Savory

Why is it that no one seems to know what the herb called Savory is? It's not important or anything--it's just one of the main herbs that help flavor the best-tasting tomato-based pasta sauce. It also adds the perfect flavor to cream of tomato soup. Tonight it was one of just three herbs (savory, parsley, and thyme) that I used to flavor the ham and broccoli crustless quiche we had for dinner. These are just the first few uses for savory that occurred to me. There are many more; hence my earlier sarcasm. I know I've heard many TV chefs mention it. So why is it that the big-box grocery store in our area does not even stock it with the culinary spices? And why do only a very few of our garden centers even stock the seeds, much less sell it as an annual along with the rest of the spice herbs? I've lost count of the people who've looked at me strangely and repeated, "Savory?"

Yes, savory. There are two varieties: summer savory and winter savory. The first is an annual and must be started anew every year, while the other is a perennial. If we were in Italy, I'd be willing to bet that this blog post would never have been written. I'm sure the Italians know what savory is. I'll bet that even if they didn't speak English and I asked for it by name, they'd still know what I was talking about. I, yi-yi!

Strawberries at Home

Here are the strawberries, all tucked into their new bed. There were more like three dozen plants, not two, and there are more where they came from. We're thinking about building another planter box in a different location so we can get the rest of the strawberries--maybe something that can hang on the fence and keep the plants away from the slugs.

Homeless Strawberries

For those not into New Age thinking or who may not understand how the principle of manifestation works, here is a practical example of the process and how it sometimes happens.

It's strawberry season in Idaho. But I have no money for strawberries. I might be able to justify buying a few, but not in the numbers I'd prefer if I had a choice. We've been on a very tight-to-nonexistent budget for almost two years now, and strawberries are not the main staple of our diet, and are therefore hard to justify purchasing. Strawberries are also things that you really need to buy organic, because they can be laden with pesticides if produced commercially. Some fruits and veggies tend to soak up more pesticide than others, and strawberries are on the bad list. Anyway, I wanted strawberries, and had been thinking about how I'd like to go pick some organic ones at the Berry Ranch, but was going to have a hard time paying for them. I hadn't really thought much about it beyond the fact that I wanted some and that I was going to have to limit how many I picked and purchased.

That was when the Universe manifested the strawberries. I have a friend who had planted a whole bed of strawberry plants in her backyard, but her husband had grown tired of them being there. They were in a yard with large mature willow trees, and the strawberries were constantly falling prey to squirrels, slugs, and other pests. There was nothing wrong with the plants and they were prolific, but they just weren't working out for my friend. A couple of weeks ago she announced that she was going to dig up all of her strawberry plants, and asked if I wanted any of them. I hastened to assure her that I would be happy to take them.

Today my friend called me and said that she was digging them up, and could I come get them? So this evening, after my day doing readings at a psychic/healing fair downtown, I stopped by her home to pick up the strawberries. Two whole flats and a round plastic planter full of them. I estimate more than two dozen plants, and most of them laden with little strawberries already forming on the vines. If they transplant well, we'll not only have them for this year, but for years to come, and at no cost. (Well, other than the bag of sand we need to buy to amend the soil in the part of my flowerbed where they need to take up residence.)

This, then, is manifestation. Beautiful, seamless manifestation, hand in hand with synchronicity. And the beauty of it is that everyone benefits. My friend gets rid of her unwanted strawberry plants. I get my strawberries--plants and all. And the homeless strawberries get a new home so they can keep on living and doing what strawberries do.

Imagine what the world would be like if we all functioned like this--sharing, giving, being provided for, all without the stress of money, scarcity, or worry about both.

Garden Time

The garden is going in late this year. I should have gotten started weeks ago, but the weather was just so cold and rainy most of the time, so I kept putting it off. The surprise has been that some chamomile I planted in one of the large raised boxes along the north fence has taken off and reproduced itself, so there's chamomile in the box. There's also curly-leaved spearmint, which should make a wonderful mint tea. Last year when I kept having to replant my snow peas because the mice kept digging up the seed, I went to a nursery and got peppermint and spearmint in small plastic containers and then just set the containers in the planter boxes near the peas. Apparently, mice don't like mint, but peas are just fine with it.

I never actually planted the mint, and it sat out all winter, still in its little plastic containers. The peppermint plants died but the spearmint was more tenacious. The spearmint somehow escaped the plastic containers and dove into the fertile soil of the planter boxes. This spring, I have curly spearmint in every one of the three planter boxes. It's persistent, but it pulls up just fine, and so I have ample spearmint to help deter mice from the peas, and also spearmint for tea as well. I probably should have just planted it in the large planters in the first place, and let it share space with the veggies, as it's going to do from now on. Because of its persistence, it survived, thrived, and now has a place of its own. There's a lesson in that.

I had a great time clearing out the planters and making them ready for the seeds, so tomorrow I'll be able to plant some of the things, and do more weeding in the larger garden spot. The Huz says he has enough materials left to build one more large planter box, so I'm really looking forward to that. I love those planter boxes. They're easy to reach, easy to weed, out of the way of the yard, and grow wonderful peas and carrots (and mint, apparently.) We've had the other three for about two years now, and I'm excited at the prospect of finally having another box to play with. Plus, it'll get rid of a lot of the big pile of topsoil that's been sitting on my back patio for the last couple of years, waiting for a box to hold it.

Asparagus Time Again

I won't even say I lucked out, because this is just how manifestation works, and I've managed to learn how to manifest produce for little to no money. I just spent an hour and a half with one of my daughters, blanching and freezing asparagus for next winter. I had about fifteen pounds of bulk asparagus, and paid just $1.39 per pound for it. In addition to the tips that we froze, we also still have a goodly portion of the harder stalks, which we'll remove just the white part from, cook the green part down, and then puree into cream of asparagus soup. Very little is wasted, and that's a decent amount of food for a small amount of money. You'd think people would catch on to the fact that organic, local produce is worth the effort. Better yet was the kindness of the people who owned the small produce market, who agreed to sell me the random-cut bulk asparagus for such a great price, even though the farmer from whom they are getting their asparagus has disced most of his patches and had only minimal amounts of asparagus to offer this year. They only got the one box of random-cuts, but took it because, as they said, they knew someone would be able to use it.

Carrots

I still have edible carrots in one of my outdoor garden boxes, after leaving them there the whole winter. It was like having a little root cellar, and yesterday I went out and dug up several of the carrots that were still in the ground. Tonight I'm making them into soup.

Fresh carrots, available right out of the ground after a winter of being left outside, with new, growing green tops and everything. I'm not sure they'd be fantastic for just gnawing on as they are, but grated and made into carrot-and-dill soup, they'll be perfect.

The ability to pull carrots out of the ground after a winter's outdoor storage...amazing. The ability to feed my family a nutritious dinner without having to run to the grocery store...priceless.