2 posts tagged “epazote”

Each year, I trek over to the East Bay from San Francisco to visit nurseries to find vegetable and herb plants for my window garden. There are two places that I visit each year. The first is Berkeley Horticulture in North Berkeley, which I plan to visit it at the end of this month or in early May. The second place is Long's Drugs, located in the shopping center at the corners of 51st and Broadway streets in Oakland. In past years, I also visited the Home Depot in Daly City, but I will forgo that trip this year.

Yesterday, I visited Long's Drugs after I had an appointment near the Piedmont shopping area. However, it was not without a protracted internal debate that I had with myself. The weather in San Francisco has been quite cold for the past few weeks despite the sunshine and clear skies. Yesterday was no different. It was chilly in the city and not much warmer in the East Bay. I ultimately decided to visit the drug store as I was nearby and I wasn't sure if I wanted to make a special trip.

Long's Drugs has a huge selection of plants and gardening supplies, and unlike Berkeley Horticulture, the prices are much more affordable. Long's also offers a small selection organic plants. Many of the plants are located right outside the front door, but inside there is a special section devoted plants and a larger section devoted to gardening supplies.

In past years, I have had success with cherry tomatoes and pepper plants (though usually not at the same time) despite the shallow depth of my planters and the minimal amount of available sunshine. I have been able to maintain a few herbs from year to year, which include oregano and two kinds of thyme.

Last year, I was fortunate to find Epazote plants at Whole Foods in San Francisco. Epazote is an herb commonly used to flavor black beans. Unfortunately, both plants died with the approach of the winter months.

Only my three avocado plants have managed to survive from year to year. I should probably transplant them to a pot that is larger and has greater depth so the plants can grow taller. It would also free up space in my window planters.

This year, I bought six veggie plants at Long's, most of which are tomato plants. I purchased the "Patio" tomato since it might work best for my planters. I bought a tomato plant called "Super Italian Paste" that I assume would be good for making Italian red sauce. The tomatoes on the label appear to be elongated like plum tomatoes, but with a mixture of red, orange and yellow coloring. I also bought a "Green Grape" as I have had luck with cherry tomatoes in the past, and I bought a "Cherokee Purple" since the name intrigued me ( and purple is my favorite color). Lastly, I bought a "Moroccan" mint herb seedling and a "Fresno" chili pepper plant.

I hope to have better success with my garden than last year. I think most of my plants died from pests. I need to research pest deterrents such as the use Lady Bugs to keep away that aphids that have plagued my tomato plants. I will need to purchase a bag of top soil and stakes for when my tomato plants get big.

For now, I want to ensure my new acquisitions don't die from the cold weather.

Several weeks ago, while perusing the plant offerings at Whole Foods, I came across a prized find for this lover of Latin American cuisine: epazote. epazote, sometimes referred to as Mexican tea, is often used to flavor black beans and I had been looking for it for years. Several years ago, during a trip to Oaxaca, the culinary capital of Mexico, I was unable to find any epazote to bring back with me from my trip. That might not be too uncommon since black beans, or frijoles negros, are more common to Cuban cooking than Mexican though I do know from Rick Bayless cookbooks that it is called for in other Mexican recipes.

I was quite pleased to find the epazote plants and I promptly brought home three plants to add to my annual spring planting. My epazote plants have sprouted up quite nicely in the few short weeks that I have planted them. I have already begun to use the epazote leaves when cooking up pots or even canned black beans and I hope to dry some later in the growing season so I may have epazote available during the winter months. Below are a couple of photo of the epazote in my window planter.