Orange Balsam Thyme

[Jenise]

I replanted my herb garden yesterday (it was decimated this winter) and though I'm pretty boring about preferring straight English Thyme and not desiring any variants, this year I also bought a previously-unheard-of Orange Balsam Thyme which is currently in flower and emitting the most heavenly scents. I can't wait to see how that translates into culinary use once I get a kitchen back. Anyone else familiar with this lovely herb?

I'm not familiar with it but this year I did buy an English and a German Thyme. Also an orange mint. Fun stuff! Oh, and I also got a Stevia plant at the Farmer's Market on Saturday. This morning when I was planting herbs and cleaning up my garden beds, I pulled a leaf of the Stevia and ate it. Tastes just like the stuff in the Stevia packets. I'm anxious to try it in my tea.
I also discovered that I have 12 baby tomatoes. On about the size of a quarter on the Early Girl and the Sun Gold Cherry types have several on each plant.

In a previous house I lived in, I had a scented garden. Not flowers, but plants that had scented foliage. I grew lots of different herbs, including many varieties of thyme. At one stage I had more than a dozen kinds. One of my favourites was called "orange peel thyme", which may be the same as yours. It was a dense, spiky foliage, with a distinct orange-oil scent to the leaves. It was also one of the hardier thymes, surviving hot dry summers better than some.

Looking out of the window, I can see my herb bed at the back of the garden. It is almost completely non-operational at the moment. Only hyssop, winter savoury, sage, French tarragon, lemon verbena and rue. Two hot dry summers and changed water practices have caused me to put things on hold for a while, but the plan is to plant again this spring. I hope to find some orange-peel thyme to include in the thyme section.

I'm not a great one for these variants - as they seem to cloud rather than enhance my culinary thinking (i.e. I'd rather have one clear flavour, rather than an an amalgam of two). I'm sure lazy thinking on my part

The herbs have certainly taken off this spring: Mint, Lemon mint (which I'm close to ripping out), Angelica (which I did rip out but keeps reappearing), feverfew (not used in culinary context), oregano, marjoram, basil (eventually), tarragon, thyme, sage, fennel, chives, rocket, italian parsley, rosemary (in a shared garden). Cumin, lemongrass & chinese licorice seeds have failed to germinate, coriander hopefully should be germinating at the moment. It really is great to be able to raid the garden for fresh herbs when cooking

I was shown round a friend's garden last week - wow! Very professional approach with plenty of place set aside for food. He's just reached the end of last year's cauliflowers (in cold frames), but he'll soon be pretty much set up with a full and varied supply of fruit & veg. Most interesting to me were the apple trees, which he had trained sideways as per certain vine training systems. The trunk was trained ~ 2ft off the ground (i.e. horizontal), and he said it's a very successful method - but only for that type of apple tree (I forget the exact term). A huge amount of effort has clearly gone into that garden, and indeed ongoing maintainance will be tough, but I can only admire the way it's set up & could satisfy all their fruit & veg needs if they chose to go with the seasons (he does admit to buying tomatoes from the supermarket out of season).

regards

Ian

[Jenise]

I'm not a great one for these variants - as they seem to cloud rather than enhance my culinary thinking (i.e. I'd rather have one clear flavour, rather than an an amalgam of two). I'm sure lazy thinking on my part

The herbs have certainly taken off this spring: Mint, Lemon mint (which I'm close to ripping out), Angelica (which I did rip out but keeps reappearing), feverfew (not used in culinary context), oregano, marjoram, basil (eventually), tarragon, thyme, sage, fennel, chives, rocket, italian parsley, rosemary (in a shared garden). Cumin, lemongrass & chinese licorice seeds have failed to germinate, coriander hopefully should be germinating at the moment. It really is great to be able to raid the garden for fresh herbs when cooking

