There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.

William Shakespeare, spoken by Ophelia to Hamlet

I have just a teensy bit of an obsession with herbs and Shakespeare 💙 

I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to create more space for growing herbs. But this is the year for growing Rosemary. Both the plant and my new pup who shares the name. I call her Rosie unless I’m feeling fancy. Or she’s in trouble. If you read to the end you’ll see a cute pic of her in front of some snow-covered Rosemary plants.

Currently I have an assortment of herbs scattered around the yard and vegetable garden. This spring I am clearing a section of pasture for a proper herb garden. It’s a lot of space to fill so I am attempting to propagate new starts from some favorites in the yard. I’m all about free plants. I am also trying some herbs from seed and some local nursery starts.

With a little luck I will have an abundance of herbs to harvest for projects and to share with friends and family. I started playing with culinary wreaths over the winter. I’m not crafty, but the wreaths were easy and fun and cute enough to be gifts. They smelled so good. And they were handy. If you needed rosemary, sage, or a bay leaf while cooking you could snip it off the wreath.

The list is long, but here are my top 5 “why’s” for growing more herbs:

1. Deer don’t like them. This is very important. Just ask my tomato plants and rose bushes.
2. Many herb plants look pretty all year long. I’ll take green over brown any day.
3. Fresh herbs take my cooking to the next level. It’s similar to fresh lemon juice vs the bottle. Always squeeze the lemon.
4. Home-dried herbs are more intense than any I’ve purchased. I love the explosion of aroma when I open a jar of my oregano or basil.
5. Pollinators LOVE herbs and I LOVE pollinators. Check out the bumblebee cutie on Spanish Lavender in the gratitude card collection.

I plan to post progress updates here on the Kindness Roots blog as both the herb garden and my pup grow. I’ve had to take a little pause in the planting because it snowed. It’s mid-April. It snowed like four inches. That is NOT normal here in the Willamette Valley. It was brutal for flowering trees and shrubs, but a beautiful time for a pup’s first snow day. We will play today and deal with Jack Frost’s destruction tomorrow.

What are your favorite culinary herbs? Comment with your ideas and suggestions. Obviously, there will be rosemary!  Also, any tips on keeping a very busy German Shorthair Pointer out of your garden beds is very welcome.