The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming.Shaw, Ellen Eddy
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The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming.
Shaw, Ellen Eddy
Gardening -- Juvenile literature
"If we could go back to old colonial days, and visit a dame's garden, I
am sure we should find a little herb garden there. Our mothers might
call these herbs pot herbs. Here all the flavourings for the soups were
raised. Here sweet lavender might be found, its flowers used to make
fragrant the bed linen. Horehound, anise and others were used in
medicines; while little caraway seeds made delicious the cakes and
cookies. I can see bunches of dried sage hung in the attic.
"Even with us there might be good use made of this garden both at home
and at school. We do, of course, grow parsley, which is an herb, but the
others seem to have dropped out of our gardens. We might at least grow
next summer the sage and savoury for the turkey stuffing.
"Herbs need a sandy, well-worked soil. Seed should be sown in drills
about twelve inches apart. The seed should be sown in early spring, as
soon as the ground is warm. Sprinkle the seed just below the surface,
and cover lightly with soil.
"A list of common herbs includes the following: Anise, balm, basil,
borage, caraway, catnip, coriander, dill, fennel, horehound, hop,
hyssop, lavender, pot marigold, sweet and pot marjoram, parsley,
pennyroyal, rosemary, rue, sage, savoury, tansy, sorrel, thyme, and
wormwood. It would be of little use to plant all of these, even to see
what the plants were like. I would suggest your trying lavender, sage,
savoury, and dill.
"Lavender seed is very slow to germinate, so sow the seed plentifully in
early spring. The soil should have a dusting of lime over it as lavender
plants enjoy lime. The flower is the part you wish. Pick these flower
stalks before the flowers get old. Dry, and then sprinkle the dried
flowers in the linen chest. Lavender is very sweet, and is often spoken
of as sweet lavender. To this day one will hear women singing in the
streets of London, 'Sweet lavender, buy my sweet lavender.'
"Sage likes a good, well-drained soil. It, too, likes lime. The little
seedlings should be thinned out to stand about ten inches apart. When
you see flowers forming cut the sage plant and quickly dry. It makes a
pretty border plant in the garden. Savoury is also a border plant. But
this is a hardy annual, while lavender and sage are perennials. It likes
a light but rich soil. Both the leaves and flowers are used in soup
flavouring. "Dill is also sown in early spring. It is the seed of the
dill plant, and not the leaves and flowers, which is the useful part.
The seeds are used in the making of pickles.
"I shall hope to see something in the herb line, in your gardens next
year--a hardy garden started, and a good bit of taste displayed by all
of you. You girls might raise mint to put in lemonade.
"Next time we shall have our talk on wild flowers. Some of you know and
love many of these wild flowers."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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