Rosemary

We used to have the most beautiful rosemary. It was huge, at least six feet wide, and we used it all year long. I haven’t bought rosemary in years. If I needed it, I would just send a kid outside with a pair of scissors. But two summers ago, we had a “heat dome” where the temperatures reached 112 degrees. And after that, the rosemary just withered and died.

There was probably something I could do to prevent the bush from dying, but it honestly never occurred to me that the rosemary wouldn’t be ok. It was here when we moved in back in 2009 and I never once tended it. I took it for granted. But since it’s been gone, we just…don’t cook with rosemary anymore. I should just buy some from the grocery store, but I tell myself I’m going to replant it and regrow it and it’s one of those things where you don’t throw away that sweater with a pull because you’re going to fix it but you never do so now there’s just one more sweater in the drawer you never wear.

Well, on Sunday. Forrest took the girls to Fred Meyer to buy some running shoes. (For non-locals, Fred Meyer is like halfway between Walmart and Target.) And when they came home, they’d picked up some seeds. Some cucumbers because we’re all so in love with them that we always want more seeds. A bunch of flowers - zinnias and snapdragons and marigolds - that will doubtless end up in the girls’ garden and, when they bloom, in mason jars and vases on every surface in my house, even the weird ones like the top of the microwave.

And rosemary.

I guess they decided it’s time to try again. Which is funny, really, because so did I. When I put in my big seed order two months ago, I included a live rosemary plant. It hasn’t come yet, because our seed company has my back and won’t send it until it’s time to plant in the ground. They know us gardeners. If we get it too early, we can’t help but plant it, even though it will probably die.

So, after I finish this blog, I’m going to start some more seeds, and rosemary will be one of them. And then, just about the time that those seedlings are ready to plant, my order will come in too. And we’ll plant them all and hope that it works.

And maybe this time, I won’t take my rosemary for granted.