ahhh... my favorite herbs that I planted are all in their pots growing on my back porch.. BASIL - 4 different kinds: lime basil, variegated basil, grocery store basil (from hydroponic basil sold in fruit/vegetable section); MINT - finger mint, chocolate mint, regular mint (i think peppermint?); PARSLEY - boy.. should have planted this from seeds.. I am having a hard time fining anything.. but I do have some curly parsley; CHIVES - one big bunch that comes up year after year.

I am also trying Mexican Tarragon.. a bit stronger than French tarragon. a bit of anise taste.

and... of course, CATNIP (for my cat).

so.. what does this have to do with salads? well, a few leaves of any of these really make for a salad with a taste of its own. Especially the basil. But I imagine any herb leaves on a salad would give it a unique flavor. most people add dried herbs to their salad dressing... but use mainly lettuce (I used to).

anyway.. here is one of my favorite salads - it kind of varies depending on what I have in the fridge and my mood.

• Lettuce. I like a mix of greens. I LOVE arugula with ANYTHING. it adds a peppery taste to the salad. and yes, I buy the bagged salads a lot. yes, I know that there was salmonella.. but, imo, this makes them safer now because the manufacturers are probably paranoild about anymore breakouts of salmonella. my opinion. but.. I haven't gotten sick yet.
• herbs from my garden. I pick the leaves from varied spots so as to not kill the plant. and you don't need a lot of leaves..
• grated cheese (optional)
• seasoned small beans (optional). there are some good ones in the mexican / soul food part of the grocery store (don't know if this is the "politically correct" name for these sections.. but you can figure it out.
• dried cranberries (optional) this gives a bit of tartness and sweetness. contrasts with the other flavors.

• your favorite dressing. I have a simple one I make: 1 tbsp virgin olive oil (or more depending on your oil/vinegar ratio), 1 tbsp of your favorite vinegar, at least a teaspoon of garlic powder, a bit of stevia.. and whatever dried herbs you want to add (optional.. I don't with the herbs on the salad). mix, pour, and toss. takes about a minute to make.

• fresh ground pepper
• salt.. I have a salt grinder and use mineral salt

take outside with an iced coffee and a good book, look at the flowers, eat your salad, then read your book with some good iced coffee.

Life is good.

Summer is great and its just starting to warm up in my neck of the woods. We put tomatoes in already but they got hit by hail.

Won't be planting much else as we are working towards the big move next year to 8 acres we purchased in Idaho. There we plan to do lots of different kinds of growing, house will have an attached sun room to get early starts ready, as part of the solar design. Right now all we are planting is concrete and pipes.. I am thinking of a rather large garlic garden.

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that sounds wonderful (except for all the work )

I gave up on the tomatoes... the tree rats loved them too much.

but, I sure enjoy growing the herbs on the porch. I got wild and got a pretty flower to add some color to the green.

I love this time of year.

Scorpio, have you tried planting your tomatoes in a pot, upside down....Its awesome... would probably be even better if I would remember to water them in this 100 degree weather!!

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I don't know... I kind of find it hard to do anything when I'm upside down! Just keeping my balance is enough..



(can you explain what you mean by planting something upside down? )

First, the "off-topic" part -- scorpiotiger, I dig your sig! The character of Roy Batty was indeed most interesting! Reading the quote from your sig, I can still picture Roy on that roof - the rain, the dove, his words - I just had to comment...

- Ahem -

Yes! I very much enjoy salads! My two favorites are chicken salad and steak salad. I think I could live year-round on these two meals alone!

I do not have a recipe per se... but for the chicken salad, I am quite partial to it being a "crispy chicken" salad. So I keep breaded white meat breast fillets handy in the freezer, and bake them up when I want a chicken salad. While the fillet is cooking, I fix a plate with lettuce, green bell peppers, black olives, onion, tomato, shredded mozzarella cheese, hot banana peppers -- and sometimes I'll add cucumber, chopped garlic glove, and whatever else I might have on hand. A touch of Good Seasons Italian, and I am ready to eat!

The steak salad takes me a bit more time to prepare -- basically the same as for my chicken salad, but I add a few fries under the steak, and add freshly saut�ed onion and garlic on top, with the shredded cheese over that. I always add a hard boiled egg around this salad, and a touch of Italian dressing.

Well, those are my two favs!

Freshly grown herbs at home... I think I will have to try that. I very much enjoy fresh herbs.

sorry Scorpio, I didnt see your question... I had seen the upside down planter on a commercial, and then saw on a plant yahoo group, that folks were experimenting making their own planters... Literally what it is, is a hanging basket, with the tomatoe planted in the bottom of the basket thro a hole... so the tomatoe grows upside down... I used a couple of those metal fancy planters... mine could be alot prettier.... here is a link that shows how to do it

https://www.seedsofknowledge.com/tomato2.html

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Looks like a great idea just me. I wonder if I could hang it high enough so the deer won't eat it. They eat everything; except for just a few plants. I wonder if they like tomatoes too. I know they eat trees. I have a few young oaks. They have cleaned off all the branches that they can reach. Looks funny. Only thing that saves me is the golf course across the street. They water the course even in this 100F+ heat.

It looks like it would be easy to water these tomatoes in this bucket type situation. You probably would not have to worry about drainage either.

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- Jim

Wasn't that a fantastic movie?? really made you think.. and so eerie...

I like science fiction like Blade Runner. I've read a LOT of science fiction when I was growing up, but it was science fiction like this, not the fantasy type science fiction (like star wars). I remember there was a library in the little town of Boone, North Carolina, where my dad was doing graduate work over the summer, and this library had a whole section of this type of science fiction. I was in heaven. Every week, my mom would take us over, and I would load up on these books. Then read read read ..

the Sci Fi short stories are great for this type of genre.

The story Blade Runner is derived from is "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?".. a novella by Phillip Dick who was, imo, a master of this genre.

Quite a few scifi movies are derived from his work:

https://www.philipkdick.com/works_stories.html
https://www.philipkdick.com/works_novels.html

hmmm... looking at these, I haven't read a lot of them. time to go to the library.




this sounds great! My husband would like this. I will have to try it.

start doing this.. and you will get hooked. but, I would recommend just starting with a couple of your favorite herbs. I love basil, and this year I'm growing about 5 different kinds. but, just start with one and see if you like it. I bought some of that hydroponic basil (with the roots still on it) in the grocery store, stuck it in a pot of soil, and now I have a nice basil plant with a lot of leaves.

and parsley.. it is so nice to have fresh parsley. Last year, it grew.. but this year, I've been disappointed. I might buy another parsley plant and see if it fares better. Ground beef, garlic, pepper, a lot of fresh parsley chopped, (add rice (optional)), stir fry, and sprinkle parmesan cheese over it. yum. (but I really like parsley)

Scorp, you'd do much better by planting Parsley from seeds; much cheaper too.
And so much Parsley I'll never be able to use it all. I bought the seeds at 3
packettes for $1.00 at the $ Store. 1 of Chives and 2 of Parsley. I'm saving
the 2nd Parsley one for Fall/cooler temps.

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