OT: cutting rosemary

I cut a sprig at a time. If you cut to maintain the shape and using the scraps for cooking, all the growing ends get cut off.

I keep mine outside in the weather. It is now huge. I couldn't keep one alive in the house. Do you have a veranda where it could live?

Congratulations on a new flat!

No outside space, except for a shared, neglected courtyard, which is tiny and in total shade - something which I know is wrong for rosemary. In any case, if it was down there, I'd forget to use it :-)

So, it is better to cut, say, 2 2 inch pieces than one 4 inch piece (given that mine is still pretty small)?

Thanks! Hanne in CPH

That would be best, assuming you want to keep the plant in some sort of specific shape. Also, remember to cut from different areas of the plant. To encourage new growth, cut just ABOVE a "junction" where another sprig or little leaves is/are growing -- not in the middle of the stem area. CiaoMeow >^;;^<

PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at

Thank you both so much.

I don't have a good track record for keeping plants alive, but I really want to!

Hanne

Hi Hanne, If you cut a sprig, you can just hold it at the top and run your 2 fingers down the stem and kind of "scrape" the rosemary off. Rosemary is my favorite herb, I use it a lot. Also, one more tip - if you like prawns or shrimp, save your heftier cuttings. You can skewer shrimp on them and grill or broil them, and it will infuse the most delightful rosemary flavor into the shrimp while cooking, from the inside out. You can also toss the stems into a bottle of olive oil and have rosemary infused oil, great for homemade salad dressings. Good luck!

Patti (formerly) in Seattle

I have three huge rosemary plants that I've nurtured through two winters now inside the house (outside in their pots for the summer) and use it all the time. The sturdier twigs are incredible when used as skewers for any kind of meat on a grill. Especially lamb. We get a small lamb roast and just cut off pieces that are about the right size to cook quickly on the grill. Skewer each piece with rosemary. Skewer a few fresh figs (a real rare treat up here in the inland Northwest) or apricots with rosemary and grill away. Yummmmmmm.

Sunny

We also have "runaway" rosemary bushes here -- they grow literally like weeds. However, I do love the smell and taste, so we use it to cook with. Yummy!

South Cal, Las Vegas...

Now you know why I'm not keen to bother trying rosemary outside in the shaded courtyard in DENMARK!!! I'm way up north here :-)

Hanne in CPH

Are you trying to tell us that you live in a slightly different climate, Hanne? ;)

Having once spent January to April in the SF Bay Area, yes, we don't even get weather like that most of the summer. But I'm happier with this climate anyway. Although the poinsetta _bush_ that grew outside my window there will never be forgotten - here they are feeble things you buy in a pot at Christmas.

Climate makes a big, very visible difference to plant life. Of course, it is probably only natural to be excited about the exotic plants (that is, those that don't naturally do well wherever you are normally at).

Hanne in CPH

Unfortunately we had to remove our rosemary plants. I couldn't breathe when I was by them: ( So now, I can't even put it 'dried' in the cooking pot.

Butterfly (Down to 'dried herbs' which get changed out EVERY year)

We have it growing on the shady north side of the house 300 feet up in southern Scotland - we're at about the same latitude as Copenhagen. Our soil is mostly 100 years of coalmine waste on top of hard clay. Regardless, it grows faster than we can harvest it, and I can be so heavy-handed with herbs as virtually to cook meat in rosemary pesto.

==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === ==== Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557 CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts

Huh, very cool. Still, having lived in Scotland for a good while, the weather there is somewhat milder (but usually less hot in the Summer) than here. But daylight hours are, as you say, about the same.

Maybe I'll see if I can get this one growing good, then make some cuttings and try them outside (next year). Rosemary do grow outside here, but I just thought they needed more direct sunlight than that. Good to know.

Thanks! Hanne in CPH

Here in Manchester UK (not New Hampshire) I have had good results in getting rosemary prunings to root. My highest success rates have been when I have used a hormone rooting compound though they will root without it.

Lizzy

The Spring I was in CA, a friend and I went to Grand Canyon at Easter (beginning of April). I did a little research online before going, and brought shorts and a fleece (hot during the day, cold at night). My friend brought nothing with long sleeves or pant-legs. He ate dinner wrapped in a towel, of course being a guy (no offence to anyone!) he was too proud to take me up on the offer of a spare sweater. Over night the water in our waterbottles froze. Yet at lunchtime in the canyon is probably the hottest weather I've ever experienced in my life.

It is not like that here in Denmark. This time of year, we hardly ever get down to around 36 even over night. But temps above 80 are not that common even in Summer.

Hanne > At 7:30 here on my side of our desert it is 36 and windy out. Criminy

Save your money on rooting powder...crush an aspirin and make sure it is TOTALLY dissolved in warm water. Stick the 'rooter' in a cup of that--just don't drown the poor thing. It acts like the rooting hormone without the extra cost.(My grandmother taught me that one--its also great for cut flowers--they'll last longer when given an aspirin to a bouquet--change water every other day with a fresh aspirin. Just don't combine the aspirin with the floral packet if you get your flowers from a florist) I know of a gal that sticks a broken willow branch in with whatever she tries to root and has great success with that.

What about a 'grow light" for in the house? Those work providing you don't have the plant too close to the bulb. ((DD did a science experiment with diff lengths away form the light...those about 6" did the best.)

Butterfly (H>