married for a few years and were living in concrete-land in desert California, my mother-in-law gifted me three blue pots (they couldn't come with us when we moved and I still miss them). In one grew several flowering volunteers. And in the other two, I put herbs: rosemary, marjoram, and basil in one; lemon balm and pineapple mint in the last other. I chose these herbs for their beauty and their scent. I'd seen my sister-in-law expertly rub the leaves of the herbs between her fingers and I would do the same. In fact, I used to rub the leaves on my arms, almost as though they were perfume, just so I could enjoy their fragrances while I sat on our porch and watched my kids.

 My sister-in-law worked nearby and often stopped at our house for dinner or to stay the night. One night I was making a pasta sauce and Shelle said, "Why don't we use some of your herbs?" I looked at her and with no irony whatsoever, I said, "You can do that?" Don't ask me what I thought--that they had to be dried to be safe; that they had to come from a store to go into my food? I suppose I just hadn't thought of them at all as something that could be consumed.

That night we chopped up some basil, marjoram, and rosemary. And, oh, that spaghetti sauce tasted so fresh and so good. I walked through a door that night, a door through which I never wish to return. After that I tried growing tomatoes in the tiny plot in front of our condo. I got a few red ones and about 7000 green ones that just wouldn't ripen. And I learned to fry green tomatoes. When we moved to Indiana, we dug out a small garden plot. I bought starts from stores and threw my veggie scraps straight onto the garden floor for compost. And then we moved again to a house with more land. And Kip and I have been digging out gardens ever since. I'm still very very very, and did I mention very, far from being a garden pro, but I've learned a few things along the way. And tonight we're going to go back to those sweet early days with my lovely blue pots, and talk about herbs.

Herbs can be more expensive than other starts. Some produce only for a year, some for two years, and others just keep on giving. Those ones are my favorite, but a lot of the shorter lived varieties are so tasty or can be grown from seed (a few varieties do not do well or produce true from seeds so do a quick google search before seeding), so they're well worth your love as well.

Herbs tend to do well in pots and I've kind of gotten it into my head to make a little window garden of small herb pots when I get a little spare time. But most do well in the garden as well.

Below, you'll find a few of my favorites, as well as the why and how and how much.

1. Golden Oregano

The golden is on the right; the regular oregano is in the back if you're looking to compare color. The golden is lower lying and, ahem, more golden. In fact, at certain times of year it's even more golden than this. It makes an excellent border plant as it spills over rocks and edges just beautifully. It can withstand the shade well also. And it can be used in cooking just as the green varieties of oregano can. It's a very beautiful herb that can be easily divided. I got mine for free from a dear friend who had a large patch, and it wasn't long before I had a large patch as well (so if you're local, I can hook you up with a nice free start). Perennial. Cost: free if it's from a friend.

2. Regular Oregano

There are different varieties. I have two. Do I know what they are? Of course not. This is the type of gardening expertise you can expect from me. I planted them both from seed and they took for-e-ver to come up. In fact, they took so long (especially that one up top) that I presumed them hopelessly dead and begged some golden oregano from my friend. And then the one directly above came up. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, the one up top started growing mid-summer. So, yeah, anyway. Both were from very cheap seed packets. Give them time to germinate and be patient. They're excellent fresh or dried. And they're pretty too. Give them a good haircut at the end of the summer and maybe even in the middle of the summer or they--like many herbs--will start getting woody legs. Perennial. Cost: 20 or so cents for cheap-o seed packets.

3. Rosemary

Mine died early spring, and I did buy a small replacement plant, but forgot to take a picture. Rosemary is only semi-hardy. If you live in a place like IN, it must be taken into the house over winter. And sometimes, even then, it might die--especially if you thoroughly neglect it like I did. Rosemary does not grow easily or, usually, true from seed, so it might be worth your while to buy a start. Perennial if you live in a warm area or are careful to bring it indoors. Cost: 2-4 dollars.

4. Winter Savory

This is a great Italian herb. It's pungent and smells great (although it may make you crave spaghetti). It also looks good creeping over rocks in a border. I got mine from a start. Perennial. Cost 2-4 dollars.

5. Sage

Sage comes in lots of colors and varieties. This is the most standard green variety. It has proved sturdier than my other varieties and is still lovely. It bushed into a beautiful cluster of sage and it smells just awesome. As far as I'm concerned, you haven't had Thanksgiving until you've stuff your turkey with some sage as fresh and lovely as this. It lives through the winter (and beyond) here in southern IN. It benefits from a good trim when it starts to get long legs. And if it gets too wet, it will start to wilt. I didn't get this from a friend, but I think if a plant was well-established you could probably take a start. Perennial. Cost: 2-4 dollars.

