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Home & Garden readers might also want to read Keep it Green, a gardening column by Michael Womack.

Saturday, September 15, 2001
Add spice to the garden
Local society addresses the culinary and medicinal value of fresh-from-the-garden goodies
Good growers
By Dan Parker
Caller-Times

Epazote is a traditional addition to beans, especially Mexican refried beans (top). Freeze dried chives are a natural for baked potatoes, soups and casseroles (middle). Chewing mint leaves relieves stomachache (bottom).

Herbs native to South Texas include the red bay tree from which bay leaves can be harvested for foods including spaghetti sauce. Also indigenous to South Texas is the toothache tree, a small tree whose bark has been chewed for years by pioneers and Native Americans to numb the gums to relieve toothaches.
   While not native, herbs that grow well in South Texas include:

Italian oregano (doesn't require a lot of water; leaves are good in Italian dishes and aid digestion).

Thyme (requires fairly little water; leaves are good in soups and sauces).

Rosemary (fairly little watering; can be used in massage oils; and a sprig can be used to brush marinating sauce on chicken).

Fennel (moderate water user; leaves are good on salads).

Dill (medium watering; leaves are good with baked fish; flowering stems can be made into a tea with a tranquilizing effect).

Basil (high to medium water use; leaves are good in pesto; chewing the leaves is good for headache).

Mints (heavy water user; chewing the leaves is good for stomachache).
   Fred Allon likes to kick it up a notch in his cooking, but he never buys herbs for his culinary creations.

Grow your own herbs
What: Herb Seminar
When: 8 a.m. to noon Sept. 22
Where: Garden Senior Center, 5325 Greely Drive
Admission: $10
Information: 241-7141 or 767-5217

   Allon grows them. In his backyard garden, the 79-year-old Corpus Christi man grows clusters of thyme, sage, Mexican oregano, garlic chives, horseradish, lemon grass, Mexican marigold and more.
   "You see the prices of herbs at the store? It's a little alarming," said Allon, a retired foundry manager. "And there's a vast difference between the taste of (herbs) you grow yourself and what's been lying around the store for a while."
   Allon plans to be among those participating in a Sept. 22 meeting of a newly forming group: The Coastal Bend Herb Society. The group's first organizational meeting will immediately follow a seminar on herb gardening, sponsored by the Texas Cooperative Extension and Corpus Christi Area Garden Council, at the Garden Senior Center, 5325 Greely Drive.
   An herb focus

George Gongora/Caller-Times

Fred Allon grows clusters of thyme, sage, garlic chives, horseradish, and more.

   The Coastal Bend Herb Society will teach members herb cultivation and explain how herbs can be used for cooking, medicine and other purposes.
   Gardeners have shown a lot of interest in forming a herb society, said Jan Shannon, a master gardener who is helping put the seminar together.
   "There are tons of things herbs do. That's why they've been around generations and not faded out," Shannon said. "Now, as more people go back to nature's natural things, that's why you see so many herbs in grocery stores."
   Many herbs do well in South Texas, said Carol Bush, owner of Bush Gardens, a Corpus Christi business that does landscape management and interior plant maintenance and design.
   "We've got a lot of just native herbs, a lot of wildflowers growing along the roadside that have herbal remedies," said Bush, who is among gardeners scheduled to speak at the seminar.
   Now is a good time to plant an herb garden to take advantage of the fall growing season, said Michael Womack, horticulturist with Nueces County Extension. Good herbs to plant now include rosemary, basil, chives, oregano and cilantro.
   Small plants, not seeds
   Womack said gardeners should prepare their soil well because most herbs need good drainage. Four to six hours of sun usually is adequate. A general-purpose, water-soluble fertilizer will keep the herbs from being too spindly.

Good growers
Herbs native to South Texas include the red bay tree from which bay leaves can be harvested for foods including spaghetti sauce. Also indigenous to South Texas is the toothache tree, a small tree whose bark has been chewed for years by pioneers and Native Americans to numb the gums to relieve toothaches.
While not native, herbs that grow well in South Texas include:
Italian oregano (doesn’t require a lot of water; leaves are good in Italian dishes and aid digestion).
Thyme (requires fairly little water; leaves are good in soups and sauces).
Rosemary (fairly little watering; can be used in massage oils; and a sprig can be used to brush marinating sauce on chicken).
Fennel (moderate water user; leaves are good on salads).
Dill (medium watering; leaves are good with baked fish; flowering stems can be made into a tea with a tranquilizing effect).
Basil (high to medium water use; leaves are good in pesto; chewing the leaves is good for headache).
Mints (heavy water user; chewing the leaves is good for stomachache).

   Beginning herb growers should not start with seeds but with small plants available at most local nurseries.
   Allon, who has been growing herbs for about 15 years, grew most of his current crop from seeds.
   Fresh herbs from his garden make the home-cooked meals prepared by him and his wife, Catherine, particularly special. Sage goes in the dressing that accompanies turkey. Rosemary is great with salmon. Parsley mixes into a white sauce over onions.
   Mint is an Allon family favorite.
   "Whenever we have lamb, we have mint for the mint sauce," Allon said. "And basil goes into all sorts of salad dressings." There's nothing like the smell of fresh basil.
   "Taste buds are excited by smell," Allon said. "You have to have something nice-smelling to have something good-tasting."


, Contact Dan Parker at 886-3753 or parkerd@caller.com

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