On The Doorstep

Sailing along the Mid-Cape highway on Cape Cod, headed for Provincetown, we detoured into North Truro to visit an herb shop that our hostess had heard about, Atlantic Spice Company.

It's an amazing store, as big as your average barn and filled with shelf after shelf of spices, herbs, teas, gadgets for kitchen and table, cookbooks and assorted miscellany, mostly to do with cooking. The prices are good, the ingredients are fresh and the service is friendly. What more could one ask?

Maybe a branch on the Left Coast? As I was paying for my purchases, the cashier inquired about my origins - they see a lot of tourists on Cape Cod and have obviously learned that people like to be asked this question. I said we're from San Francisco and he exclaimed, "Oh, we have a branch in San Francisco!"

http://www.sfherb.com, just in case you don't want to travel to Cape Cod for your herbs and spices. Sheesh!

Pottering Around In The Garden

Spring means planting things, even though I decided to give over my garden to flowers this year and put my two tomato plants into rolling pots instead. After a foray to the tomato sale, My Beloved and I went to the local hardware store last weekend and puzzled over various pots, saucers, rollers and soils, coming away with two pots of graduated size that we are hoping will be a good home for our seedlings.

Last summer, the garden wasn't sunny enough to grow tomatoes so this year I can move the pots so they get sun all day. There are already nodding yellow flowers on Paul (right) and Juliet (left).

The Master Gardeners over in Marin county started my Paul Robeson (heirloom) and Juliet (cherry) but good old Longs Drugstore seems to have started the herbs I planted around the tomatoes.

I have sweet basil, garlic chives, lemon thyme (regular thyme and rosemary already well established in the flower garden), sage, dill and oregano. I can hardly wait for the herbs to grow big enough to yield something for the kitchen. Several of these are new to me, at least in fresh form, so I'm looking forward to cooking with them all.

I admit to having also purchased a packet of greenie beanie seeds, which I will sow amongst the flowers - they did well last year and I do love beans fresh from the garden.

An avid gardener I will never be, but spring brings out what few farming genes I have. Here's to another great season!