6. Thyme

Thyme comes in a lot of different sizes. I love the elfin thyme, which is a low-lying one that can grow as ground cover. This one pictured is a standard cooking thyme. I got it from my same friend and in just a year, it's grown into a lovely blotch of herb. It needs a haircut when it gets long. Put it in your chicken, put it in your soup. And for all that is right in this world, put it in your Thanksgiving turkey/stuffing. Even if you can't use all that thyme, or even dry it, you should give it a good haircut, so it doesn't get excessively tall and leggy and woody. Thyme likes sandy or dry soil, though I've found it to be plenty hardy in my wettish herb garden. Perennial. Cost: free from a friend.

7. Parsley

Parsley is a biennial, meaning it goes for 2 years. You can use it both years, although it's going to go to seed fairly early in the second year. Mine was covered in a layer of leaves and stayed green throughout the winter. Even if it's too cold for that, it will come back quite early in the spring. I grew mine from seed. I soaked the seeds for 24 hours first and then I waited and waited and waited. Parsley takes a while to germinate so give it its sweet time. You can get curly or flat. I found seed for curly and went with that. It's often used as a garnish, but the flavor is great in cooking as well. Also, because of it's curb appeal, it makes a good addition to your flower beds. Biennial. Cost: 20 cents for seed packet.

8. Chives

Alas, this isn't the most flattering picture. A few weeks ago, my chives were straight up and flowering with pretty purple flowers. Sorry I missed the photo op. My same friend (thank you, Vanessa--you're the best) gave me a start for chives as well. I could not get those boogers to grow from seed, even after repeated tries. Other than that, what can I say? Chives are the classic herb in a lot of ways. They are so delicious and can hold their own in a decorative bed (bad photo withstanding) as well. I can't wait till my plant is big enough to get a start for my window garden. Cost: free from a friend or 2-4 dollars for a start.

9. French Tarragon

Generally speaking, I'm pretty lassez faire about my herb varieties. If you can cook with it, I don't care if it's Greek or Spanish, flat or curly, golden or purple. But here I must take a stance. You need to grow French tarragon and it's going to have to come from a start. Russian tarragon is the type that comes from seed and has a terrible reputation for tasting bad and becoming invasive. So splurge and go with the French. It's a perennial so it will reward you year after year. Mine sort of lagged along it's first year and I wasn't sure it was going to make it, but sure enough, this spring it's looking green, strong, and growinger. Cost: 2-4 dollars.

10. Mint

Up top you see, um, let's call it fuzzy mint--I think it's peppermint. And below is chocolate mint, which was a gift from, you guessed it, my friend Vanessa. I also have some spearmint that I tried from seed 10,000 times and then bought on sale at Home Depot. Mint is invasive and therefore must be grown in pots. It likes things pretty well drained too. It might look a bit scraggly at first, but soon enough will fill up those pots. I love mint tea or mint in lemonade. And the other day at (shockingly) Vanessa's house, she plopped a snippet of mint right into our water and it was so refreshing and smelled awesome. Move over lemon slices. The chocolate mint is my favorite; it truly smells both chocolate-y and mint-y. How can it be wrong? Perennial. Free from starts from friends; 2-4 dollars otherwise. 

11. Lavender

This is not displayed to it's best effect. In a few more weeks, its wee buds will become fragrant purple blooms that birds, bees, and butterflies will got NUTS for. I love it. I love how it smells. I love the wild life it attracts. I love how it looks. If I was a gourmet, I would even cook with it. I should have given mine a better haircut last year, but oh well. This started itty bitty and grew up quite big in two years. It didn't flower until the second year. As a warning, many varieties of lavender won't make it through a cold winter, so check with a nursery worker who knows their stuff before you accidentally buy an annual variety. Also, lavender can be grown from seed, but it's not an easy thing to do. Cost: 2-4 dollars for starts.

12. Lemon Balm

This was one of my original five herbs. I love how it smells. Some people cook with it, but I have not. I have tried it in tea several times both fresh and dried and think it tastes like spinach, not the lemony goodness I love to smell. Lemon balm grows easily--sometimes a little too easily, so keep you eye on it so it doesn't take over your garden. Get it from a free start if you can. I notice it coming up on freecycle in the spring, and that's where I got mine, though I bet Vanessa had some of that too. Perennial. Cost: free from a start.

Phew. Are you still reading?

If so, here are several more herbs I love, though I don't have them growing at this moment.

