Rosemary grows with little water, produces a great show of blue flowers in early March and feeds a lot of bees. You can even make all kinds of tasty dishes with the leaves and use the stems for skewers. It comes upright and shrubby or trailing.
The variety shown is ‘Tuscan Blue’, and has deeper blue flowers than the average plant. There are other types with broader leaves, narrower leaves, pinkish flowers and more or less upright growth patterns.
All rosemary likes full sun and prefers well-drained soil, although they tolerate clay pretty well. It doesn’t require fertilizer or regular pruning, although you can shape it into just about any form you want, including a low hedge around an herb garden.
The main drawback is that rosemary is flammable, so avoid using it anywhere that you want to limit fuel biomass. If you live in an area at risk for fire, make sure the rosemary is well away from structures and plants with high fuel volume. Treat it like a bonfire waiting to happen, since the plant contains a lot of volatile oils.
The leaves are great with chicken and pork. The best thing is that the more you use, the more compact and attractive your rosemary bush will be. Other fun things are rosemary bread (chop leaves and incorporate them into the dough), rosemary popcorn, roast chicken or pork, leg of lamb…
You can even use the stems for skewers and make rosemary-lemon chicken brochettes, something like this:
Rosemary Chicken Brochettes
Ingredients
- Boneless chicken, dark meat preferred, cut into 1 1/2″ – 2″ cubes.
- Fresh rosemary leaves, chopped
- Garlic, chopped
- Shallot, chopped
- Salt
- Black pepper
- Lemon juice
- Balsamic vinegar
- Olive oil
Method
- Marinate the chicken. Place the chicken in a non-reactive bowl, mix with lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, rosemary leaves, shallots and garlic. Place in refrigerator 8 hours, preferably overnight.
- Strip leaves from rosemary branches and scrub a bit to remove any bits of leaves or bark.
- Poke a hole through the chicken pieces and thread them onto the skewers. You can alternate chicken pieces with pearl onions, pieces of eggplant, etc. depending on the season.
- Grill the skewers over some kind of wood coals until they’re done (the juices will run clear if they’re poked). It’s best to use tongs to manipulate the skewers, since they’re more for flavor than structure.
- Serve with some nice garlicky pasta, some crusty bread or a risotto and you’re all set for a nice meal.
If your garden has some room, you can probably find a way to squeeze in a rosemary bush and have your own supply any time you want it (shear the plant into a vertical form if space is really limited).
Remember that this blog is written for California. If you’re living somewhere where frost bites deep, or the climate is otherwise unsuitable for growing Mediterranean herbs, you’ll probably have to content yourself with a potted plant on a windowsill or in a greenhouse.