While I had over the years experimented with various herbs in my garden it took having dinner with Bill Greaves, book artist extraordinaire, and his wonderful wife, Amy, in Cave Creek, Arizona to change my views on growing herbs by stepping up my knowledge and commitment to doing it right. Amy took growing herbs very seriously. In fact, when they first moved to the desert from Hawaii, it was the very first garden project she undertook–get in her herbs. Shortly after I arrived she took me out onto an outer patio that ran across the back of their lovely desert home, and sure enough, she had pots and pots of herbs–all handy to the kitchen. I think this proximity to the house was one of the things that really impressed me. As if the visual were not enough to bring this point home, Amy served these potatoes with dinner, which, if you are handy in the kitchen perhaps you’ve tried, but just in case, I offer her very simple recipe here, as they are now a favorite and delicious.

Rosemary Potatoes

Ingredients:
As many potatoes as you want to eat
Fresh rosemary
Course salt
Extra virgin olive oil

What you do:

Peel the potatoes and cut them as if you were making big french fries.
Place the potatoes in a large pyrex baking dish.
Pour olive oil over them.
Chop the leaves of a couple of fresh cut sprigs of rosemary. Sprinkle over potatoes.
Sprinkle all with a bit of course salt, to taste.
Toss lightly with a spatula or large metal spoon.
Bake at 350 degrees for an hour, peeking in and rearranging the potatoes once or twice within that hour to assure even browning.
Remove and enjoy! You will now make these a hundred times and people will love you for it.

Note Amy made us this same recipe during Thanksgiving, using parsnips and those were scrumptious.

So when I moved back up to Mendocino, I straightaway put in a rosemary, which is now very large. But it took finding a very large clay pot at Home Depot to really establish my herb garden and I highly recommend this idea–put the majority of your herbs in one big pot, as near as possible to your kitchen.

Here is mine.

Don’t you just love it? I do! It’s one of my very favorite things. Mind you, it is only two or three steps from the back patio, in the frontmost corner of my vegetable garden. So, very handy, and this makes all the difference, I do believe.

Starting at midnight, and moving clockwise, if you look closely you will find a new addition, which is sage. You have to look closely, or you will think the little sage is part of that next largest group, the Greek oregano. The oregano is now getting so big it’s creeping out onto the other side of the next herb, the curled parsley. Both survived winter perfectly fine, freezing temps at all, to my great surprise and delight. Maybe that would not be true where you live. We had only one brief snowfall.

Between 9:00 o’clock and 10:00 you will see my reliable thyme, now two years old. And the little yellow/green one is lemon thyme, which my dearest friend Conny just gifted to me as part of a larger assorted birthday pot, from which I transplanted it in with these guys, and then we are back to the teeny new sage. I’ve given the sage and lemon thyme room to fill out, as you can see.

Last year I had cilantro in here, but it did not get employed quite as much, so I’ve eliminated. Also I tried a Thai plant which so eluded me I can’t even remember what it was for. So there’s some experimentation going on here, but these are probably the staples now, as I will use each and every one. I cannot begin to tell you how much I appreciate that these herbs, which tend to be smaller and more vulnerable to, say, wild doggies herding balls, are now up off the ground and protected and together. There is something just right about their being together. Maybe it’s an extension of a Place for Everything and Everything in Its Place. But I think it goes beyond that. I’m just going to say it feels Right, and I do recommend it. The pot itself was a bit pricey, and it’s quite heavy, but it truly is one of my most treasured things right now, a kind of institution in and of itself, and I’m so glad I made the investment.

Now, to underscore the protection of this lovely group of herbs, which grace my cooking immeasureably, and upon which I so rely, I have added something new this year, done especially for a certain Mr. Conner B.C. This new addition I believe spells out in very explicit terms: No Balls in My Herb Pot, a phrase he heard, oh, about a hundred times, as it is always his habit to put a ball, upon which he has been chewing incessantly, into whatever container is most convenient, as I garden, in hopes I will pick it up and throw it. No savory among the savories. You know? So here’s what he now encounters. I think it does the job, don’t you?

