FROM THE SCRAMBLE LIBRARY
LOCAL BOUNTY AND HERBS
After a dreary East Coast winter, I’m like a kid in a candy shop when I get near all the fresh locally grown fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers that are springing up at my neighborhood Farmer’s Market (or farm stands for those of you who are lucky enough to live so close to the farms themselves).It’s not just the fantastic fresh flavors of the locally grown produce (often picked that very morning by the tireless farmers) that gets me up early on Saturdays: It’s also the knowledge that I’m supporting local farms and buying produce that is likely to be lower in pesticides than conventional produce, and that hasn’t been shipped great distances to reach my kitchen, draining our natural resources and polluting the environment.
One big money and waste saver I’ve discovered is buying my own fresh herbs and planting them in large pots on my deck. It only takes about 10 minutes to transfer a few basic herbs from temporary pots from the farmer’s market or garden store to larger pots or soil in a sunny spot in your yard. My fresh herbs flavor countless meals in the warm mid-Atlantic months, and save us a lot of money that would otherwise be spent buying expensive packets of herbs at the supermarket, which always seem to wilt too quickly. (Hint: Generally you can substitute three times the amount of fresh herbs for dried herbs in a recipe.)