Everyone Needs A Spaghetti Garden
By james ellison, Fri Dec 9th
One of the delightful pleasures of life are herbs. Besidesadding beauty to your garden they make foods taste better andprovide a pleasant scent to the air we breathe. In GeorgeWashington days everyone had a herb garden that they used forculinary, teas and medicinal purposes. That practice is slowlycoming back. A spaghetti garden is one of the most popularkitchen gardens. Anyone that has a sunny patch of ground or awindow-box can grow these herbs of parsley, garlic, basil, baylaurel and oregano. A small garden space can easily yield allthe herbs that you'll need for delicious Italian meals. They areeven easy to grow in a sunny window for your year-round use.
Let us take a closer look at the spaghetti garden herbs:
+Oregano is a perennial ground cover plant. Oregano is aprolific grower that can send out shoots that grow to six feetin a single season. If pruned and bunched, oregano can grow intoa small border plant. It would rather have light, thin soil andlots of sun, so keep it on the south side of your garden. Whenthe plants reach 4-5 inches harvesting can start. Pinch off thetop 1/3 of the plant, just above a leaf intersection. The youngleaves are actually stronger dried than fresh and are the mostflavorful part of the plant. To dry, lay the leaves on newspaperor a drying screen in the sun until the leaves crumble easily.It will retain its flavor for months.
+Bay leaves add a favorable hint of spice to stews, soups andspaghetti sauce. The bay laurel is a small tree that grows abouta foot per year, this makes it suitable for growing in acontainer. If you live in a mild climate zone leave thecontainer outside, but if temperatures go below 25 degrees keepthe tree in a pot and bring it indoors during the winter.
+Basil seeds itself so easily that you may never have to buyanother plant after the first year. There are many differentkinds of basil, but all grow rapidly and require frequentpinching back to prevent them from growing tall and leggy. Whenthe plants have reached