In case you are curious, that is my arugula in the background, gone to seed for the second time this spring already, and due for a major cropping, any day now. I’m finding it so difficult as those white blossoms in the moonlight are as unexpectedly a magical place as you would want to be.

Love and spring blessings,
Kathryn xoxo

Posted on April 9th, 2008 by Kathryn
Filed under: Plants | 20 Comments »

I will never forget the moment I heard Oprah say to a guest who was speaking about gardening, “I don’t understand what kind of exercise you can get by gardening. What is there to do?” HAHAHA. What??? I wanted to write to her immediately and say, “Oprah, spend a day with me in my garden and I will show you a workout!” Oddly, it’s not thought about in those terms. As physically demanding as gardening can be and usually is, the general focus on gardening is on what we are planting, when and how, not on the bodies who are performing those what/when/how activities. In reality, you know and I know that gardening is a challenging athletic endeavor with great rewards for our bodies. But also some perils and pitfalls if we stop listening. And this last post I did, reviewing some basic yoga poses that would assist the gardener in her practice, brought in some comments and email that made me realize how much we all have in common when it comes to gardening: We Aren’t There. We are lost in the zone, that seductive, all-encompassing passionate drive of creative vision and doing. What we seem to have in common is an experience of being completely absorbed in manifesting our various visions of beauty and creativity. We simply expect our bodies to be natural extensions of that vision, which seems to have no edges, or limits or sense of time. We override stretching and resting. We barely take time to pee. You know it’s true. Because we are lost, hopelessly, in the beauty of flow and design and manifestation in nature. There is no other place we want to be. Nothing else we want to be doing. Nothing else we want to hear or see or touch or smell. We are enraptured with the Universe, with the Greenest of Goddesses. With Pan himself. I know you know what I’m talking about.

Courtesy of artist Marsha Mello

The focus that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

Dylan Thomas

Then the next day we get up and we are perhaps a bit creeky. Or stiff or sore. Or we ache. Especially at this time of year, I find. And we think the magical formula is to do it all over again.

A few years ago, strangely just as Grandma was nudging herself towards the edge of the Earth, I was unexpectedly offered an opportunity to be a contributing writer for a book being published in London called The Financial Times Guide to Business Travel. What it turned out that I could best contribute was practical advice on staying healthy on the road, drawing on my multiple decades in Northern California, a rather progressive island of health conscious folks completely comfortable with all manner of alternative healing modalities. Today I’d like to tap into that wealth of knowledge and share a bit with you, for you to consider incorporating into your daily practices to enhance your gardening experiences even more, by taking care of the very vehicle that allows you that blessed luxury.

We’ve rather covered yoga, if you refer to the previous post. Since writing that, I have chosen the spot where I’m going to have my Handy Man build me a little wooden deck where I can practice yoga daily out of doors. I realize it’s more precious that way. I’ve elected a place I have been fond of as it catches the earliest morning sun’s rays, just adjacent to the rose arbor, not yet in bloom, but here’s what the arbor looked like last summer:

Can you imagine what it will be like once I’m lying there doing my final relaxation pose, looking up at the big blue California sky through those large red roses spilling across that old arbor? Wow. So that’s my plan. Build a space.

I think I very much like the idea of stretching beforehand, yoga or not. We do it for running and walking, right? Why not gardening? It makes sense. And I personally want to try to build perhaps a five minute stretch break periodically into my gardening. Maybe I will take this funny little black and white hen I bought to time stuff in the oven, which I have used all of one time, out into the garden and just let her ring me to a stretch break. Why not? It has its charm.

Are you all pretty good about keeping bottles of water around when you are out in the yard? I have to admit, I still have to work on this. When I do rehydrate, if it’s hot I choose something like SmartWater, as it will give me back the electrolites I’m losing. I never drink Gatorade. I can’t believe they tell you it’s good for you. See the color? Think oil products. Here are the ingredients for Gatorade Raspberry Lemonade: water, sucrose syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, salt, sodium citrate, monopotassium phosphate, ester gum, sucrose acetate isobutyrate, red 40, blue 1. Are you kidding me? Please.

