A Great Herbal Day!

Here is Kathleen's wonderful display gardens at The Village Herb Shop.  If you haven't been able to get to Chagrin Falls, you need to go because besides Kathleen's lovely and wonderful shop, the village of Chagrin Falls is a classic hometown.  I grew up in the 50's and it so reminds me of my childhood.  Small family run businesses and very good restaurants are the foundation of Chagrin Falls.  Of course, there are the falls as well and they are very active unlike other years when we haven't had as much rainfall.  But I digress!

 

Here's Kathleen teaching us about how to set up and design your herb garden.  If it's your first herb garden, take small steps.  Even maybe plant a few herbs in containers.  Kathleen and her shop will be featured online in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal and in the actual paper on Thursday.  So I will try to remember to give you this Wall Street Journal link again on Wednesday and hopefully, you will find an interview with Kathleen.

She has worked hard to have her dream.  She has inspired hundreds of people to dive into the herb world.  Thank you Kathleen for inspiring me!  I did talk to the group about my gardening and showed pictures of our garden (had to include The Herbal Husband) and helped answering questions.  Two of those questions I'm going to answer here.

I did find an extension educator talking about milk and water and powdery mildew.  I began to doubt whether it was actually milk and water.  It is milk and water as a powdery mildew protectant.  I have seen 1 part milk to 9 parts water.  I also saw 50/50 milk to water.  You must use it before the plant has the disease.  It will not cure it once it has the powdery mildew.  It can smell bad when the milk breaks down.  It does work though.  So experiment with it.  You might want to try Neem oil.  This link is from the University of Connecticut.  The Neem tree is a tree from Southeast Asia and India.  A 1% solution of Neem has been found to help powdery mildew on hydrangeas, lilacs and phlox.  You need to follow package labels when you use it.

The second question was how to use Cuban Oregano.  I have blogged about it on November 29, 2008.  Here are some links that I found when I Goggled recipes using Cuban Oregano.  The first one is a November newsletter from vegetable herb.com.  The second one is a Cuban bean recipe from Lingle's Herbs.  The third link is oregano recipes that are Cuban inspired from old fashioned living.com.  The final website is more Cuban inspired recipes from cooks.com.

You'll have to wait to see her fabulous garden tomorrow!  It is an herbal treat!  Had a great herbal day!  Hope you had a wonderful day wherever you may be!  Talk to you later!