In this video, we are going to be demystifying the ancient secrets of rosemary.
It's a plant that's been in our culture as humans for over 7,000 years.
We have history back to 5,000 BC of rosemary being used in human civilization.
So it's fantastic.
So with just a couple of simple tips that we're going to have you growing,
fragrant, flavorful, epic-sized, rosemary bushes. So let's get started,
Kevin Espiritu here from Epic Gardening where it's my goal to help you grow
greener thumb. Now it's raining. That's fine.
We're gonna still put out this epic rosemary guide,
but it's gonna be a little noisier than normal hope you can enjoy the peaceful
vibes of the rain. Okay. Rosemary is a member of the mint family,
which is really kind of the granddaddy family when it comes to a lot of the
herbs that you'll see in many herb gardens. So this video,
we're going to go all the way from varieties that you could consider to how to
plant it, all the classic care, light, sun, water,
all that stuff as well as some problems you might run into.
But then at the end of the video as we do here,
now we're going to work it into the kitchen.
So I'm turning this into a really easy and simple rosemary salt so you don't
have to spend $442 at the grocery store to buy some sort of bougie artisanal
salt. You could just make it yourself. So without further ado,
cultivate that like button if you would like me to bless you with 20 years of
epic rosemary harvests, and let's get into the video. Varieties and planting.
When you're looking for a variety,
if you look for anything with the word Tuscan in it, you're in a good spot.
So we have Tuscan Blue Tuscan Spires.
There's one called Miss Jessup and there's another one called Spice Island.
Those are all good ones. If you want to grow in a nice herb garden like this.
Now, if you're growing in a container or a pot,
then I would recommend something like Blue Boy or Golden Rain.
I'm definitely getting rained on right now. It's definitely not golden rain,
thank goodness. But that's another one that you could look out for,
for planting.
I do recommend buying the starts instead of trying to start from seed.
First of all, they won't grow true to type, generally speaking,
especially if it's from a saved seed, but at the same time, it's just way,
way easier to start rosemary from either a cutting or from just a straight up
pot that you buy at a nursery and you can support a local nursery. Okay,
let's talk lighting and placement, water and soil, and even fertilizing.
It really all is answered by understanding where rosemary comes from,
native to the Mediterranean. Most herbs native to the Mediterranean, full sun.
So here's my south facing direction right here. Sun's coming in like this.
It's getting sun more or less all day long. Now,
can it do well in a little bit less sun? For sure it can,
but if you want max bushing out, then go ahead and give it full sun. Water.
It can go for a long time without any water. That being said,
give it some. Definitely give it, some if it needs it. But you know,
this is a nice woody type of herb, so I do recommend not over-watering it.
It's gonna to have a hard time with that for soil. Again,
going back to those Mediterranean herbs,
that means loose relatively unimproved soil and it can be rocky,
can be a little sandy. You don't have to be too picky about it.
I will say it does perform better when the pH is above seven so from seven to
around eight or so, and then besides that fertility,
besides maybe an annual top dressing of compost,
just to fill your beds up a little bit,
you don't really need to fertilize it too much. It's truly a hands off plant.
Now, if you're in zones 9 to 11 I'm in zone 10b myself.
This can be grown as a perennial if you're in zones one to around eight or so,
you may want to annualize it, bring it in doors, things like that.
It's still a great annual,
I love seeing it as a perennial because then of course you can just use it at,
at will,
but if you're not in a zone that you can perennialize it don't feel like you
can't grow it. You can still definitely grow rosemary. Okay.
If we're talking about pruning,
I'm going to refer you to my pruning herbs video,
which you can click up in the upper right hand corner,
but it's kind of the same thing when you're harvesting it,
which we're going to do for our rosemary salt,
as well as if you're trying to propagate it, you're trying to propagate,
I'm going to take off some of this tall growth right here and we want at least
six inches or so, four to six inches, boom.
So we have our new young growth cause this is a woody plant, right?
And if it's woody, if you're propagating from down here,
it's going to rot before it roots. If you're using the tops like this,
it's going to root before it rots.
And what you would do then is you would strip off some of this and you'd want an
individual one, not one that has this sort of Medusa triple head here.
I might take something for example like this,
and what I would do is I would strip this off and then you could just stick this
into some potting mix, maybe with a little rooting hormone.
And you would have a nice new rosemary coming straight outta here.
But what we're going to do is we are going to harvest for our rosemary salt.
So let's go ahead and do that and when we get inside,
cause I am kind of sick of being in the rain to be honest with you,
we're going to talk about some problems that you run into while we make the
rosemary salt.
Obviously as soon as I get into the kitchen from outside where it was raining,
it stops raining. But whatever. Before we make our rosemary salt,
some problems that you may run into when you're growing rosemary,
it really is a pretty resistant plant. You may get some powdery mildew.
I have an entire article on epicgardening.com about that.
You may get aphids and you may get spider mites, spider mites,
probably the one I've seen the most. Again,
a whole article on Epic rosemary about that, but they don't like humidity.
They like dry conditions,
which is probably why they tend to get on Rosemary because rosemary also likes
dry conditions. But again,
full prevention guide on epicgardening.com so rosemary salt,
I'm using Celtic sea salt. It's fine ground, you don't have to use fine ground.
I see some recommendations for coarse ground.
The real key of making any salt is number one, the ratio. Number two,
the moisture content. So you don't want there to be a lot of water in this.
It was just rained on and it's fresh. So I'm going to need to strip these bare,
dehydrate them slightly so we get all the moisture out and then I'm going to mix
them in at a three to one ratio. So three parts salt, one part, rosemary.
Let's go!
[inaudible]
[inaudible].
Alright. We have this somewhat dehydrated.
I would say about six hours or so at 95f would be ideal,
but I went a little bit under that just because I didn't have the time,
but that's fine. So remember we're doing a three to one ratio. So one,
two. It's not like we're making something hyper precise here,
but I'm gonna try to get somewhat close. One, two, three,
throwing it in the epic spice grinder and let's go.
Okay, problem solved.
I'm actually going to add a little more rosemary to pump that flavor up just a
bit.
That's what I'm talking about right there. And look at that.
That's a lot better. There we go.
Well, the rain has stopped, thankfully,
but the wind is now coming on pretty strong, so I'll make this short and snappy.
I've got my rosemary salt.
You can do 1,000,001 things with rosemary in the kitchen.
This is just one of many, but more importantly,
we've learned how to care for it. Super versatile,
both in the garden and in the kitchen.
If you have another herb you'd like me to cover, drop it down in the comments,
cultivate that like button and until next time,
good luck in the garden and keep on growing.