The Herb Shack

01/31/2025

This weekend is the 5th Birthday of the Market and the 5th year for our houseplant booth! Come shop the market this weekend for blue tag specials in most booths. Saturday there will be $5 drink specials & $5 pet portraits!
🪴🎂🥳

01/26/2025

01/05/2025

The snow has stopped (~8”) and now the freezing rain has begun. The winds have picked up significantly as well. Phase 2 - Remove icicles as they accumulate, watch a little football, and hold Vigil. This freezing rain looks to be at least a 10 hour event. 🙏

01/04/2025

If you have Lavender or Rosemary plants in your garden, you may want to try and protect them from the impending Ice Storm headed our way. Lavender is cold hardy, but they do not tolerate wet frozen stems well. If possible, cover and wrap them with any of these; frost cloth, burlap, sheets, or plastic tarp. Secure your coverings as I hear it’s supposed to be windy as well 🥶. Be safe out there!

08/01/2024

Planting up String of Pearl plugs and propagating a new batch. We’re always up to something! 🪴
String of Pearls
String of Pearls ‘Variegated’
Peperomia ‘Ruby Cascade’

07/25/2024

Come see us Saturday 10-2 at Douglass Loop Farmers Market!

Beautiful succulents! Easy to grow, easy to love. See Jennifer and Rudy at The Herb Shack .
And since this is summer in Kentucky, you might want to pick up some of the citronella geraniums to battle the skeeters with beauty.

07/14/2024

The best Farmers Market in town!

Let's talk salads, shall we? Starting with the humble and vibrant lettuce - a nutritious vegetable that comes in many varieties. Yes, even iceberg..And while any lettuce leaf brings a fresh crunch to a Dagwood sandwich or even finely chopped for stir fry and soups, I think it's true desire is to end up and the biggest salad bowl ever right in the middle of the family table.

But wait, there's more...

Lettuce is brimming with nutrients, such as fiber, potassium, manganese, and vitamins A and C. Besides, it's pretty and green and you can see the life and water going through its veins as soon as you get it home and in the colander.

Lettuce is abundant at this market and whether it's headed for a BLT or a Caesar salad, it was grown just for you!

Valley Spirit Farm and Pavel's Garden stock bags of life-affirming spring mix on their tent shelves. Barr Farms makes it available in their bountiful CSA boxes. Rootbound Farm offers bunched greens, kale, and swiss chard at this time which are sturdy salad builders. See Suzan at Urban Microgreens for the most succulent and savory bundles of flavor to blend into a salad! Fill your grocery bag at Garey Farms with fruits and veggies hailing from the garden rows of Paris, Kentucky, not to mention a slice of home baked bread that looks right nice next to a bowl of green.

If it's pasta salad that makes your dinner guests and picnic companions happy, stop by Lexington Pasta for every shape and seasoning of pasta for your hot and cold recipes. And for the last thing to go on top of a salad, take a culinary journey to Italy with products from Primo Oils & Vinegars .

Got lycopene? Bring on the red, orange, yellow, and purple! In an arm's length at any of our farm tables there's every tomato from cherry to heirloom. Kephart Acres features Penny's favorite picks for impressive heirlooms. And you'll need a hardy, ripe slicer for your cheeseburger when you visit Quarles Farm with all your summer fruit, veggie and yes, grilling needs!

Since salads are a free-for-all inclusive meal, don't forget to take our local growers up on the celery, eggplant, squash, radishes, onions, cukes, zukes, and herbs -that's right, get some fresh rosemary, sage and lavender from Jennifer and Rudy at The Herb Shack .

A wide selection of chees from Sapori Italia and Boone Creek Creamery don't have to stay on the charcuterie board! Get them into a salad. Mix it up with moz white cheddar.

Fruit salads are a creation unto their own and there are enough blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, peaches and apples to make a vitamin bursting and taste treat to battle the humidity.

And what the noble hen brings to a gorgeous salad is key. Passed your fed meet as well as eggs have their place and salads. If not just chicken salad or egg salad alone. Pick up fresh farm eggs from from Quarles, Rootbound, and even duck eggs from Slaughter Family Farm .

We are all grateful for the truck loads of produce and flavorful, healthy lettuces bound for a chilled salad near you in this steamy weather. Thank you family farmers!

