Herb confession

This is my third year of vegetable gardening. Once I did get enough produce to freeze beans and last year I had enough tomatoes to make two jars of sauce. Nothing to claim expert status about. But I do love my garden and tend to share all that I learn along the way.

My favorite thing to plant? Herbs. Most of them I don't even have a plan for. I like to show guests, any size guest whether 3-feet or six +, my little garden. I pluck a few leaves or a stem off an herb and say, smell this, or taste this. Do you know what it is?

My youngest daughter and I love smells. Not smelly things like perfume or candles. Comfort smells. (I know those darn smelly thing like plug-ins and candles are supposed to be homey, but they are overdone.) Kassy, who is five, walks around the house constantly smelling a pillowcase. If she can't find a pillowcase, she will take substitutes like shirts. And if there is nothing to smell she whines (I know, whining is horrid and needs to be stopped--we are working on it...still. ) Still, you have to smile at a kid who doesn't suck or stick things in her mouth, she just smells. I used to wonder where her love of smells came from, until my husband said, "Why are you always covering your nose?" I realized I was smelling fabric or the soap on my hands--it was comforting.

Smells of herbs are treasures to me because they aren't here all the time, they smell fresh. Don't go make a basil potpourri, I don't want one. I like my daily hop (it really is a hop away from my back door) to the garden and then bending down and taking a long inhale to satisfy my olfactory sense.

But, I never know what to do with all those herbs. I need to clip them, to make them bushier and to keep them from bolting. But then what? I've done some experimenting. I've dried thyme and parsley. I stick basil in a small vase just so I can smell it while I do dishes. And the whole family picks stevia leaves and eats them. I've made fresh mint tea. Still, the herbs grow faster than my ideas so I went on a hunt for more options. I'll share them as I learn.

Here's my first "That's brilliant" find. And to add to the fun its from a blog about gardening that I had never found before. Turns out, I love it. Check out this post by Margaret Roach, the former garden editor for Martha Stewart. Her blog shares a title with her book, A Way to Garden. The post explains, in perfect detail, two ways to freeze parsley or chives for later use (freezing does retain more flavor than drying).

Click here to read "Growing and Storing a Year of Parsley." And that picture, it's my rosemary, sage and thyme. Sadly, I put the parsley in a different spot.