My Herb Garden

I've always wanted to have my own herb garden. Years and years of watching cooking shows has influenced me a lot. I told myself that one day I'd be cooking using ingredients freshly picked from my own garden. Now, I can happily say that I've been actually doing that for the past 2-3 months. My herb garden is organic, too!

Here are some of the herbs I have in my garden.

Basil was my very first herb plant. The first batch of basil I bought at Majogany Garden in Tagaytay. It was a wise decision to get basil because as far as planting is concerned, it's very easy to manage and propagate. Thus, very encouraging for first-timers like me. It's so easy to have your own basil farm! We read that it's sweeter if you grow it from seed. It's very easy and fast too. Cutting is also an option. Whenever I harvest for cooking, after I take all the leaves I stick the twig in a pot and just let it grow. All my previous basil recipes are from our own garden. Right now we have three basil varieties - Thai (my favorite), sweet, and red rubin . I'm partial with Thai Basil because of it's stronger taste and aroma, which I really really like.

Thai Basil - here are a few of the plants that we grew from seeds of our first basil plant. Erwin takes care of harvesting the seeds from the mature flower.


Red Rubin Basil - has sweeter and milder aroma compared to Thai Basil. It smells a bit like guava. Mature leaves have red veins.


Sweet Basil - they say this is perfect for pesto but I prefer using Thai Basil because of its stronger flavor. What I like about Sweet Basil is it's color. It gives the pasta a very bright green color. Almost looking like you used green food coloring.


Rosemary - this is my first Rosemary plant from Gourmet Cafe. I love the aroma. It's a challenge to propagate it but we're still trying. Rosemary is amazing with chicken. I've tried it with turbo chicken and even fried chicken - Erwin and the kids love it!



Tarragon - very sweet with anise aroma and flavor. My good friend Rochelle Leyba suggested I make tea of it and I've been hooked since. I think it's very potent. It's more relaxing than chamomile tea. As in it would really make me go to bed after a cup or two. Rochelle strongly suggests trying it cold - with ice cubes and honey. Will try that soon. I've tried it also with a cream-base pasta sauce with chicken. Yum!


Lemongrass/tanglad - great with chicken and fish. I tried lemongrass and ginger tea too and it's very refreshing. They say the concoction helps normalize blood pressure.



Pandan - great with steamed rice. Have tried pandan chicken also. Well, at least my version of it. We also put pandan leaves in the cupboard because they say it deters roaches.



Oregano - given by my neighbor, Mang Pete. He suggests that I use it as a bed of steamed or ginataang tilapia. When I have enough leaves, I'll try this recipe.


I still have more. Will just need to take better pictures. Posting them soon!

Falling In Love All Over Again - My Love Affair with Gardening

For a month now I've developed a love for gardening. It started one long weekend last August when Erwin and I decided to do our own landscaping of our garden. We initially wanted to have it done by a professional but the cost was too high (for us) - P30,000! Erwin, myself, and Raffy (a neighbor who helps us with the dogs and the garden) did the landscaping ourselves. We started by collecting soil from a vacant lot in the subdivision - of course, with the permission of the subdivision's caretaker. Luckily, the caretaker, Noli, made his own black soil made of dried then burnt leaves mixed with soil. He happily offered this to us, which we also happily accepted. This actually saved us P5,000, which is the cost of an elf of garden soil. When the garden was all soiled up, we went to Silang and bought a few plants at Avion Plant Store - our suki in plants.

This is a renewed affair with plants for me. When I was young someone told me that my hands were too hot for them, thus, I would never successfully grow any. Somehow, I believed this. I had some attempts but they all failed - maybe because I was already expecting them to die on me. I felt sad because I knew my Dad had a green thumb, why didn't I get that too and not just his temper? Just kidding, Daddy.

Some shots of the garden after our first weekend working on it. Every week the look changes because of rearrangement or additional plants.




We have a few hanging plants. As of this picture, we only had around 3. The one on the right most side are some orchids courtesy of Ate Mylene, Raffy's mother. Erwin wrapped them around an abaca pole. Creative huh!