13. Cilantro

This is easy to start from seed and it will often reseed itself from year to year. I love love love everything about cilantro. Yes, I'm on that team. It can be used in Mexican or middle eastern or southwestern foods and it's awesome. Annual. Cost: 20 cents for a pack of seeds. 

14. Basil

Also easy to grow from seeds. I usually just sow it into the ground. It's pretty too and you can get different varieties. I like purple, lemon, and just the regular old kind best. I have the itty bittiest little starts coming up, but that's it. I love this fresh, dried, and most of all in pesto. Grow it; it will save you money. Annual. Cost: 20 cents for pack of seeds.

15. Marjoram

Also grows well from seed. I believe it's in the oregano family and I've got that coming out of my ears right now so I didn't grow this this year, but it's tasty if you do. Annual (though it sometimes reseeds itself). Cost: 20 cents for packet of seeds.

16. Dill

Okay, so I actually have some little starts of this, but forgot to take a picture. This grows easily from seed and often reseeds, sometimes a good bit more than you want it to. It's great with fish and in summer salads. Also, it tends to act as a pest deterrent. Last year it grew up in hordes around my strawberry plants and I had significantly fewer slugs eating my strawberries last year. The bugs, it seems, don't like how it smells. Good thing I do.

Ode to Container Gardening

Cheap Eat Challenge: Watch as our family of 6 tries to eat on $6/day.

I'm all about the traditional victory garden. We have one out back behind the garage where I plant as much as I can each year. Additionally, we have several flower beds and an herb garden. We've got a couple of baby fruit trees, young blueberry bushes, and bramble type berries like blackberry and (this year) raspberries. Each year I pull millions of weeds and harvest some food and swear that this is really all I've got time or energy for. And then each spring, with the clarion call of buds and birds, Kip and I cannot seem to refrain from digging out yet another garden plot. So, you see, we do have addictions besides chocolate. This spring we started work on a lovely little kitchen garden close to the house so I can leave the ugly or huge vegetables out back and work the pretty, more petite veggies in with flowers and herbs and all that sort of thing.

We may not have a Trader Joe's here in southern Indiana, but we have plenty of flat sunny spaces.

We also, it turns out, have plenty of rain. Oh sure, this is usually a good thing. But you know what they say about too much of a good thing. They say it will flood almost your entire backyard, killing your peach tree and sogging the earth into utter unworkability (take another look at the above picture and you'll notice some sandbags to the right). I know I'm blessed that it wasn't tornadoes and that it didn't flood our house and that the only real casualties have been my young peach tree and Kip's baby evergreens and some tomatoes I planted too early in the garden. And I do count those blessings. But I'm not going to lie, I want that flooding to go away and I have told it so in a very angry voice on numerous occasions. It has not listened and this makes me sad. I've been a little depressed about our halted gardening and dying lawn and all the mud and other annoyances that result when a flooded pond/creek make themselves a new home (or perhaps I should say larger home) in most of our back yard.

And yet. Today I went out on my deck and pulled up some radishes from the potted "square foot" gardens I keep there (they're more like 9 inch by 2 1/2 ft gardens, if you're counting and all).

Bless you little garden pots for being moveable and letting the water flow out of you faster than the ground can do. Bless you for providing me just one small pretty taste of spring when everything else is just a whole lot of mud. Bless you for being something almost everyone can do, even those who don't live on a big lot in the midwest. And bless you for cheering me up every time I look outside. Because you know what they say, every mud puddle has a silver lining. Or a pot standing above it. Or a cute little kid jumping into it with her new Easter shoes. Whatever...metaphor...bladdy...bladdy.

Some say that anything works in a square foot garden. I'm not sure I believe that, especially if it's really a 9 inch by 2 1/2 foot garden. However, lots of things will work, especially the smaller things. I do a lot of greens in my pots, as well as beets, radishes, and leeks. This year I have a couple strawberries and some carrots and parsnips also. Herbs would do beautifully. And the great thing about all these little things is that they're just the ones you go out to clip for a little spring salad. Even when the rain doesn't wish to come again another day.

A Recipe for Square Foot Dirt

1 part topsoil
1 part compost
1/2-1 part peat moss (I always do the 1/2 because I'm cheap)

Mix it together and put it in your pots.

The classic recipe from Mel Bartholomew of Square Foot Garden fame is:

1 part compost
1 part peat moss
1 part vermiculite

It might be better, but it's a lot more expensive. Also, I find that it's more difficult to get around to putting together because you have to hunt down the stuff. I like using ingredients that I can just get by the bag at Rural King.