“Fresh herbs offer an astounding palette of vibrant and glorious tastes, but their delights go beyond the flavors they lend to food. For a cook, there is joy in simply handling fresh herbs in the kitchen. Who can resist stroking the proud sticky needles of rosemary, rubbing a plush sage leaf, or crushing a crinkled leaf of verdant mint between their fingers? When yous trip the fragrant leaves off sweet marjoram or tuck a few sprigs of shrubby thyme in a simmering stew, you feel connected to the soil and the season, no matter where you kitchen is.”
Jerry Traunfeld The Herbfarm Cookbook
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Here at Chiot’s Run I add a few new herbs to the garden each year. I have annual herbs that are sown each spring including dill, parsley, cilantro, chamomile and several types of basil. My gardens are also filled with all sorts of perennial herbs like: Greek oregano, English thyme, catmint, anise hyssop, peppermint, spearmint, chives, sage, and many more. I also have houseplant herbs, they usually spend their summers outside and winter over inside so I can use them in all my winter dishes these include: rosemary, lemon thyme, chives, seasoning celery, parsley, lemongrass, hops flowering oregano, lemon geranium, lemon verbena and a pot of ginger. I also have a few herbs that are used for medicinal purposes like a tea tree oil plant. Herbs are used here for seasoning purposes and for medicinal purposes. I’m learning a little more each year about using them medicinally and I’m quite happy with the results.
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It’s Jennifer from Unearthing This Life. Like Susy, I’m slowly learning more and more about herbs and their benefits for our bodies. But their benefits for our spirits has been well known to me for quite some time. Oh! The smells they offer us! The tastes! The textures! I recall being a teenager making concoctions of oils and vinegars as gifts, basing my recipes on herb books and my own senses. If I could I think I’d have an entire lavender garden to walk in on rainy days, right next to rosemary shrubs and thyme.
I’ve also studied the benefits of herbs for our gardens and how they affect my fruits and vegetables. Plants like borage and lavender can draw pollinators like bees and butterflies to your garden. Basil and cilantro can benefit tomatoes and peppers by keeping humidity high and help by shading roots.
Since we visited the Cherokee last year I became much more interested in our native herbs. Mullein, goldenrod, and other plants that are beneficial just amaze me. I never knew such wonderful things grew right outside my back door and that I didn’t have to special order them from some far away gardener. Now that I know better I’m not so prone to trim back all of those “weeds” growing around our lawn!
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What kinds of herbs are growing in your garden?
How do you winter over rosemary in the house? I have tried, and the dang thing just up and dried on me, spreading their dried out needles everywhere! I gathered them up and kept them in a jar, but I’ve not been able to grow them indoors. Any secrets?
Growing in my garden: thyme, lemon thyme, catmint, oregano, dill, lavender, sage, LOTS of sage!, parsley, borage, basil, spearmint hmmmm…can’t think offhand of anythng else!
I have had great luck with rosemary in the house. I put it near a bright window and make sure I keep it watered, don’t know if there’s a secret or if I have just found the right spot for it inside. I do keep it in a terracotta pot instead of a glazed pot, I find that for some reason my houseplants work better in these kinds of pots.
Sometimes plants do just fizzle & die, I have had a lemon thyme do that, but my current plant is 4 years old.
While I’ve never tried rosemary indoors, I have tried lavender. Our weather can permit those tender soft-woods to overwinter outdoors. Ironically I’ve had more success keeping lavender alive outside rather than inside! I have lost rosemary outdoors before only to have a plant living right next to it survive. Like Susy says, some plants can just fizzle out, or be a little tempermental. Best of luck with whatever you do!
i’ve got borage, mullein, lavender, rosemary, parsley, 3 kinds of mint, chamomile, calendula, coriander, lemon balm, stinging nettles, comfrey and sage. we’re just heading into spring so i’ll add a few more soon, but i’m not sure yet which ones. i too am learning a little as i go and have used mullein to get us through this winter whenever anyone felt the least bit sickly. it’s a real gem!
I keep wanting to dig up some mullein from the ditches. I do love comfrey and use it all the time. I don’t grow nettles but I drink nettle tea all winter long that I purchase.
I’ve just started adding them to my garden this year, so it’s peppermint, spearmint, chives, sage, parsley, basil, cilantro, shiso, oregano and lavender. I tried chamomile and mother of thyme but they didn’t take for some reason. Next year I’ll be trying chamomile (again), borage, rosemary, dill, more mints if I can find some yummy ones. I prefer perennial herbs, so I do tend to focus more on those.
My chamomile last year didn’t do anything, but the year before and this year was great. Keep trying, sometimes it’s just the weather or the batch of seeds.
I’ve not had much luck with chamomile either. My mints are outlandishly big, except for those the chickens have consumed. Borage is a blast and will self-seed so I almost consider it a perennial. Good luck with your new additions!
I have all those as well and just added feverfew to the garden this year – I’m wondering if I can use it over the winter since it sounds like just the fresh leaves are useful in reducing fevers and easing pain. I was hoping to make tea with it. I guess I need to do some more research. Do you know if you can dry plantein and mullein for winter use? Or do they lose their potency as well when dried?
I do dry plantain for winter with great success.
Chives, rosemary, lemongrass, thai lime/kafir lime, english thyme, “double” mint, peppermint, chamomile (will reseed, currently dead), tansy, basil (regular boring kind), wormwood, salad burnet, and lemon verbena.
I’d kill for a borage plant. No one in Austin seems to carry it.
Darth Paul email me your address and I will gladly send you borage seeds. It and chamomile reseed with abandon. They are the things I weed the most. annette cottrell (at) yahoo