Sole Survivor

As the leaves were beginning to fall last year, I decided to see if I could overwinter rosemary. I cut several tender branches and placed them in water to see if they would root. In time, some did. And when the roots were sufficiently developed, I planted each sprig in it's own small pot. Only one plant made it through the winter. Mind you, I probably could have increased the chances of all of the cuttings if I had used grow lights on some of the dark cloudy days of winter, but I was trying to see if I could manage to be successful using a minimum of resources.

I'm glad that the plant that did survive is growing so robustly. I guess my experiment proves you don't need a great deal of green if you want to keep some green in your life.

A Lot From One Pot

If you're interested in growing basil, but don't have much room. Try the lettuce leaf variety. As you can see from the photo, you can get a lot from just one leaf. And even a modest sized pot provides enough room for a plant with an abundance of leaves such as these. Just make sure to harvest the leaves regularly so the plant won't flower and go to seed.

Herbs In The Window

It's an unfortunate fact of life that at this latitude the winter days aren't long enough or sunny enough to grow fruit bearing plants without the help of additional, artificial light. However, certain herbs can be grown on the ledge of a window with southern exposure. My cilantro plant is coming along very well despite the fact that it hasn't even been a month since the winter solstice. And now that the days are becoming longer, I think I'll plant some chive seeds to have something to add to my baked potatoes.

All Hail The Queen!

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, this is not an entry about the present monarch of the U.K. or about the Thai princess that may soon ascend to the throne. This queen reigns in the kingdom of basil and is as exotic as the land from which she originates. You're not likely to see any other herbs adorned with such eye catching blossoms. Nor are you going to find other basils that blend their basic flavor with notes of licorice and provide a perfect complement to many Asian dishes. I've heard that there are some gardeners that grow this herb purely for ornamental purposes. Who can blame them? It's almost too pretty to eat.

Sweet Miracle

I can't say that I wasn't warned. From seed catalogs to articles on the Internet, the consensus was unanimous. Stevia is hard to grow from seed because the germination rate is low and the survival rate of the seedlings is low as well. Any sensible person would have listened to the chorus of voices that advised buying the plant from companies where someone else had already done the hard work, but when has being sensible been any real fun? And since part of the reason I started gardening was to have access to edibles that weren't readily available in the local market; how could I resist the challenge?

So last year I planted about half the stevia seeds I ordered and waited for them to come up. I waited in vain. After considering all the possibilities, I decided that I had planted the seeds at the wrong depth. So I took half of the remaining seeds and put them on a wet paper towel in a plastic yogurt cup to germinate them. Half of the seeds germinated and I transplanted them to seperate cups hoping that at least one would reach maturity. None of them did. So much of the growing season had passed that I decided to wait until 2011 to try again.

This year I repeated the paper towel germination process with the five seeds I had left. Two of the five germinated and I transplanted the sprouts. One sprout died after about ten days. The other grew very, very slowly.

Finally, when I thought it was big enough, I set it out to harden it off for transplanting. After a couple of weeks I set about transplanting it into a large pot. I carefully slid the root ball out of the small container it had been in and started to lower it into the new pot; but I wasn't careful enough. The root ball shifted, slid off the trowel and dropped a few inches into the bottom of the hole that had been prepared for it. As it fell, I heard a sound reminiscent of a piece of cloth being torn in half. And I was sure that I had damaged the stem or tap root to a point beyond recovery. I completed the transplant anyway and decided to see what would happen.

In the first couple of weeks after transplant, the leaves closest to the base of the plant fell off and I was sure it was dying. I checked every day expecting to soon see a bare, whithered stem. However, the upper leaves of the plant stayed green and intact, although there were hardly any signs of growth. Then one day, I noticed what I thought was a new leaf emerging at the top of the plant. It was so small I wasn't sure that it hadn't been there before. So I watched and waited a few more days. And then, something unexpected happened. The plant was long and slender at that point in time and part of the stem was bent over and touched the soil in the pot. New roots formed where the stem made contact with the potting soil and within a couple of weeks the plant's growth took off. The result of that growth can be seen above.

So why bother to go through all the trouble for a plant that's so difficult to cultivate? Well, the rewards are sweet, literally. There are about 240 plants that are members of the species Stevia. Most are found in Mexico, South America and Central America. Only Stevia rebaudiana is naturally sweet. It contains a substance that is up to 300 times sweeter than sugar, yet it has little or no effect on blood glucose. The calorie content is negligible and research performed in India indicates that this same sweetner can also lower blood pressure. This unremarkable looking plant is one of nature's most remarkable creations! Thank goodness it was discovered before we destroyed it and its natural habitat.

It really makes you wonder what treasures we may have plowed under in the wild areas of the world in our mad dash to so called development; the cures to cancer, high colesterol, perhaps even AIDS? Stevia is a reminder that we should tread more lightly on the Earth and look more closely least we miss the bounty that surrounds us.

Savory Standout

It's called lettuce leaf basil(and no, you don't get any points for guessing why). I have found it to be a pleasant addition to vegetable dishes, especially those using summer squash. I highly recommend it.

Going Herbal

My friend Rosemary gave me some sage advice and told me to try growing herbs, but I replied, "I don't have the thyme". O.K., enough with the attempts at botanical humor. This is my first year trying to grow herbs and so far so good. The sweet basil plant pictured above is doing quite well in a discarded Xtreme Gulp mug that has been re-purposed as a planter. The aroma of the plant is outstanding. I hope the flavor it adds to food will be too. But if I don't like this particular variety of basil, there are over 60 more to choose from. So I could be exploring the joys of basil for quite a few summers.