Ok, the second new addition to my container garden is Chamomile. I LOVE chamomile! I stopped drinking coffee a while back and have switched to mainly decaffeinated herbal teas as my main beverage treat, so I am very excited by the prospect of possibly growing and brewing some fresh chamomile tea! I bought some cut chamomile at the Farmer’s Market a few months ago; it was mixed in a fantastic bouquet along with fresh bay laurel, lemon verbena and cilantro flowers. It smelled fantastic while it was fresh, and I dried the blossoms to save for tea. The tea is SOOOO yummy and refreshing! I love it with lots of honey and a little ginger.

Here are some cool chamomile links:

National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

About.com: Alternative Medicine

Herb Gardening

eHow: How to Use Chamomile to Treat Sunburns

I recently bought a few new plants in celebration of spring, and so far, they are doing fantastic. I am really optimistic about their progress. They are all technically “herbs“, which is slightly new territory for me. I tried to start some lavender when we first moved in, and it failed miserably, so that shook my confidence for a while. The problem with city living is that all the plants need to be in containers rather than in the ground, and some plants just don’t take well to container life. Here’s hoping that won’t happen again. I have been reading up on all my new plants and gathering lots of useful information that maybe will avert a plant catastrophe.

The first plant is feverfew, which I have only become aware of in the past few years. It currently looks like a mass of parsley, but hopefully it will grow the plant’s characteristic daisy-like flowers in a few months. Feverfew is a pretty interesting plant. It’s been used by herbalists for ages to treat problems from headache to stomach ache to fever (hence the name.) I won’t take any remedy, herbal or otherwise, without my doctor’s OK, but I am curious enough to ask about feverfew during my next checkup, especially if it does work for headaches. I hate taking aspirin or acetaminophen.

It seems to be a very hearty plant, as well. It’s been just over a week since I transplanted it, and it looks like it’s grown at least 25%. I am not sure if credit belongs to all the rain we’ve been having, or the past few days or sunshine, or the Miracle Gro potting soil, or a combination of all those things, but I am really happy with the results.

I am slightly concerned that the pots I used for transplanting aren’t quite big enough to accommodate all this rapid growth. Then again, I only have a limited amount of space available for plants, so maybe I should keep them in the smaller containers to keep them from growing out of control.

Ok, so the next post will be about the next plant: chamomile.