Home Grown herbs

[balmagowry]

On the window sill: Mint, rosemary, thyme, sage, lavender ( guess you can't eat that)

Yes, you can! Sure you can! It goes very nicely with lamb, and it can do wonderful things with lemon. Mmmmmmm... lavender....

[FoodZealot]

Rosemary, basil, lemon grass, thyme, parsley, epazote and lemon verbena do well for me in LA. I also have ti leaf plants - not really an herb, but used in Hawaii as a wrapper leaf. Key lime and lavender have not done as well, although alive. This year I'd like to find a laurel tree and a kefir lime tree.

Edited April 6, 2004 by FoodZealot (log)

[beccaboo]

I forgot about my little bay tree, in a pot, and my catmint and my big tub of chives. And my poor lemongrass that died, along with my honeydew melon sage (it had lovely red flowers that tasted of honeydew). I try every year to grow epazote, but it never works.

[Naomi]

My lovely windowsill herb plants were over-run by aphids, so I don't grow anything these days.

How disappointing... Pennyroyal mint grown nearby apparently keeps the little blighters away.

[jschyun]

Chamomile (grows all over the place in my garden)

Munstead lavender

English, caraway and lemon thymes

garlic (chinese) chives, regular chives

marseilles, lime, thai, genovese basils

korean mint (quenip)

echinacea narrow leaved

peppermint, spearmint that just died

rosemary that just died

french tarragon

dill

summer savory, winter ones got killed

lemon balm

this silver colored herb that supposed to be for medicine but I never eat and just carve the plant into whatever shape I want, ball, square, mickey mouse, cone.

i forget what else since mom is taking care of it right now, hence some dead plants.

[bleudauvergne]

On the window sill:  Mint, rosemary, thyme, sage, lavender ( guess you can't eat that)

Yes, you can! Sure you can! It goes very nicely with lamb, and it can do wonderful things with lemon. Mmmmmmm... lavender....

Alright, I will give it a try. Thank you for the advice!

[Susan in FL]

Oh yeah, the lemongrass! I forgot about it, since it's at the other corner of the house. Last year's had grown about 7 feet tall, so I cut it down and planted a new clump next to it. I was hoping, but wasn't sure, but yes there is new growth coming from the old guy. I have a lot of teeny tiny seeds from what I cut off. Has anyone ever planted lemongrass from seed?

[balmagowry]

On the window sill:  Mint, rosemary, thyme, sage, lavender ( guess you can't eat that)

Yes, you can! Sure you can! It goes very nicely with lamb, and it can do wonderful things with lemon. Mmmmmmm... lavender....

Alright, I will give it a try. Thank you for the advice!

Somewhere in my To Be Filed pile :shudder: are a couple of recipes; I'll look 'em out for you one of these days when I'm feeling brave.

[GG Mora]

I can only hope that Jackal will have the decency to post some photos of his herb setup after blowing us all out of the water with his account....

I have a perennial bed just out the kitchen door where I've planted herbs among the flowers; here and there I stand a lovely big pot on another, upturned, where I plant the crybabies and menaces. Adds nice structure to the garden.

"Crybabies" (those that won't tolerate a VT winter):

– 2 types of Rosemary (1 a "prostrate" that weeps beautifully down the sides of the pot)

– Bay Laurel

– Lemon Verbena

"Menaces" (those that would choke out every other plant in the garden given a chance)

– Peppermint

– Spearmint

In the ground:

– More Lavender than you can shake a stick at

– French Tarragon

– Thyme: Lemon and Silveredge

– Sage: Green, Tricolor and Purple

– Lemon Balm (this is becoming a menace)

– Oregano (I prevent this from becoming a menace by removing all signs of flowering before it can even think about going to seed – otherwise it would be everywhere

– Chives

Elsewhere...

In pots on the deck:

– Rau Ram

– Rose Geranium

– Lemon-Rose Geranium

– Thai basil

– Lemongrass

In the vegetable garden:

– Basil (and more basil)

– Succession plantings of Cilantro

This year I need to establish a parsley patch (flatleaf).

