You Grow Girl™

I had an amazing weekend. Yesterday I got outside to run errands. The forecast said it would be cold and wet, but it was the exact opposite. I'm NOT complaining. One stop was in China Town. I wanted to hit the weekend fruit stand (in front of China Town Centre) because they often have transplants of Chinese herbs for sale at this time of year. It is the cheapest place to get Thai basil! I picked up five Thai basil plants (because you can never have enough and I'm an addict), rau ram (Vietnamese coriander) and culantro (Eryngium foetidum). Culantro is a cilantro-esque herb that is related to the Sea Holly and is also known as Mexican coriander, cilantrillo, thorny coriander and pak chee farang (among other names).

While at the fruit stand I bought some fruit to photograph. For the last 2 years I have been collecting info, testing fruit (I can't do that anymore as I am not allowed to eat anything sweet) and taking photos of a variety of interesting and more 'exotic' (at least to us Westerners) fruit for a series I plan to do on Fruit of the World. Look out for that cause I swear it's going to happen this summer. In case you are wondering my favourite 'exotic' (god I hate that word!) fruit are Lanzones. They are a delicious melding of grapefruit (which I want to state for the record I HATE but it is suptle in this case) and lychee. If you have an asian market in your town go out and buy them right now! They are delicious.

Today I went to the Herb Fair at Harbourfront Centre. It was great. I honestly do not know why I have never gone before. My favourite booth had a variety of medicinal herbs on display. It was good to see plants I knew about but had never seen up-close and personal. Plus you could chat up the experts regarding the plants on display. I asked about the various artemesias. I have become interested in this plant ever since I saw a beautiful silver one with feathery foliage growing wild on the beach of Lake Huron last spring. And then when I read about its medicinal properties in Susan Weed's Herbal Vinegars article I was prompted to learn more.

I bought an excellent "Make Your Own First Aid Natural Remedy Kit" guide for two dollars and The Stevia Cookbook (for more than two dollars). Of course as you can already guess I bought some plants. I was going to hold off but then I found the growers tent. It was great. I was most interested in increasing my tiny gap in basil varieties so... I filled it. I purchased a lemon basil, Siam Queen Thai basil, Lesbos basil, a variety I had never heard of before called Marseilles and finally a sacred basil. I've been trying to get my sacred basil seeds to germinate and failing miserably so I was thrilled to find a container of four fairly large plants for sale at the Richter's booth. I'm starting to think however, that when I say "Oh my God I love this plant I've been dying to get it forever" that it has lost its meaning. How many times in a week can you say that to someone, especially someone who doesn't have a plant addiction, and have them feel how much you really mean it?

The last plant I bought was an Agastache 'Firebird'. It has lovely silvery leaves, tubular orange flowers and an amazing smell. The bees will love it. And oh my god I've been dying to get that plant forever and I really am very excited. In fact I am drunk with excitement over the many plants that were purchased in the last week.

The pool just arrived a second ago but it is too cold and windy to bother with it right now. Hopefully I will get a chance to set it up tommorrow. My potting table is cover in small containers of herbs and I'm dying to get them established and growing so I can eat them! This summer's deck is truly going to kick the ass of last summer's deck!