Cooking With Herbs for Health and Budgets

herbs_at_the_festival_2010.jpg2011 Spring Herb Festival, April 29-30

By A. D. Reed

In times of economic stress like the current long-lasting recession, one of the simplest ways for families to save money is to grow their own food. Not only is gardening financially smart, but it’s healthier, too—because the foods you grow yourself are fresher and have only the fertilizers and insecticides you choose to use. Don’t want to use Roundup®? Weed your plot by hand. Don’t want to use commercial 10-10-10 fertilizer? Compost your own high-nutrient additives from kitchen waste, leaves, grass clippings, etc.

Most of us have gardening in our backgrounds, though we might have
forgotten it. Parents and grandparents and great-grandparents knew how
to till the soil and rotate crops and harvest their produce, including
canning and pickling the excess at the end of the season. Now, with
higher-yielding hybrids as well as traditional heirloom vegetables
available, we have far more choices than our forebears did to grow and
enjoy the foods we prefer.

Of course, most of us don’t have big farms, and most homeowners
have limited amounts of space for gardening. So how can we manage to
grow our own? Even a small garden plot is better than nothing, and even a
small yard should have room for a raised bed that makes it easier to
garden (no endless kneeling or stooping) and to control the growing
environment (less opportunity for weeds to invade or soil to get
polluted). And apartment and town-house residents can enjoy container
gardening in as small a space as a big pot on a deck or front stoop.

Even those folks whose apartments don’t have space for gardening,
or whose property is too shady to get six hours of sun a day, can sign
up for a small space at a community garden. See the adjacent list for
locations around town.

In other words, nowadays there are simply no excuses for not
growing at least some of your own food (unless you have the kind of
dysfunctional “green thumb” that can kill a plastic plant).

May is the ideal time to set out most herbs, along with tomatoes,
beans, corn, squash, and other vegetables. Many of those starter plants
are also available from vendors at the Festival.

So where do you get your plants? The first stop should be the
2011 Spring Herb Festival at the WNC Farmers Market, where almost 60
vendors from Western North Carolina sell herbs and other starter plants
at great prices. The Festival is the final week in April, opening April
29 at 9 a.m. and closing Sunday, May 1, at 3 p.m., and it is the largest
annual gathering of herb professionals in the southeast. Each spring
the Festival attracts more than 20,000 herb lovers seeking information
and products from professional growers and retailers. The Festival
grounds include newly built booths (and brand-new restrooms) on the
lower level of the Farmers Market.

What will you find there? Every good cook relies on such staples
as basil, oregano, dill, and parsley, and all of those are there in
abundance. There are also less familiar herbs such as stevia, mace, and
Russian sage, and even medicinal irises, many of them used in medicines,
soaps, lotions, salves, and essential oils.

Herbs also provide a variety of colors, fragrances, textures, and
shapes in a home garden, mixing well with many flowering plants, edible
flowers, and ground covers.  Most of the more familiar herbs have
Mediterranean origins, so they’ve evolved to thrive in rocky soils, hot
sun, even drought conditions. For modern gardeners, that means that the
herbs they want to plant are versatile and easy to grow.
“A lot of herbs are perennials,” notes Festival founder Rick Morgan.
“Once they’re established, even after a year, perennials use less water
than annuals.” Both for home gardeners and professionals, that makes
herbs an attractive addition to any landscape design – especially in the
southeast, where drought is a repeated, familiar, and growing problem.

Herb growers at the Festival are full of useful information that
they’re glad to share, and the NC Agricultural Extension Service will
have a booth staffed with Master Gardeners, so it’s likely that, no
matter what your questions, someone there will be able – and eager—to
help.

Spring Herb Festival
The 2011 Spring Herb Festival is open Friday, April 29 and Saturday,
April 30 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, May 1 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Free admission, free parking; during peak hours, a free shuttle will
transport visitors between parking areas and the Festival booths.
The WNC Farmers Market is located at the intersection of I-40 and U.S.
191, Brevard Road, and less than two miles from I-26. For more
information, visit the festival website at
www.ashevilleherbfestival.com, or call the Farmers Market at (828)
253-1691 or the Festival Coordinator at (828) 301-8968.


Asheville’s Community Gardens – Whom to Contact:
•    Burton Street Community Peace Garden, 47 Bryant Street, Asheville
NC 28806. Contact: Safi Mahaba (828) 301-0166 or
[email protected]
•    Falconhurst Community Garden, 52 Craggy Avenue, Asheville NC. Visit
www.facebook.com/pages/Falconhurst-Community-Garden/345535082692?sk=info
•     Hall Fletcher Elementary School Garden, 60 Ridgelawn Road,
Asheville NC. Contact: Annie Ross (828) 337-1774 or anniebyrd7
@hotmail.com
• Hillcrest Unity Garden, Hillcrest Apartments, Asheville NC 28801. Olufemi Lewis (828) 423-2778 or [email protected]
•    Pisgah View Community Peace Garden, 1 Granada Street, Asheville NC
28803. Visit www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=48664022862, or email
[email protected]
•    Shiloh Community Garden, 52 Hamilton Street, Asheville NC 28803.
Contact: Norma Baynes (828) 242-0225 or [email protected]
•    UNC Asheville- Rhoades Property Garden. Contact: Jordan Ellis at [email protected]
•    W.C. Reid Center Garden, 133 Livingston Street, Asheville NC.
Contact: Joe Dofflemyer (828) 505-6182 or [email protected]