I grew borage one year in my old garden (left behind when I married and moved) and never had to plant it again, if you know what I mean. I never ate any, but loved those pretty blue flowers in salads.

Edited April 6, 2004 by GG Mora (log)

[birder53]

.

– Lemon Balm (this is becoming a menace)

Our lemon balm also became "aggressive". Some research showed that it is in the mint family It will be relegated to a pot or flower box this year.

Last year was our first herb garden. We planted just about one of everything we found and prepared for a good show! The golden oregano died pretty quickly - not sure what happened there. The lavender, rosemary, basils, and sage did very well. Also had borage which was nice for the flowers unti some backyard critter ate it!

It's still to early to plant here in NJ, but please eep the lists coming and inspire me for planting next month

[sassybat]

we moved into our apartment in december, and it had a built in window box with a HUGE and happy bush of rosemary in there. that actually had a significant weigh on my decision about choosing that apartment.

this is what we have added since to the windowbox:

thyme

chives

oregano

parsley (but it was overrun with aphids until the SO's dad told us about this peppermint soap from whole foods. dilute in a spray bottle, spray down the plant, no more aphids. i just need to remember to wash the parsley REALLY well before using it)

i want to add basil, or get a giant pot for basil. there's just something about freshly made pesto....

Edited April 6, 2004 by sassybat (log)

[alacarte]

My lovely windowsill herb plants were over-run by aphids, so I don't grow anything these days.

How disappointing... Pennyroyal mint grown nearby apparently keeps the little blighters away.

Thanks, Naomi! I'll have to try that with my next herb garden planting.

[fifi]

Does anyone have a suggestion for a rosemary that has a columnar habit? In my sister's yard, we need to plant one at the corner of the BBQ area to anchor a corner.

The lemongrass is huge and flowering. That is really interesting.

[lorea]

I have

-parsley

-chives

and that's it! It's a pitiful little garden.

I was wondering...do you normally start your plants from seeds or cuttings? Or do you just purchase whole plants? I've visited quite a few nurseries and Home Depot-type places and I can only find parsley, chives, rosemary, and lemon mint. And I'm in California...I would have thought the selection would be pretty good here.

[fifi]

Years ago I (and my mother) used to start a lot from seeds because you couldn't find the range of varieties in nursery grown plants. That is not true here in SE Texas anymore and buy plants. We have specialty nurseries that offer a lot of different varieties and we seek them out. For the most part, I don't bother with seeds much. If I do, it is those types that I can "throw in the yard" and may the best survive. Check out the yellow pages in your area or ask around and you may find a local specialty nursery that can get you more variety. Then I tell myself that when I get back to full bore gardening I will start doing seeds again. There is just something magical about seeds.

[edsel]

I was wondering...do you normally start your plants from seeds or cuttings?  Or do you just purchase whole plants?  I've visited quite a few nurseries and Home Depot-type places and I can only find parsley, chives, rosemary, and lemon mint. And I'm in California...I would have thought the selection would be pretty good here.

Some herbs are pretty easy to start from seed. Parsley, chive, cilantro/coriander, dill, fennel... I believe that all of those can be direct-seeded in the ground rather than started indoors and transplanted. Tarragon needs to be started from cuttings - I'd leave that to the professionals! There are varieties like Russian tarragon that can be propagated from seed, but they're not the kind you want for culinary use.

Many herbs are perennials that should be able to survive the winter in California. (I have to bring the bay laurel indoors here in Ohio). If you ask some of the smaller nurseries I bet they could order some for you even though they don't stock them on a regular basis. Mail-order is also an option for some of the sturdier plants. I've bought scented geraniums (pelargoniums) from mail-order sources and they arrived in fine condition.

It's a pitiful little garden. 

Hey, if you can step outside and snip some parsley or chive, there's nothing pitiful about that! Any herb garden is a good herb garden, even if it's just a window box or some potted plants on the patio.

[balmagowry]

I have

-parsley

-chives

and that's it!  It's a pitiful little garden. 

I was wondering...do you normally start your plants from seeds or cuttings?  Or do you just purchase whole plants?  I've visited quite a few nurseries and Home Depot-type places and I can only find parsley, chives, rosemary, and lemon mint. And I'm in California...I would have thought the selection would be pretty good here.

