✿Welcome to the Garden✿
This is my virtual tribute to my garden!
I've recently acquired a greenhouse, and this is a place for me to catalogue what I'm growing, how it's used, and other fun facts about my plant children!
✿ Sweet Basil ✿
Cultivars: Emerald Tower, Thai
Ocimum Basilicum
- Origin: Central Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia
- Uses: Cooking o b v i o u s l y. I literally put this stuff in everything. You can always use basil in a dish. It's always morally correct. Also it keeps bugs away, and the flowers are pretty if you're into that.
- Growing Tips: Don't get it too wet, and keep it out of rain or the leaves brown and that's not yummy. Trim it regularly if you're using it for cooking, as the flowers mess up the taste. Beyond that, as long as you're watering it regularly (in my desert ass climate I've found that to be around once a week), it'll pretty much be fine. I think you could grow this on the moon tbh.
- Fun Facts: To me, Thai Basil smells almost exactly like barbeque sauce. I'm not complaining I just think that's odd.
✿ Tomato ✿
Cultivars: San Marzano, Beefsteak, Big Red Cherry
Solanum Lycopersicum
- Origin: South & Central America
- Uses: Though generally used in cooking, the exact use will depend on the cultivar. Plum tomatoes, like the San Marzanos I'm growing, are generally best used in sauces (although I've made some incredible pico de gallo with it too), while Beefsteaks tend to be used in salads and sandwiches. I also mostly use it for Mediterranean cooking, although one time I made a curry with tomato sauce and it went kinda hard tbh
- Growing Tips: Do! Not!! Get!!! The leaves wet!!!! Tomatoes are very disease prone, and water splashing on the leaves from watering will fuck up your plant real quick. Also, know what kind of tomato you have, because it will affect things like pot size and pruning. Plants like Roma tomatos are determinate, which means they make their fruit all at once. These plants don't grow in vines, so they need a bit more pruning and they grow better in containers. Indeterminates will sporadically make their fruit throughout their growing season. These are the ones that vine, so they'll need a trellis and plenty of room.
- Fun Facts: At varying points in history, people (particularly Puritans) thought tomatoes were poisonous (because they look similar to a nightshade plant), Satanic, and made you insanely horny.
✿ Oregano✿
Cultivars: Greek, Hot & Spicy
Origanum Vulgare
- Origin: Mediterranean
- Uses: Cooking of course, but this one actually tastes better dried than fresh. My preferred method for drying them is cutting them, washing ofc, letting it air dry, and then drying it out in the microwave in 30 second intervals. Makes the kitchen smell amazing as well :)
- Growing Tips: It likes to be watered a little bit more than other Mediterranean herbs I've grown, but not by a huge amount. It likes a decently large pot. Also, and this is more for the gardener than the plant, patience is key. She's a slow grower, so it's gonna be a while before you can start harvesting.
- Fun Facts: The plant that we get Mexican oregano from is actually a seperate plant from most other oreganos. Oregano is in the mint plant family (like many, many Mediterranean herbs), while Mexican oregano is in the vervain family.
✿ Scallion✿
Cultivar: idk i got them at the grocery store
Allium Cepa
- Origin: Possibly central Asia?
- Uses: Obviously another good one for cooking! I've found it tends to work best in East Asian cooking though, especially Chinese and Thai food. Honestly I will put green onions in just about anything though. And yes I do call them green onions lol
- Growing Tips: These are another one that I think you could grow on the moon. I don't have much experience growing them from seed, but I have grown them from kitchen scraps multiple times now. Basically you take the little nubs with the roots on them, stick them in a little bit of water, and once they're about an inch tall you can stick them in soil. They like pretty frequent waterings, so you don't need to let them dry out all the way like with basil or French thyme.
- Fun Facts: Green onions can actually bolt (grow flowers which ruin the taste). I did not know this prior to one bolting on me, and I made the mistake of trying to eat it :^)
✿ Parsley✿
Cultivar: Flat Leaf
Petroselinum Crispum
- Origin: Mediterranean
- Uses: Basically the plant for garnishing food because the vibrant green color looks nice and its taste isn't as ~divisive~ as something like cilantro.
- Growing Tips: Mostly the same story as all the other mediterranean herbs I'm growing, but I've found that this one seems to like a bit more shade than the others. Also don't. Water it with white vinegar because you thought it was water. Which is something I did :^)
- Fun Facts: It's in the same plant family as carrots!
✿ Chili Pepper✿
Cultivar: Jalapeño
Capsicum Anuum
- Origin: The Americas
- Uses: Obviously another cooking plant, but I also saw a guy make DIY mace out of them on YouTube. Not what I'm planning on doing with them obviously but I thought that was interesting.
- Growing Tips: The heat level apparently varies by how much you water it, with less water meaning a spicier fruit. Also all peppers can cross-pollinate, so watch where you put it or it could mess with the flavor in unintended ways.
- Fun Facts: It's the state pepper of Texas, which. Didn't know state peppers were a thing.
✿ Thyme✿
Cultivar: French
Thymus Vulgaris
- Origin: Mediterranean
- Uses: Okay so obviously these are all cooking herbs but. Broe. The difference between using grocery store and homegrown is so vast. And the smell is amazing. Also apparently there's a chemical in thyme essential oil that is used in disinfectants.
- Growing Tips: Do not be fooled by its leafy appearance; this thing is basically a succulent pretending to be an herb. This is one of those "will grow between the cracks of concrete" type plants so it really doesn't need much fuss compared to some of my other plants.
- Fun Facts: Another species of thyme is actually used for ground cover as an alternative to grass, and has very pretty purple flowers!