I was shown round a friend's garden last week - wow! Very professional approach with plenty of place set aside for food. He's just reached the end of last year's cauliflowers (in cold frames), but he'll soon be pretty much set up with a full and varied supply of fruit & veg. Most interesting to me were the apple trees, which he had trained sideways as per certain vine training systems. The trunk was trained ~ 2ft off the ground (i.e. horizontal), and he said it's a very successful method - but only for that type of apple tree (I forget the exact term). A huge amount of effort has clearly gone into that garden, and indeed ongoing maintainance will be tough, but I can only admire the way it's set up & could satisfy all their fruit & veg needs if they chose to go with the seasons (he does admit to buying tomatoes from the supermarket out of season).

regards

Ian

'Espalier' is the name you're looking for, when apples (for instance) are trained that way. It's a lovely way to get fruit into a small garden. I envy your friend's garden--that's a beautiful way to go. Our winters are too long and severe for us to do anything year-round here but I admire the ambition. Does he also have a greenhouse? The 1800's house I rented in Macclesfield long ago had a greenhouse in back that I had much fun keeping herbs and lettuces growing in during the winters. I've considered erecting one here, though architecturally speaking I have no place to put it.

Do you find tarragon easy to grow? I don't even find the plant starts around here, which suggests we're not thought a good environment for it, though since I'm coastal I might get away with it. Would love to have fresh tarragon on hand all the time.

Otherwise, I'm like you on these 'variants'. However, the aromatics of the orange balsam thyme--orange peel and spicy wood--could be the start of a slippery slope for me. I also planted a Golden oregano whose leaves are a mottled brilliant green and lemon-lime color just because it was so purdy.

Jenise
I thinks there were ~ 6 greenhouses, two attached to the house and the others stand-alone. He had vines in one. Plus the afore-mentioned cold frames (low level boxes with glass 'window' on top).

Yes I failed to get tarragon going last year, but managed to get it to germinate indoors this spring, so now have ~ 4 plants in pots and 2 in the ground. Great with mushrooms, so we'll have to go out hunting again.

Rather than a traditional greenhouse, I use the window ledge of the study for planting seeds in trays, plus a surprisingly useful plastic/metal framed greenhouse with soft plastic cover. It works well enough and we have a decent spot for it next to the garage.

Tomorrow though, I give away some of my babies I grew some Nespole from seed (from fruit we ate in Italy) and it was more successful than expected, so my Italian classmates have been promised the excess plants (not really tree sized yet) that survived the winter. This does at least free some more space up in the garden / greenhouse.

regards

Ian

[Jenise]

Rather than a traditional greenhouse, I use the window ledge of the study for planting seeds in trays, plus a surprisingly useful plastic/metal framed greenhouse with soft plastic cover. It works well enough and we have a decent spot for it next to the garage.

Tomorrow though, I give away some of my babies I grew some Nespole from seed (from fruit we ate in Italy) and it was more successful than expected, so my Italian classmates have been promised the excess plants (not really tree sized yet) that survived the winter. This does at least free some more space up in the garden / greenhouse.

regards

Ian

Sounds great. Do you do flowers or anything in your little greenhouse too? I'd probably end up with a cymbidium collection. Dangerous.

What's nespole?

Jenise
I do normally start off with marigolds, but oddly none have taken this year There are also some perennials in the borders and then usually whatever takes our fancy in terms of pots or filling in the gaps. Just planted some Mt Cook Lily (NZ) seeds, so hopefully they'll take ok. Mostly it's herbs, fruit and veg, but all very small scale and with the aim of avoiding the garden looking like a veggie patch! Some of the borders were purely logistical, as the grass was very patchy, so hostas, Cannas and St John's Wort, ferns etc. went in and are doing great. The weakest of the Japanese maples is also enjoying it's new very sheltered spot. Also larger honeysuckle, rose and (my favourite) Jasmine plants have room to roam. The Wisteria also has room to roam, but has been a sickly child and now equally small sibling has appeared. I do love the smell of Wisteria (it reminds me of the Amalfi Coast), but I suspect they'll not take in the garden (there are some great examples elsewherein the city).

Nespole is a fantastic fruit, that's not even very widespread in Italy. I think I've waxed lyrical about it before here, but very juicy fruit somewhere between apricot and nectarine, but think ripe versions of both. It's an early fruiter and does IIRC have a better known relative from S. America. Whether I'll ever get fruit I don't know, but happy to give it a go.

regards

Ian