On 5/28/2012 6:43 PM, Mimi wrote:
> My Greek oregano is doing well (finally) this year. Common sage too, finally spreading, as is the Greek oregano. I have some lemon balm that sprung up at the opposite end of my raised herb beds--hurricane Ike blew the seeds down there. I thought that was amusing. Harvested some basil and a bit of everything else, including rosemary and made some herb pesto today. We smeared it on some salmon and grilled it. Yum. George, I killed quite a few rosemary plants before the two I have now took off. I really don't have much of a green thumb. If I plant it and walk away, don't fuss over anything much and water when I think about it, especially during long periods without rain, I do okay. If I fuss over it, it dies.

Oregano does pretty well on its own, we finally got sage to grew for us
three years ago, the two-year drought killed it. We have to murder
rosemary to get rid of it. Every where a limb touches the ground a new
tree starts as the rosemary grows roots on the limbs. We have at least a
hundred years worth of rosemary dried and in a sealed jar. We use it on
chicken, occasionally on fish, and often with cooked carrots. Oregano
goes into any dish with a tomato based sauce as does basil.

Dill comes up from seed heads every year and we haven't bought seed in
years. I like the fernleaf dill as I put it in dill pickles and it gives
a better taste, in my opinion, than dill seed.

Today we harvest a dozen tomatoes and about that many Gypsy sweet
chiles. Gave each of the three guys who had been working on the house
two maters, a sweet chile, and a half-pint jar of pear jelly made last
fall. I thought they were going to kiss me.

The repairs to the soffitts is done, took eight working days to do the
job plus a lot of lumber and shingles. House looks great now. Soon as
the boss lady gets her art room cleaned out where I can get in there and
paint and polish we will put it on the market. We're planning on
relocating to either Kingwood or Spring, probably Spring (pronounces
"Sprang" in Texas) as housing is cheaper there and so are real estate
taxes. Kids nixed us moving to Livingston as we would still be an hour
and a half from them so we've been looking elsewhere. Probably will go
over early next week and look in person at the houses we've been looking
at online.

If we get that close Mimi I will be out scouting for your secret
dewberry patch. <G>

George