i hope you eat good food, grow beautiful things, and have more love than you know what to do with.
Mint, of the genus mentha, is one of the herbs that I always have on hand. Several different species exist, although I usually only keep one or two (currently, I have peppermint and chocolate mint.) It’s probably the least picky herb I have had the …
I love having an extensive herb garden because I can just go outside and pinch some off, without having to worry about where to store large quantities of it (and, if I don’t use it up soon enough, the flavors may fade.) Oregano (Origanum Vulgare) …
Figs (ficus carica) is a fruit that we often come across in higher end supermarkets, expensive, but oh so delicious. We all have that grandpa/uncle/old neighbor next door who tell tales of their fig trees producing bountiful fruit, but it gets a little daunting when …
Goosefoot, lambsquarter, and fat-hen all refer to the edible weeds of the genus Chenopodium. This is one weed I don’t pull, as it is an edible and mild flavored dark green, used anywhere you would use spinach (and, like spinach, is high in oxalic acid …
Celery is something I don’t usually touch, having been traumatized by too much celery dumplings as a kid. However, occasionally recipes call for it, and because I don’t like it, I never have it in my fridge even when I need it. In comes Lovage, …
One of the plants I grow every year is the tomato (solanum lycopersicum). My husband is part Italian, and although when I was younger, I didn’t like tomatoes at all, it has grown on me, especially when sliced thick and paired with a nice wedge …
Haskaps, or Honeyberry, or Edible Honeysuckle (lonicera caerulea) is part of the honeysuckle family (and not all honeysuckles are edible) that produces fruit very similar to blueberries. It’s cold hardy as hell (some are hardy all the way to zone 2!) and unlike blueberries, tolerate …
I was always curious about the taste of gooseberries (ribes uva-crispa syn. ribes grossularia) but had never had the opportunity to try one. It seem financially irresponsible to buy a pie or a jar of jam of something that I wasn’t sure I’d like (and …
I plant beans every year, and have tried several different types including scarlet runner, snap peas, etc. I found though, that I like bush beans the best as far as taste and utility goes. The bush bean that I have (phaseolus vulgaris) is actually just …
I bought two different types of peppercorn trees (no relation to black pepper) this year: The Sansho peppercorn (zanthoxylum piperitum) and the Szechuan peppercorn (zanthoxylum simulans) for my food forest. The sansho peppercorn is the main flavor you would find in Togarashi Ichimi-Shichimi powder, the …