Flavor from home
Veteran grower gets herbs nine months a year to sell, largely from container gardens
You might as well forget cooking, gourmet or not, without these fresh garden essentials: Fern-y dill, ground-hugging oregano, treelike rosemary and sweet basil.
Unfortunately, these common four herbs are typically short-lived in South Florida. Longevity has been a common complaint.
Annual planting and seeding is a chore for most. How do you keep them and you happy while in the kitchen? Cathy’s Herbs and Botanicals, a familiar stand at the Naples Farmer’s Market each Saturday at Second Street South and 13th Street, may have some answers. Owner Cathy Knepper operates a 15-year home-based herbal business in Golden Gate Estates.
Knepper describes herself as an apothecary. She has a degree from Meredith College and a degree in laboratory technology. During the week she works for the City of Naples Environmental Lab, which performs all beach and water testing. On the weekends her apothecary opens its doors at the Farmer’s Market.
“There are some varieties of rosemary or oregano that are perennial, depending on the weather, that will come back year after year,” says Knepper.
Knepper’s favorites include rosemary, fennel, lemon basil, tropical oregano and dill. On her lanai is a tropical oregano that grows again and again in a 1-gallon pot. Its leaves are fleshy and succulent-like. Called Mexican oregano, it comes in green and variegated forms. Unlike its European counterpart, Mexican oregano, native to tropical areas, has a subtle, sweeter flavor. It’s tasty raw, to flavor salads, as well as in cooking.
For some of her herbs, however, Knepper’s growing season starts in October and goes until March, being regularly harvested and dried.
Organic fertilizer — along with water and love — is Knepper’s secret for lasting herbs in South Florida, she says. She uses Preferred Source organic fertilizer, specifically an organic fish food called Multi-Bloom liquid fish fertilizer. Unlike the old-fashioned fish emulsions, this one is scented with mint and is in a liquid form. That’s a delight, a major improvement over the goopy, fishy-smelling fertilizers of the past.
Handcrafted potpourris, herb tea mixes, and freshly grown herbs are packaged in tiny parcels at her farmers’ market stand. All are produced organically and prepared locally. Her dad, an assistant to Knepper, on a spring morning pours a freshly brewed, tasty cup of herbal tea prepared from her dried herbs for the visitor.
Knepper doesn’t have a large garden. Most of what she grows for her herb mixes are grown in pots.
“Herbs do great in pots, especially those with limited land. but some others like rosemary, whether in a pot or in the ground, will turn into giant bushes,” Knepper warns.
That is, if left to their own devices. Rosemary does, however, require a well-drained location to thrive, Knepper and area gardeners advise.
“Basils, parsleys, and dills are annuals,” she says. Most of the annual herbs like temperatures below 85, Knepper explains. Be prepared to collect the seeds and replant in the fall or buy new plants for your herbal needs. Basil is the first plant Knepper runs out of at the Farmer’s Market.
Knepper advises the home gardener to take charge and pinch back the basil, parsley and dill and collect them regularly. Basils and dills like this “haircut” every now and then, unlike most kids. This way they produce the maximum amount of leaf material before they set seed for the next growing season.
All the removed leaves can then be harvested and throughout the growing season and used for cooking or dried in a cool, dry, dark place indoors for future use.
That way, when these plants do set seed, you have built your supply of herbs up whether dried or in some other way. Avid gardeners can save the seed for fall planting.
Kay Cude, herb specialist at Echo Farms in North Fort Myers, explains that all herbs, perennial or not, struggle during the summer months. Plants on the north side of a home seem to survive better, she observed. Those herbs planted on the south, west or east side weather the summers better if they are overplanted by papaya or moringa or some other fast growing shade plant.
For those short-lived annuals, preservation is another way to extend the bounty for whenever you need it. Don Splain, an organic chef and culinary anthropologist, points out that that the “herbs are at their peak of flavorful essential oils at the end of the season.”
This is a great time to make pestos and flavored oils or vinegars. Infuse white vinegar with garlic and oregano, or red basil in white vinegar, says Splain, with those excess leaves you don’t want to dry and have no use for right away. Note: Infused oils must be stored in the refrigerator; they cannot be simply stored in a cupboard.
Making batch pestos is another great way to preserve your harvest. Pesto means “to crush,” says Splain. This word is derived from that fact that traditional pestos are made with the use of a mortar and pestle. Today, however, once tough stems are pulled off, it’s a snap to make pesto in a food processor, using olive oil and garlic or Parmesan with the herbs. Pesto Genovese is the sweet basil, pine nut and Parmesan topping that most people think of. But dill pesto mixed with lemon juice and sea salt can accompany fish, something few of us think of when planning to make a pesto.
Sources for perennial oregano, herb tea mixes, and other herb products, besides big-box garden departments here, include:
• Cathy’s herbs and botanicals at www.beautifuldoll.net or Naples Farmer’s Market Second Street South at 13th Street on Saturdays through April
