Little Herb Gardens: Simple Secrets for Glorious Gardens–Indoors and Out – Book Description
It’s no wonder the best-selling Little Herb Gardens, now with a fresh new cover, has been so popular. Herbs are the instant gratification project of the gardening world, and people love to grow them. This friendly guide to homegrown herbs is perfect for beginners, featuring plans for simple garden projects ranging from outdoor garden beds to window boxes and container gardens. Growing instructions for over 30 herbs are rounded out with ideas for garden planning and maintenance. Tips on harvesting and cooking with nature’s bounty make this charming volume as useful in the kitchen as it is in the garden. With colorful photographs and warm and informative text, Little Herb Gardens is inviting to gardeners, cooks, and herb novices alike.

About the Author
Georgeanne Brennan is a James Beard Award-winning author of numerous cooking and garden books. She lives in Northern California and France. Mimi Leubbermann is the author of a wide range of garden books, including Easy Orchids (0-8118-3553-7). She lives in Northern California. Faith Echtermeyer has created visuals for numerous cookbooks, travel books, and food and wine publications. She lives in California’s Napa Valley.

When you can pick the tomatoes out of your garden.

Bring them into your kitchen.

Core them.

Put them in boiling water for 2-3 minutes.

Transfer them into a bowl of ice water.

The skin just slides right off.

Holding the tomato in your hand,

Insert it into a large freezer ziplock bag

and squeeze!

Do this over and over with 10-12 tomatoes.

Then put in about a TBS canning salt.

Close the bag. Squeeze it around to mix it up.

Put it in the freezer.

Wala – tomatoes for the rest of the year for your soups, chili, and sauces!

Flower Lollipops – PERFECT for your favorite gardener! Twinkle Pops are cute, tasty and versatile. These gourmet lollipops come on foot-long bendable sticks, ideal for delicious floral arrangements & bouquets, and tasty birthday cake or gift enhancements. Each flower is individually wrapped with cellophane. Twinkle Candy's assortment of 7 delicious flavors and sparkling see-through colors make these pops the perfect treat!

• These gourmet lollipops come on foot-long bendable sticks, ideal for delicious floral arrangements & bouquets.
• 7 delicious flavors and sparkling see-through colors: Purple, Green, Blue, Pink, Red, Orange, and Yellow.
• Unit Price : $0.35/lollipop.
• Bag contains 120 cellophane-wrapped flower lollipops.

‘Tis the season for cucumbers… fa la la la la la la la la! Those four HUGE cucumbers that you see sitting in my kitchen sink came from my garden not mere minutes prior to taking this picture! It’s amazing how FAST cucumbers grow – because I was just out there two days ago and they weren’t big enough to be picked yet – and now just LOOK at them! Amazing what a day of rain can do to those cucs! They literally grow inches overnight – so BEWARE the cucumbers and make sure you check on them every day, because they may very well surprise you!

As it stands.. I have cucumbers growing outta my ears! I think I planted too many this year – going by the cucumbers-in-waiting that are still out there on the vine? I have enough to keep the entire neighborhood in cucumbers from now ’till Christmas! Fa la la la la la la la la!

Catnip is a member of the Mint family, Catnip is an aromatic, strong smelling herb. It has clusters of white or purplish-blue flowers atop toothy, heart shaped leaves with a light gray colored fuzz on the leaf. There is also an uncommon yellow variety. The leaves have a lemon-mint flavor and scent. It is fun to grow for your cats, and for tea for you.

Catnip is a perennial, and grows two to three feet. It is native to North America. In addition to cats, bees are also fond of Catnip. Make sure to leave PLENTY of room to grow catnip – - it will often overcrowd many of your other herbs, flowers or plants.

Grow Catnip plants from seed. Sow seeds into your garden in the spring. Space seedlings or thin plants to 20″ apart.

Catnip thrives in sun or partial shade. They prefer average, well drained soil over rich soils. They grow well with little attention, and will withstand crowding. Fertilizer is not usually required, except in the poorest of soils. We always recommend a little fertilizer at planting time, and a couple of times a year to promote maximum growth.

After the plants have grown a few inches, pinch back the shoots to promote bushy growth. It will first bloom in mid summer. After harvest, trim back the plants again. With luck, you will get three harvests in a season.

Aside from using it to drive your cats kooky – catnip has documented herbal remedy benefits: Used for reducing chickenpox and measle eruptions. Lowers fever. Useful herb for insomnia – even in children. Helps relieve digestive disturbances and stomach flus. This herb has a gentle carminitive action. An infusion is given to children and nursing mothers to help expel trapped gas. It also safely induces sleep without any grogginess the next morning.

Tops of plant are harvested and used as a tea or infusion. Sometimes used in combination with other herbs in tincture form. [Source]

This year, I chose to grow my strawberries in hanging baskets, as pictured above. I have 4 of those baskets hanging from the deck of my house.

If you choose to plant them in the ground – make sure that they aren’t planted in the same soil as tomatoes, peppers or eggplants… and that none of those vegetables have been planted in that soil for at least the past 3 years. (see why I do hanging baskets??)

My neighbor has one whole 50×50 space dedicated to strawberries. A farm down the street from us dedictates full acerage to strawberries. And here I am with my pathetic little hanging baskets! But! They produce really sweet, gorgeous berries all summer long and I love having them hang outside the kitchen so I can just step out and pluck a few to add to my yogurt or ice cream!

Grow in full sun all day and expect luscious berries in 3 months. They are BEAUTIFUL ornamental plants, which will dazzle your visitors. They should be spaced 10″ – 14″ apart depending on level of fertilization and plant size. Pajaro variety produces the largest plants requiring the greater planting distance,

Prune off all runners that develop the first season so all the energy is focused into fruit production. If the plants are not sized up when flower production starts, remove first flush of flowers. If berry production or plants are less vigorous in subsequent years, you may want to put in new plants in fresh soil to get that incredible vigor you witnessed the first year. Commercially, they are usually treated as annuals, even though; they are in fact, perennials

Along with the hanging baskets, I also have a couple of these on order to be delivered by the end of the week – - I’m keeping these right outside the patio doors to my kitchen:

Strawberry Planter

MMMMMM.. strawberries! If I had to pick a favorite plant in my yard – - this one might just be IT!

A random reader emailed me asking to see pictures of the leaves that I posted about in my Garden Dust post. I mentioned that I noticed small holes in some of the leaves on my bean plants – - so here is the results of the mighty leaf muncher:

When I first planted my vegetable garden, I had my Dad come over and check it out. He is the Garden Doctor, as far as I’m concerned. He was thrilled with my new garden and gave some pieces of advice for the season.

One of those pieces of advice concerned garden pests and diseases that can hurt my plants. Mostly such insects as aphids, cabbage worms, harlequin bugs, bean beetles, Japanese beetles, stink bugs, thrips, and more. And diseases like bacterial spot, blights, and powdery mildew.

My natural question was, “Well, Garden Doctor Dad – how do I control these things?? Can I?”

He told me about a product called “Garden Dust” that he uses on his plants (and flowers) every year to keep the insects and diseases at bay. He told me to apply the garden dust the very MINUTE I start seeing holes in the leaves of my plants – - because that generally means there is some bug.. or two or three.. munching away at my precious vegetables and flowers!

Today, in my vegetable garden – I noticed that my pole bean plants had quite a few little holes munched in the leaves – - so, luckily, I had followed my Dad’s advice and purchased a few containers of Garden Dust. I went to the garage and got the container and ‘dusted’ all my plants in the garden.

Hopefully, this will now keep the little munchers at bay and AWAY from my plants!