Herbs & Spices
Any idea how much money you spend on herbs and spices in a year? If you like to cook, then it is probably a LOT! I like cooking and I have spent huge amounts on spices over the years, so I decided to start a rather large herb garden and grow my own and my plan for next season is even bigger!
I have decided to get rid of the grass in my front yard and plant a combination of herbs and micro clover. I fight, every year to keep my yard green due to water rationing. Even when we have huge amounts of water, and the season has had so much snow, they still ration water, and it is just not enough to keep a lawn green.
Aside from the lack of lush look it’s a pain to water and cut! I live on the side of a hill and mowing it a major challenge and the older I get the more challenging it gets! Watering is an almost everyday event in the heat of summer, and I have my hands full with my garden.
So, the solution is micro clover and herbs which are low water requirements, and the herbs are edible which my goal is to have 99% of my garden (front and back) edible.
Herbs, you can eat them as food, use them as spices when cooking, make tea and health with them. Grass doesn’t serve any purpose other than maybe keeping the dirt in place. A common weed in your lawn is dandelion and people spend huge amounts of time and money trying to kill them off. Did you know that every part of the dandelion plant is edible? You can cook the leaves like spinach and eat it as a side dish. The flowers can be deep fried and eaten, used in tea and have amazing healing properties.
The seeds are plentiful and are fun for kids and adults and they are perfect for wishes. Images of dandelions are seen in art and jewelry. You can make soaps, lotions, tinctures, infused oil, wine, and honey. The entire plants from roots to seeds are edible and medicinal and this is true of many herbs. The roots of dandelions are used for medicine, and you can make coffee with the roots.
I have a ton of other herbs like several types of mint, chives, dill, oregano, lemon balm, chamomile and more. The other nice thing about herbs is most are perennials. I enjoy going out to the yard and harvesting them and deciding what to do with them. Most of them I dry and store for future use and I have so many I have had to put in shelves to hold the jars.
I am also considering taking an area of my yard and growing wheat. I would love to grow, harvest, and process my own wheat for breads and baked goods! Ever see a field of wheat in a light breeze? The way the wheat moves, and flows is stunning! Maybe I need to buy a wheat farm?
I grow wheat grass under grow lights for juicing and salads and micro wheat grass is just baby wheat! Ill post about that soon!
The only thing you need to grow herbs is a place to grow them, a few packs of seeds and a dehydrator although the dehydrator is optional because you can dry them in the sun. I prefer the dehydrator and during the height of the summer mine is running almost constantly!
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It is planting season as you know and we have been working hard on getting everything planted! We found this method called Back To Eden Gardening and it just made sense for our front yard. I really wanted to increase our planting area and find a way to save on water and this method appears to be the answer!
