Great Herbs from a Kitchen Garden

Wow, doesn’t it sounds idyllic…Frank Sinatra crooning over the airwaves, a scintillating breeze tickling the kitchen drapes, pasta cooking on the stove, tomatoes simmering alongside, dishes of fresh oregano, parsley, sage, garlic, and basil chopped and ready… my Italian cooking fantasy couldn’t get much better.
Enter reality: you got stuck in traffic on the way home from work, the kids are uttering exhortations about starving to death, you have to drive one of them to soccer in an hour and the other to baseball right after. Your well-meaning spouse is reminding you that you made a hair appointment for tonight because you look like a singer from a hair-metal band…
Is it even possible to feed your family healthily with such a schedule? There is simply not enough time in the day to fit in hours of meal preparation. Well take heart, the answer is that yes, and feeding your family well is easier and takes less time than throwing high-filler, low-nutrient prepackaged meals at them! Deliciously adding a few snippets of fresh herbs to the staples (bread, rice, potatoes, etc.) in your pantry and tossing in some of the week’s leftovers makes mealtime fast, nutritious, and tasty. Read on for tips to put the healthy back into hectic mealtimes!
Take 1-2 Hours to Get Your Own Herb Kitchen Growing
Head to a garden centre and pick up the following: 2 basil plants, 2 oregano plants, 2 parsley plants, 1 thyme plant, 1 sage plant, a pack of dill seeds, a bag of multiplier onion sets, and a bag of garlic bulbs. Any other herb plant that you see and love, throw that in your cart as well. You will also need to pick up 2 planter boxes – make sure they are at least 6inches deep and 24in long – and a bag or two of high quality, organic potting soil.
Drive straight home and plant all of the grown-on seedlings (meaning the plants with leaves already) into one planter. Don’t worry about over-crowding or the plants not liking each other, all of these tasty herbs get along well and grow better with a few friends around. Plant half of the onions, half of the garlic bulbs, and half of the dill seeds in the other planter box, giving each 30 percent of the space in the planter box. Plant the onion and garlic bulbs pointy side up, to a depth of about 2 inches. Sprinkle the dill seed on the soil surface and then mix into the top half inch of the soil. Water each planter with an 8L of water (the amount it takes to fill 2 large milk jugs), making sure to cover the entire surface of the soil in each planter. Place the planters in the hottest, sunniest, most protected spot in your yard.
Check the planters each day for moisture – If you can stick your finger into the soil to your fist knuckle and it is dry, time to water. Apply 4 litres each time you water.
Get Cooking!
Herbs are meant to be eaten, so eat away! Wait a week or two after planting the first planter (that contains the plants that you purchased already started) and you are ready to start harvesting! A 10 minute meal of soup broth with pasta or rice thrown in (and leftover chicken or other meat if desired) is made delicious with a few simple snips from your herb garden. Wait another couple of weeks and you can start harvesting onions and dill, both great additions that turn a boring carrot dish into something the kids will adore. Wait yet another week and every fish lover in town will want to come to your house…a salmon fillet steamed in the microwave for 10min with garlic and dill is a dish found in many high priced restaurants!
Growing your own herb kitchen is easy, it is inexpensive, it is always fresh, and it is extremely healthy for you. A single serving is (less than a teaspoon) of any of these easy-to-grow kitchen herbs is packed full of antioxidants and fibre, and each boasts several of its own benefits: parsley is a wonderful immune-system activator and oral bacteria killer, sage helps to reduce perspiration, dill activates the digestive system, helps ward off bone loss, and helps insomniacs get a few more zzzz’s at night, garlic and onions help keep blood sugar in check and help lower cholesterol, etc. The list of the health benefits of fresh herbs is immense. So with such a small investment required to have a cornucopia of flavors at your fingertips, why not give kitchen gardening a try this spring? Your family will be healthier and happier, your pocketbook and gas tank will be fuller (no more reliance on driving through fast food restaurants), and you might find an extra 30 minutes in your hectic day!