Two Very Happy (and high!) Cats
Worked perfectly! Here is Eddie smpling the first batch....
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...4/ec8e10dc.jpg
and here he is encouraging me to cook some more!!!
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...1/ec8e1089.jpg
(see the Ladylike Edwina waiting on the table in the background...no kitchen for her!)
I also quickly learned to look on the bottom of the leaves....for bugs.... :eek: :eek:
250 Species of Catnip / catmint?
Heres a pretty good article on Wiki about catnip
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catnip
-- it says theres about 250 different kinds of species of catnip (if i read it correctly), so I guess it makes sense that some will be stronger or different than others. I remember smelling some european catmint in a plant store and thinking that it didn't smell anything like the stuff I had at home.
I lucked out this year, and found a huge cache of catnip growing on the lakeshore near my house, so i cut and bundled it all up, hung it upside down in the garage to dry out -- i have 4 very large ziplock bags very tightly packed with catnip in the freezer right now, just waiting to be made into cat toys :)
The best part? Once you learn to identify the growing plant, you see it everywhere. Its the kind of plant that can grow almost anywhere, but you can usually find a lot of them in fields, ditches, etc. Since catnip is in the same family with the other Mints, it follows along the same lines -- all mints have a square stem with leaves evenly spaced on opposite sides up the stem (too one too many courses in wild edible plants *lol*).
Did you know too, that catnip is good for cramps if used as a tea? Its a mild muscle relaxant amongst other things. I've tried drinking catnip tea before, but its pretty strong. Not terrible if mixed with other mints though.