HERBS - A natural way to health

My goal towards creating a healthy, natural medicine chest and culinary addititives herb garden has been somewhat of a mixed sucess. Many of the plants I put in were killed by the summer heat or the seeds just did not take off.

 As you can see, some of them are doing very well......others have either died with the summer heat or the seeds never sprouted for whatever reasons.

In addition I now have plants coming up that I have no idea about! I am not sure if I planted them or they have just arrived with the wind or perhaps are seeds from those plantings last year that decided to wait until this year to show their faces! Talk about confusing lol.

Here is one....recognise it?

If you do let me know, I have noooooo idea!

And this is another, again, I have no idea, it is very tall though, similar in height to a sunflower?

I recently purchased James Wong's "Grow Your Own Drugs"...delighful recipes for all sorts of health ailments. Once I learn what all these plants are, what they look like and how to use them I should have quite a pharmacy going lol.

The Celpar is doing amazing things, I have cut this back 5 times already and dried the leaves for soups and casseroles, it truly does taste like celery. I use it when the celery is not in season, a great way to stick to cooking with a seasons flavours all year round without the importing attached to it!

The italian parsely is going great guns too. I like this variety far better than any of the other varieties, it is milder and seems softer than the others. I also dry this all season ready for when the season is finished.

We have planted Tagasastes along the fenceline where the afternoon sun hits the house. Hopefully this will shade it completely and keep the summer heat at bay. I am not worried about them not being a deciduous variety, it is never that cold in the house in winter.

What I do love about these trees, (other then the fact they make great chook food with their high protein content) is that they are fire resistant, in fact they hate fire, great to plant around the house in this region where fires are so frequent in our summers.

Work is beginning to slow a little thank heavens, a couple of weeks and I will be taking a week off, with another couple in December/January, I am really looking forward to the rest. Today however I am feeling like I want to garden all day, even with the very slight drizzle we are having..........so, I will say bye until my next post.

Enjoy your weekend and take care:)