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Buying Herbs… the Legal Kind

Posted in Produce on May 16th, 2007 by mei| | 0 Comments.

Everything I love dies.

I hope this won’t happen with my newly acquired sweet basil plant.

Ever since my mung bean plant got uprooted mistakenly for weeds by the family garderner when I was in junior high, I was never able to keep any plant growing for long. Even the cacti plants I had in college all withered away. Talk about having a black thumb.

I finally threw in the towel and bought this basil plant since it’s simply just impossible to find sweet basil in the supermarkets here in Taipei. Wellcome doesn’t seem to carry any sort of basil in a regular basis and although Matsusei does, it only carries the asian kind – holy basil – which is more appropriate for, well, asian cuisines.

I’ve been mooching off my friend’s herb plants for the longest time but there’s only so many leaves a basil plant can grow between pasta sauce cooking sessions so I decided to get one of my very own.

For those you haven’t been to the Chien Guo Weekend Flower Market (å»ºåœ‹èŠ±å¸‚), well, shame on you! It’s somewhat of an institution here in Taipei and even if you lack the green thumb like me it is still nice to go there during the weekends for a stroll or pick up flowers for your better half. (Pale pink half-opened rose buds for me, thank-you-very-much :>)

There are several stalls that carry herb plants but I’d reccommend the stall between Section 1 and Section 2 of the flower market that sells only herbs. Each plant costs 100nt but I believe you get discounts for buying several but if not… haggle! Yeah, I grew up in Thailand afterall.

Besides flower and herb stalls, there’s a seed, seedliing and sprouts stall in the flower market that’s worth a visit. I forgot to take note of which section it is located but I believe it’s close to the middle and on the west side of the market.

Supposedly, it really doesn’t take that much effort to maintain these potted herbs. Just keep them in sunlight, water them daily and prune the plants frequently. My friend, Rose, scatter eggshells on the soil to give extra nourishment.

So far I’ve been doing all of the above. I do love my basil plant – just hopefully not to death.

Chien Guo Weekend Flower Market å»ºåœ‹èŠ±å¸‚
On Chien Guo Road between Xinyi Road and Renai Road
å»ºåœ‹è·¯åœ¨ä¿¡ç¾©è·¯è·Ÿä»æ„›è·¯ä¹‹é–“
Weekends Only

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Buying Herbs… the Legal Kind

Posted in Produce on May 16th, 2007 by mei| | 0 Comments.