What Herbs do You Grow?

Stevia is very sweet, used to sweeten tea at my house, little bits of it on a fruit salad for breakfast, and a natural sweetener instead of Equal, etc. Gene saw it in the garden and did not recognize it, thought is was a weed, so out it came. Ouch! I will see if the grower has another Stevia plant on Saturday.

Basil, Italian parsely, rosemary and oregano.


Richard

Basil, thyme, parsley, dill, chives, lemon balm which I root out every year and every year it comes back. It's very invasive.

I am not sure what is an herb, and what is not, but I have (cutback) this year. All I have planted is basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage, tarragon, and the perennial chives. I usually also do flat leaf parsley, some dill ( doesn't last long enough), and a few others. Next year I will do a larger garden space and complain when the wife shakes herbs out of the bottle during the summer.

Bought three more florence fennel plants yesterday.
Also noticed the lemon verbena - with its leaves falling off now that it is winter.
Love taking a leaf and rubbing it for the exqusite scent and know it is made into tea (though I've never done that), but not sure how to use it in culinary dishes. I've just read it can be used in place of lemon zest in recipes, so I will have to try that, although there always seems to be citrus around here. If I'm not using lemon, I am using tangelo or orange zest. I also use young lemon leaves in some recipes. I suppose I could try lemon verbena in place of lemon leaf.

Herbs are Jean's department (I built the raised beds they go in, though), but here's the list:

sage (a perennial in our climate and now over a decade old)
sweet basil
Thai basil
chives
garlic chives
flatleaf parsley
French thyme
lemon thyme
cilantro

Mark Lipton

[Jenise]

All leftover from last year or prior years:

Sage
Oregano
Rosemary
Lavendar
Chives
Parsley

Replanted this year because last year's died, though it survived a much much worse winter the year before:

English thyme

Newly planted:

bay leaf
more parsley, to grow bigger and fuller before replacing last year's so that I'm not parsley-less
dill

Replanted this year because last year's died, though it survived a much much worse winter the year before:

English thyme

Newly planted:

bay leaf
more parsley, to grow bigger and fuller before replacing last year's so that I'm not parsley-less
dill

Thyme is usually very rugged - must have been drought, exposure or cold or a combination. Once it gets going you should never need to worry about it again.

You do realize that bay is a tree - a fairly large tree....I have always been content to buy my bay leaves - growing a tree is sort of like keeping an elephant in the garage on the offchance you might need another vintage billiard ball and need the ivory some time.

Parsley is of course a biennial and goes to seed the second year so needs regular replanting. I've found that cutting off the developing flower/seed heads prolongs it's usability a bit.

Are you planting dill so you can make some dough..... Some of the strains of dill are very ornamental - nice purple or bronze colours and they seem to taste as good as the regular ones. I like mine so much I can never bring myself to cut them. They are a nise touch in the garden in other words.

[Jenise]

Thyme is usually very rugged - must have been drought, exposure or cold or a combination. Once it gets going you should never need to worry about it again.

You do realize that bay is a tree - a fairly large tree....I have always been content to buy my bay leaves - growing a tree is sort of like keeping an elephant in the garage on the offchance you might need another vintage billiard ball and need the ivory some time.

Parsley is of course a biennial and goes to seed the second year so needs regular replanting. I've found that cutting off the developing flower/seed heads prolongs it's usability a bit.

Are you planting dill so you can make some dough..... Some of the strains of dill are very ornamental - nice purple or bronze colours and they seem to taste as good as the regular ones. I like mine so much I can never bring myself to cut them. They are a nise touch in the garden in other words.

Re thyme, that's what I thought! It's planted in the same bed as the sage, which has survived every winter perfectly, and the rosemary which survived this winter fine where the year before when we had so much snow it barely made it and the thyme did well.

Yes re the bay. And I put it where a tree will actually be an overall garden enhancement.

Yeah, I knew that about parsley, which is why I have some starts getting ready to go in as replacements, it's just that last year's came into spring doing so spectacularly well that I was loathe to pull it.

Dill dough? I...OH. I've never seen purple or bronze dills. How does dill winter over? I don't know, as this is the first time I've been successful at getting one started.

Dill self-seeds with abandon. You'll never be without it again!

Three types of basil.

We use so much of all the other herbs that we can't really grow enough. And, store or farmer bought are equal in quality. Even dill, which grows like a weed and spreads like one can't keep up.

We've switched to flowers and a couple of tomatoes -- and a single pumpkin going for the 500 pound mark this year.

I thought the purple dill was actually fennel? We bought some as fennel, and it is good caterpillar food in the garden.

I thought the purple dill was actually fennel? We bought some as fennel, and it is good caterpillar food in the garden.

Actually they are similar but different species.

I prefer anise as dill is an annual while anise is a perennial. Anise seeds are flatter and all parts of anise carries more of the licorice flavour. They are pretty interchangeable except for pickling.