Growing Herbs
As much as an experiment for the kids as for practical reasons, I bought seeds and attempted to grow rosemary, savory and cilantro. I could barely afford the seeds, and have no place reasonably available outside. When I unearthed an old bag of potting soil from where I’d stored it, I finally planted a few seeds of each in three old tea cups. Not exactly ideal.
The results so far: rosemary never even attempted to sprout. Savory sprouted
, but put out shoots so long and sensitive they promptly died back down. Cilantro seems to be coming forth robustly enough to survive, and a handful of plants sprouted. I’ll need better conditions for it to transplant into, obviously.
Anyone have experience growing these or other herbs inside? Or outside?
In reality, I once grew cilantro, before I’d ever heard of cilantro, in the late seventies, outside the kitchen door of the house where I grew up. I grew it as coriander, and learned I found the smell of the coriander seeds disgusting and tenacious on my hands. It, mint, and parsley, if I recall correctly, all grew like weeds, no problems at all. At the time, it was a matter of curiosity. I was into gardening then, but not cooking.
I’m dubious as to the value of doing this for any kind of savings. Not without a yard and an herb garden. And not as compared to dried, bottled, commercial product when comparing just money and effort. Maybe not even compared to fresh, which I have never bought and used.
I had some dried cilantro for a while. It smelled like dried grass and seemed to add nothing to food. I wondered what the fuss was. Until I had some fresh in fish tacos and it was delicious.
I’ll probably keep it to this and not much else, but I’d be intrigued to try growing some others eventually…