07/04/2024

We have grown more Basil from seed and it is finally ready! We’ll have these available Saturday at Douglass Loop Farmers Market . Note the new summer hours 10AM-1PM.
Genovese Basil
Lettuce Leaf Basil
Lemon Basil
Thai Sweet Basil
Holy Basil Kapoor
Purple Basil
Cilantro
Dill

06/06/2024

EDITED POST: IT HAS BEEN SOLD! I’m selling my Strictly Medicinal Herb Tincture Press 1/2 gallon size. It’s in great condition, very lightly used. Price is $800 and these sell brand new @ $1995.
Kit includes: Hydraulic Press, stainless steel outer pan, inner perforated cylinder, 2 half gallon pressing bags (one for oils & one for alcohol), 2 pack of tubing, pressing block, and Making Plant Medicine book by Richo Cech
Please DM me if interested in purchasing. At this time selling locally for pickup in Louisville or Shelbyville KY. This thing is HEAVY!!! so not interested in trying to pack it and ship.

05/18/2024

Our tomatoes and peppers are looking ACE! Ready for your garden $4 each. See you at Douglass Loop Farmers Market Saturday 10-2 🧑‍🌾
Here are the varieties we’ll have:
- [ ] Chocolate Cherry
- [ ] Beefsteak
- [ ] Rutgers
- [ ] Sunny Boy
- [ ] Mortgage Lifter
- [ ] Yellow Pear
- [ ] Golden Jubilee
- [ ] Red Oxbeart
- [ ] Cherry Falls
- [ ] Black Krim
- [ ] Brandywine
- [ ] Cherry Sweetie
- [ ] Wisconsin 55
- [ ] Better Boy
- [ ] San Marzano
- [ ] Cherry Large
- [ ] Cherokee Purple
- [ ] Fourth of July

- [ ] Thai Volcano
- [ ] Jalapeño
- [ ] Habanero
- [ ] Hungarian Yellow Wax
- [ ] California Wonder
- [ ] Emerald Giant
- [ ] Banana
- [ ] Cayenne
- [ ] Serrano

04/07/2024

Jennifer and I just wanted to say thanks to those of you that stopped by our booth yesterday at the Paristown Garden Show. We had an amazing day selling just over 1000 of our 4 inch herb plants and nearly every houseplant we could squeeze in our vehicles. The line for our booth was 20 deep for nearly 6 hours so again, the extra work we put in to hand plant every single plant we sell showed up big time yesterday. 327 different people bought plants from us yesterday. No rest for the weary though as we are booked for triple markets next weekend. Jennifer will be starting her 13th season at Douglas Loop, I will be at the Waterfront and as always, we have our houseplant booth inside the Fleur De Flea Vintage Market. Huge shout out to Dave and Lisa for again just absolutely knocking it out of the park with the show yesterday. These guys are rock stars at staging these events and bringing in the folks to support the vendors. Thanks again and anyone needing information on these events, just ask!!

03/23/2024

Do you need some new plants for your Easter decorations?
We have these available at our houseplant booth at the Fleur de Flea Vintage Market.

Crown of Thorns - This is a beautiful flowering houseplant. The plant’s name alludes to the legend that at His crucifixion, a wreath or crown made from stems of this plant was placed on the head of Christ. Native to Madagascar, Euphorbia milii was brought to the Middle East before the time of Christ, so it is quite possible the legend could be true. Either way, it is a wonderful symbol of the Easter season.

Cactus Bunny Ears - a very cute attractive houseplant!

Both of these plants require minimal watering and plenty of sunshine. Grow joy! 🪴

01/30/2024

Rudy moving supplies into the greenhouse. It’s time to get growing! 🌱

01/20/2024

Just in case your perception of a greenhouse business is a stress free utopia life…. We sometimes have bucket 🪣 loads of stress and this week has hit us hard. 2nd time the heater has gone out on us in this bitter cold arctic blast 🥶. This time, our usual fix of a fuse on the mother board has not remedied the situation. Thankful for the backup kerosene torpedo heater. Hoping it’ll hold us until the heater can get fixed! 🙏🪴

12/10/2023

It’s a cold gloomy day in the greenhouse, but we’re working anyways. Break out the long john’s and heavy sweatshirts 🥶
We’re trying to get our propagation bench set up with heat mats and a mist system, but nothing about this mist system has gone smoothly. This mist controller is frying my brain 🤯. How could this be so hard to figure out and the directions be so bad 🤦‍♀️. So I’ve moved onto cold conditioning certain medicinal seeds for better germination when sowing. I place the seeds in wet sand in a baggie and place in the refrigerator for 4-6 weeks.

10/29/2023

We’re digging some Comfrey plants today before the hard freeze 🥶 coming tomorrow night. We’ll be propagating the plant for next season. We will wash the roots, cut them in chunks, and pot them up to overwinter in the greenhouse. Despite all the rain we received yesterday, I expected this process to be a muddy mess, but the soil was surprisingly dry 😳. Wow, what a drought we’ve had!!