Now, comfy clothes and shoes. I bet you all do that really well by now. Right? If you’ve read me for any length of time you know already that I frequently can be found totally comfy in the early mornings gardening either in private out back or in public out front in my pajama bottoms and a sweater and scarf. I do. And usually I have on appropriate footwear, like those rubber gardening shoes you will remember the name of and I don’t, because I have some wannabe version. Or boots. Not flipflops as they will not protect my feet from chill or bugs or the straying mean plant that can stick me. Gloves? I know; gloves are tough. Some-times I do; sometimes I don’t. I love my hands in the actual dirt. I absolutely do wear them for any place where I could get pricked (leather for roses and black-berries) or bitten (we have black widows).

I am religious about sunscreen. Are you? I hope so. I’m not as good at the hat, though I certainly have no excuse as I own them. I even put one on a hook in the hall that leads out back. Maybe this year I will grab it on the way out. Why do I think they get in the way?

I wonder if we could start a little picnic/snacky thing we could do for ourselves? Because you know once you are in the thick of the Green Zone you are not going to go in and make a sandwich, are you? I thought not. Yesterday I was examining those wonderful picnic baskets that have everything you need inside, but I know that’s hoping for too much. (I was thinking more Earthquake in looking at those anyway. I thought that when the Big One comes I could maybe be surviving with a touch of class. You have to admit it would be convenient.)

And what in the world are we going to do about the reaching beyond our bodies’ means? Like the woman in Portland who wrote to me last week and said she lifted too much compost. This is going to be just a task we each face on our own, that perhaps begins with, “Do I perhaps need some help?” Asking for help is a good thing. Learning to receive is a good thing. Yes, you, Superwoman.

OK, so the sun is setting, hubby is coming home for dinner, whatever. You have to go in and shift gears. You’ve gotten a lot done today, you realize, as you look around with satisfaction, making a mental note on what you will do tomorrow. (I know The List.)

I personally don’t know if I can get myself to then do some kind of cooldown afterward, but maybe you can. I know I am headed straight for a bath after getting dirty. I just am. And it’s going to have bath oil in the water, probably lavender to get me to relax. If I’ve been exposed to pollens I’m going to choose eucalyptus oil. And bath salts, even if it’s Epsom. Also, there is something to consider about baths vs. showers. When you bathe you immediately begin to rehydrate. And there is nothing like soaking. Just a thought. I know you have your preference etched in stone.

OK, bath toys. Fingernail brush. Found the best one at a little drug store, cheapo and one of my favorite bath accessories. Pumice stone for those drying feet. Loofah or body brush for the skin. And I just love good cotton washcloths. They do the trick. Dry off. Moisturize. Now here’s the thing I particularly wanted to tell you about. There is a homeopathic remedy called arnica gel. I know about it because when my daughter was still little I ran the language program for a Waldorf School and we always had it around for kids who bumped or bruised themselves. You can get it in the health food store. I’m telling you right here. I could not make it without arnica gel. It has saved my back a billion times. I just rub it into any muscles where I know I’ve unduly placed too much stress, right after the warm bath. I also look myself over and put it on any little bruise, which will accelerate the healing process. We all get bruised in the garden pushing things around. And in the morning I’m right as rain.

I don’t know about you, but I absolutely make it a priority to get enough sleep. I need minimum of eight hours. I consider it one of the cornerstones of my good health. In the evening, in preparation for that precious restoral, I lower all the lights in my house and turn off all but the most necessary ones and have a nice cup of chamomile tea. Ahhhh. Nice. Ready for the good night’s sleep and a blessed new day.

‘Till soon,
Kathryn xoxo

Posted on March 27th, 2008 by Kathryn
Filed under: People at Work | 22 Comments »