The little things brightening my January

January is a never an easy month for me. I brace myself every year for the month when my seasonal affective disorder hits the hardest and I find myself surfing the internet at midnight looking for flights to Hawaii.

But this year has been a bit different, in a good way.

This time last year I had spent the last 5 months of 2010 significantly incapacitated by my own body, and I was waiting anxiously for surgery to rectify the issues. The garden was overgrown and unruly, and I was helpless to change that fact as I sat inside watching anything entertaining I could find on Netflix.

Having been through that experience and journaling it on a blog so I can go back and read about it has provided me with a significant amount of perspective. I took mental notes then and have enacted them this year.

This year I decided that I would make sure and plant a small winter container garden on the back deck. In the past I haven't wanted to spend money on annual flowers because it seemed like a waste of resources.

But this year was different.

In November, I went to the local nursery and bought potted herbs--chives, oregano, marjoram and a couple of varieties of thyme. Then I bought winter annuals (we have those here) to plant in the pots next to the herbs. I got pretty little violas with purple and white faces, pansies in rich jewel tones, and ruffled snapdragons in a pale peachy pink (my favorite). I couldn't resist a beautiful purple and green decorative kale so I got it too.

I filled the terra cots pots with the little splashes of color. When I was done, it seemed like a lot of work for such a small space. But I knew it would be worth it come January.

And I was right.

Sheltered against the house on our southwestern facing deck, the flowers have thrived despite frosty nights with temps below freezing. And around 1 pm when the afternoon sun makes its way to that side of the house, I go out and bask in it for a while to soak up the important rays that fend off my seasonal affective disorder. Along with some potted lavender that's chosen to continue blooming through the winter, the little potted flowers are my companions and they are brightening my January, making it so much easier this year than in years past.

If that isn't enough and I really need a pick-me-up, I stand under the loquat tree growing on the super-sunny-south-side of the house and watch honeybees buzz from blossom to blossom as if January never happens in their little world. The honeybees on the loquats remind me that February almond blossoms, daffodils and narcissus are right around the corner. And soon it will be spring.

Click here if you'd like to read the blog I mentioned above

We have poppy seeds!

Do you remember the wonderful Hungarian Bread Seed Poppy that bloomed on the first day of spring? I've been anxiously anticipating the time when that seed pod would be dried up enough to harvest. And today was the day!



I carefully brought it inside and slit the side open with a kitchen knife to spill out the seeds. Look at how many were in just one pod!

I then took the seeds and carefully poured them into a small seasoning shaker that I'd labeled appropriately. Hubby is a big poppy seed fan so these seeds are for him. When he saw them his first comment was, "Anyone have a bagel?"



The first poppy bloom was the earliest of many flowers that followed weeks later and have been delighting us for the past month. Now I'm on "pod watch" as I wait for the rest of the pods to dry. At least one of the pods will be emptied into a seed envelope for planting next year. But the rest will end up seasoning breads and salads.

Lemon Verbena: Our "Forgotten" Herb

Every summer there comes a time when the plants in the front garden have turned into a "jungle" of sorts. I always have to go out and be ruthless in pulling out the mint and horseradish that tries to overtake everything around it and free the rosebushes, poppies, campanula, and foxgloves that are being shadowed from the sun and the drip mist water system.

Well, this year I had to not only be ruthless with the mint but I also had to really trim back the lemon verbena that had gotten so large it was casting shadows on everything. This woody plant is probably the fourth lemon verbena I've put in.

The first spring here at Rosehaven Cottage, I put one in with the other herbs in the bed I had designated for a kitchen garden so my husband could go out and clip herbs for cooking. That lemon verbena was the first for both of us. My husband discovered that it was a wonderful herb to use in whole leaves as part of the preparation of simple pan-seared chicken breasts. By putting the leaves on the breast as it seared in olive oil, the chicken was infused with a wonderful lemony flavor that was rounder and fuller than using lemon juice. The aroma and taste were heavenly!

Shortly after that growing season, the first lemon verbena plant inexplicably died even though it should have weathered our mild winter. For some time I didn't replace it because I couldn't find a small potted lemon verbena available in our local nursery's herb section where I had purchased the last one. I left the dry twig remains of the last plant in the ground where it had been as a placeholder and reminder to get another one... someday.

A couple of years later, I found small lemon verbena plants available again at the nursery and happily picked up three! I planted two in the ground on opposite sides of the front path, and one in a pot near the house just in case it would do better there. All three have survived although the one in the pot and the one in the herb clipping garden always look straggly. The other one that grows amid the rosebushes is quite happy. A perennial bush, I need to trim it back in the winter to a well-shaped bunch of twigs and then it comes back with new growth in the early spring.

This year it was out of control by July. So I went out and began cutting branches off even though the entire time I had fears that somehow I was going to kill it like the first one that mysteriously died (don't all gardeners have unreasonable traumatic associations like this?). I told my husband that we would be harvesting the leaves to dry in our dehydrator so he could use the dried herbs in cooking throughout the winter. He was thrilled about that and lovingly kept me company while I trimmed the bush and piled the aromatic branches on his lap as he sat on one of the front porch chairs.

The scent of lemon verbena is quite heady even if I just brush up against the leaves. When I'm in there really cutting and handling the bush, the aroma is intense. The aroma of lemon drops enveloped me as I transported bunches of branches to my husband's lap again and again, enveloping him in their lemony sweetness.

Finally, after I got the bush under control, we decided it was time to bring our harvest inside. The massive bunch of limbs had to be wrangled in the front door where a bunch of curious kitties were waiting. The cats love when I bring in garden greens for them to sniff. They cry for them like I've brought in a vat of tuna fish.

This mass of lemon verbena really set them off. They couldn't get enough of it. They even started eating it! My ever-vigilant husband immediately wanted me to look up lemon verbena on the internet to see if it is toxic to cats. So I did. It turns out that not only isn't it toxic to cats but it is in fact one of 6 favorite plants that cats like to munch on alongside catnip, kitty grass, and others. Here I had a kitty favorite growing right out in my front garden and I didn't even know it! Silly me!

The kitties went crazy over the lemon verbena branches as I put them on the dining room table. I removed some smaller branches and put them on the hearth where they usually munch on their potted kitty grass. A few scuffles broke out as possessiveness took over for one or two of the kitties (Thomasina in particular). Who knew?

So now we have plenty of lemon verbena to flavor our chicken breasts and experiment with in olive oils, vinaigrettes, and herbed butters throughout the cooler months that are still an eternity away it seems. And in the meantime, I know what I can give the kitties when they need a little treat... lemon verbena!