herb growing in winter #4
The identity of the odd plant in my AeroGarden is no longer a secret!
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What is the plant on the right hand side of my garden?
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The plant in question is the bushy ‘herb’ to the right. It has dark green leaves and a thick stem.
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As you know, I am a botanist and if this plant was presented to me in any other way, I am sure I would have identified it immediately.
But the label said ‘mint’ and so I expected mint.
My first suggestion of mistaken identity came when I popped a few of the young leaves into my tea. The taste was terrible.
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Then I took a closer look. The stem was not square – an immediate identifier of the whole mint family.
So I went back to the package material. Possibly I switched the labels. Perhaps it was curly parsley. Deep frown. Didn’t look like curly parsley.
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All this time, I kept pruning and drying the leaves. My bottle of dried mystery leaves is quite full!
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What is it?
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Then I saw the flowers and took a step back. They were yellow and clustered. The leaves were compound, very hairy. The light came on! Tomato!
You will think I am a terrible botanist!
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So now I am waiting for my first tomatoes. I have discarded the dried leaves (tomatoes are a member of the nightshade family and the leaves contain a poisonous alkaloid).
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the unopened ‘flowers’ of my tomato plant (the hairy green buds) … in a few days I will have baby tomatoes!
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Copyright Jane Tims 2018
nichepoetryandprose 
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