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The 10 Minute Organic Herb Garden (And What I Made With Those Herbs!)

April 17, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

This post brought to you by Organic Choice. All opinions are 100% mine.

Last month I wrote about scaling back on our gardening efforts, and going from an entire raised bed plot to just a small herb garden on our back porch. Well, one month later we definitely have that herb garden. And do you want to know a secret? It took 10 minutes to create. Seriously!

 photo scottsorganicherbgarden_zpsf38320b4.jpg

With a little help from Miracle-Gro Organic Choice, and with some plants that were already growing, we planted this garden on Tim’s lunch break and weren’t rushed in the slightest! It was pretty awesome. Here are the steps if you want to recreate what we did.

1. Get your supplies. Select a container that will hold the herbs you want to plant, the actual plants (if you are hardcore you can buy seeds. We are NOT hardcore, so we bought the plants. You will also want Organic Choice potting soil and plant food. These are perfect for edible gardening; you can find the at major retailers!

2. Put a layer of potting soil along the bottom of your planter.

3. Add your plants!

4. Add more potting soil all around the plants until they are securely in place.

5. Follow the instructions on the bag for the amount of plant food you will need. A little goes a long way!

6. Give your new garden some water and some sun. You are finished!

About 10 days after we started our garden, I decided to make a delicious meal using mint, basil and cilantro.

 photo scottsorganicherbsfreshmint_zps8c09a1ac.jpg

I started things off with a delicious mojito. The plan was to serve it alongside our dinner, but let’s be real: I drank that bad boy while I was cooking! 🙂 Click the link for the mojito recipe I used.

 photo scottsorganicherbsmintmojito_zps658d37c3.jpg

Then I made a fresh fish dish that called for basil and cilantro. It was really easy, and the fresh herbs packed a BIG flavor punch. Wow…once you start cooking with fresh herbs, it’s really hard to go back. Good thing I have a ready supply on my back porch, now!

Tilapia with Fresh Herbs and Mango Salsa

 photo scottsorganicherbsfishdish_zps43e61e6e.jpg

This recipe can be found here. I just cooked the fish in a skillet instead of firing up the grill (in case you haven’t noticed, I prefer to save time whenever possible!).

If you’d love to give your meals a flavor boost but don’t want to plant a major garden, you can definitely do something small like we did. Miracle-Gro Learn And Grow is a great site to get tips and learn about gardening on whatever scale interests you. I noticed their site even has information on how to grow herbs indoors, which I thought was pretty cool!

What are you growing this year? Any favorite herbs that you absolutely MUST use fresh? For me, it’s basil!

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Filed Under: DIY Projects · Tagged: 10 minute herb garden, diy herb garden, herb garden, mango salsa tilapia recipe, mojito, organic choice, organic choice potting mix, recipes, tilapia recipes, tilapia with fresh herbs and mango salsa

Organic Gardening…For the Rest of Us

March 17, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 1 Comment

This post brought to you by Organic Choice. All opinions are 100% mine.

Our next door neighbors are a rather quiet bunch in the winter months, but in the spring, summer, and fall, they are totally boisturous, colorful, and have a lot of visitors over.

 photo medium_2642095059_zps06fd4727.jpg

photo credit: hello from lauren via photopin cc

You see, we live next door to a community garden. Yes, we are so lucky, indeed. The girls frolick and play alongside raised beds with organic goodness, ranging from chard to zucchini. We were even fortunate enough to be given a plot of our own one year. And we planted cherry tomatoes, all sorts of herbs, and strawberries.

Those poor strawberries never had a chance and didn’t amount to anything. And the tomatos grew with just ferver that they pretty much overtook the whole bed. We weren’t disciplined about keeping everything in its proper area, nor were we diligent about picking those cute little tomatoes every day while they are in season. That garden plot was a RED HOT MESS.

Only the herbs seemed to quietly keep to themselves, not causing any difficulties. They just did exactly what they were supposed to do. They were the rule followers of the plot, and they were just wonderful. Our food never tasted so good as when we added fresh herbs to it.

Now, we may not have been ready to take on an entire garden plot, but we did learn a few things, and we’re ready to try our hand at organic gardening again this year, but in a more realistic way for ourselves.

First, we’re going to go small, and do a contained herb garden that will just stay on our back porch. We can only handle gardening in small doses, it seems. We’ll be using Miracle-Gro Organic Choice for our potting soil, as it is designed to be safe for edible gardening. If you are going to be growing organic herbs, vegetables, or any other food this year, make sure you’ve got an organic soil product like

Miracle-Gro Organic Choice. The bag we’ll be using looks like this:

Organic Soil photo 72859510_22_zps758b34b4.jpg

From our experience, herbs are hearty, easy to care for, and produce fragrant, useful results that will have a major impact on how awesome your food tastes. And I know exactly what I’ll be making as soon as the basil is ready this summer: spaghetti carbonara

What about you? Are you into organic gardening? Do you have a kitchen garden in your backyard, or a community garden plot, or are you looking for a place to start if those options sound overwhelming? Can I recommend that you buy your favorite herb and in the modified words of Elsa, “Let it grow!!!!”

Visit Sponsor's Site Organic Soil photo 72859510_22_zps758b34b4.jpg

Filed Under: General · Tagged: community garden, grow organic, growing your own food, organic choice, organic choice soil, organic gardening, organic soil

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Grab your beverage of choice (mine is iced coffee) and let's hang out for a spell! I'm Tiffany, and I've rambunctious little girls and a fierce desire to share any tip and trick I can find to make lives with little ones a bit less hectic and a lot more fun. [Read more...]

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