Eating and Drinking Tweets

One of the pleasant pleasures of life are herbs. Besides adding beauty to your garden they make foods taste better and provide a pleasant scent to the air we breathe. In George Washington days everybody had a herb garden that they used for culinary, teas and medicinal purposes. That practice is slowly coming back.

A spaghetti garden is an example of the most popular kitchen gardens. Anyone which has a bright patch of ground or a window-box can grow these herbs of parsley, garlic, basil, bay laurel and oregano. A small garden space can easily yield all the herbs that you will need for tasty Italian meals. They are even easy to grow in a sunny window for your all year use.

Let us take a more detailed look at the spaghetti garden herbs:

+Oregano is a perennial ground cover plant. Oregano is a prolific grower that may send out shoots that grow to six feet in a single season. If pruned and bunched, oregano can grow into a small border plant. It might rather have light, thin soil and plenty of sun, so keep it on the south side of your garden. When the plants reach 4-5 inches cropping can start. Pinch off the top 1/3 of the plant, just above a leaf crossover. The young leaves are really stronger dried than fresh and are the most flavorsome part of the plant. To dry, lay the leaves on newspaper or a drying screen in the sun till the leaves crumble easily. It will retain its flavor for months.

+Bay leaves add a good hint of spice to stews, soups and spaghetti sauce. The bay laurel is a little tree that grows about a foot a year, this makes it OK for growing in a container. If you live in a mild climate zone leave the container outside, but if temperatures go below 25 degrees keep the tree in a pot and bring it indoors during the winter.

+Basil seeds itself so easily that you can never need to buy another plant after the 1st year. There are many different kinds of basil, but all grow quickly and need frequent pinching back to hinder them from growing tall and leggy. When the plants have reached about 6-8 inches tall, you can begin cropping. Pinch off the top 1/3 of the plant, just above a leaf intersection. Pinch off any flower buds before they go to seed. Six to eight plants will provide enough basil for the complete neighborhood.

+Garlic is probably the best plant to grow. Break apart a clove of garlic, and plant the cloves about 4 inches apart, 2 to four inches deep in a light soil. Lightly water and watch them grow. You will crop when tips of the leaves turn brown but do not let them flower. Just dig up the bulbs, and use them. To keep a fresh supply take 1 or two cloves from each bulb and replant them.

+Parsley is probably the most used herb on the world. You may find both flat (Italian) and kinky types. They complement the flavor of everything from sauces to hearty stews. It is employed as a garnish on plates, or cut up and added to soups, dressings and salads. Parsley adds vitamins and color, and quietly brings

out the flavor of other ingredients in the dish. Parsley is a biennial, flowering in its 2nd season. It favors a little shade on a hot bright day, and is going to be kept watered to avoid shriveling and drying. Pinch back older stems to the base, allowing new leaves and branches to grow.

Grow your own tomatoes and you are well on your way to becoming a Italian chef.

Do you like to cook? If so, visit cooking101.org and get easy recipes you can use everyday to make delicious meals for the entire family and you might also want to take a look at easy mushroom pasta recipe.

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