Yes. It’s Thyme.

The backyard today, with the garden in the back corner

The plat of this house, built by my parents in 1959, clearly shows a garden, at the back, east, corner of the lot. My dad planted a vegetable garden there, but it didn’t do all that well. Then, he planted cannas, then some irises, and other things, over the years. As my parents aged, they did less and less yard work, and by time we moved in, that garden area was a huge, overgrown mess, with pecan trees (from squirrels, who put pecans into the ground with the idea of going back and getting them to eat during the winter, but, as far as I can tell, they immediately forget where the pecans are, and the pecans sprout and grow new trees). Those original cannas, sturdy plants that they are, were still growing there.

For my birthday and Mother’s Day, the first spring we lived here, Kevin and April completely cleaned out the garden. I kept the canna roots, and planted them elsewhere. I tried vegetables in the garden, without much luck. The next spring, I tried again, purchasing six nice tomato plants. I tried to be a better caregiver, and I did get a harvest. Six tomatoes. Not six tomatoes per plant, but six tomatoes, total. I couldn’t get squash to grow. I couldn’t get green beans to grow.

The compost bins–the right-hand one is for current peelings, etc./the left-hand one is cooking

I made a nice compost area in the yard’s very back corner, and, each year, spread the compost, with great hope, into the garden. So, at some point, I should have had really great dirt. But, somehow, not great plants.

One spring, a local garden center offered a Groupon: $10.00 for an hour of yard work. I bought it and used it for a guy to come and dig in that year’s compost. (He said I had really nice compost.) When he finished, I explained my lack of skill at growing things and asked what he thought would grow there. (I had identified one possible problem–maybe not as much sunlight as tomatoes, peppers, and squash might need.) He said “herbs.” I said, “What kind of herbs?” “Thyme,” he said. And thus was the thyme garden born.

The first year, I bought lots of thyme plants, and lost a lot of thyme plants. Then, I tried, maybe, three plants. When they lived, I added another one or two. And, over the years, I have, indeed, grown myself a very nice, thriving thyme garden. I don’t really grow it for its usefulness in the kitchen, as I don’t cook much these days. I grow it because it will grow in my garden. But, when I do find an interesting-looking recipe that calls for thyme, I’m very excited.

Last November, I saw a recipe in the newspaper’s Sunday magazine that looked interesting (and called for thyme!): Jerk Turkey. (That recipe called for turkey breasts, while this link calls for a whole turkey, but the recipes are essentially the same, but without the star anise and lime. And a baking time of a hour.) We had it for Christmas dinner. It was delicious, probably due to the home-grown thyme, don’t you think?

Recently, I was flipping through a copy of Cooking Light magazine, and saw a recipe for “Amp up your Plant Intake with Mushroom-Based Meat Loaf .” I’ve never cared much for mushrooms, but last Christmas, in addition to Jerk Turkey, I also made “Modern Green Bean Casserole,” in an effort to make our holiday dinner a little more interesting. It had sautéed mushrooms in it, and was really tasty.  I glanced through the meat loaf recipe and saw that the mushrooms were sautéd in that recipe, too. (I think I’ve not cared for mushrooms in their raw state.) And, bonus–Thyme! I made a list and went off to the grocery store. I did walk back and forth in the fresh foods section, searching for “cremeni mushrooms.” I could not find them anywhere, and I touched and read the labels of just about every mushroom package. I looked up “cremeni mushrooms” on my phone and read that baby bella is just another name for cremeni mushrooms, and there were baby bellas all over the mushroom section.

At home, I sautéed my mushrooms, stirred in the other ingredients, and, with great joy and love, stripped 2 teaspoons of thyme leaves from their stems and added it in. It was great meat loaf! And, we amped up our plant intake.

Then God said, “I’ve given you every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth
    And every kind of fruit-bearing tree, given them to you for food.
    To all animals and all birds, everything that moves and breathes,
    I give whatever grows out of the ground for food.”
        And there it was.

Genesis 1:30 (The Message)

God is good to us.