That is not pitiful! It grows and you can eat it - nothing pitiful about that. (OK, so maybe it lacks variety... that's easy to remedy. )

I like to start most things from seeds or cuttings, but I generally end up picking up a whole plant or so as well. (This year... I don't think we're ever even going to have spring this year, so who knows what I'll do.) Here on this part of the Guyland we're lucky to have a pretty good selection; between one chain (Frank's) and a couple of good local nurseries I've usually managed to find most of the more exotic stuff I want. (I'm surprised about Home Depot - I haven't done too badly there in the past, though it's been a while since I've bought there.) I'm pretty sure someone has already mentioned up-thread that you can't start proper French tarragon from seed - only cuttings or a whole plant will do. Also, there is a superstition about transplanting parsley; it's supposed to be very bad luck. (Why? for a long series of mutually contradictory reasons, about which I'm planning to write an article one of these days, because most of them are quaint or funny or charming or at least interesting....) I pretend to be all modern and not care about superstitions, but when you get right down to it I don't care to chance it. My mother taught me never to transplant parsley... so I don't.

Actually, I don't have a lot of luck growing some of the easier things, like parsley, chervil, dill; fortunately in the cases of parsley and dill I don't need to because in my mother's garden I have inherited the self-seeders from hell. No - to be fair, the parsley is relatively civilized - in fact last year the Italian parsley put itself into a nice neat row, neater than I could ever have made myself. The dill... year after year, it's The Dill That Ate Long Island. I simply cannot pull it out or give it away fast enough to keep up with its invasiveness. Such problems everyone should have, I guess. So I do give it away, literally pounds at a time, and I also (as discussed on other herb threads) freeze enough to keep me well-supplied year-round. Of course some of it always ends up in the compost, so....

Rosemary and sage - well-established, years ago. The rosemary from cuttings, the sage from seed.

I like to start basil from seed, indoors, around - uh-oh, right around now - so that I have decent-sized plants, and a LOT of them, to put in at tomato-planting time. YMMV, depending on zone, of course.

Other things I've started successfully from seed, over the years: thyme, hyssop, savory, melissa, lovage, rue, etc. Last year the thyme died out and I got lazy and bought plants. Don't remember where my chives came from - divided, I think, from a neighbor's. Lavender - I've had better success with plants than seed, but I think that's just me. Oregano - cuttings. Including Mexican oregano, wildly healthy, almost semi-succulent, takes root if you so much as look at it.

I also like to grow scallions from crowded onion sets - in fact, although I've never done a proper garlic or shallot planting, I also throw a few of each of those in the ground just for the greens, which I love snipped into salads and some soups.

Oh, and I too, with rare exceptions, have had good luck with mail-order plants. Got all my roses (OGRs) that way, except for the rugosas which run rampant all over the island and transplant easily, then send out invasive runners in all directions.

Edited April 7, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[memesuze]

Of my two rosemarys, the Tuscan Blue is the most upright - it's now in its second year and is two by two by 2.5 tall, whereas the Gorizia is 3+ by 3+ by 3. In the original edition of Lucinda Hutson's Herb Garden Cookbook, she says of "Albus" variety: "tall and more slender variety...seems especially winter hardy; surprisingly, its blooms are white instead of blue." A fellow Austinite, Lucinda has written a great cultivation and cooking book - her basil cheese torta and her tequila margarita cheeseball are to die for.

Edited April 7, 2004 by memesuze (log)

[helenjp]

Herbs...sigh...I never thought twice about growing them in NZ, everything that I wanted to grow, just grew. but I'm having trouble adjusting to the northern hemisphere...every year, winter catches me on the hop! If not the cold, then the unfamiliar dryness does my babies in.

Any hints for a very dry corner overhung by the roof, flanked by two concrete walls, with a gas-pipe underneath it, which is therefore unsuited to anything deep-rooted, but does get good sun. It's about the only herbalizable spot I have.

Also lost my rosemary last year, thanks to overenthusiastic burial of neighborhood hamsters and goldfish at its roots! We don't abduct pets, we just happen to be one of the few families with a garden.

I have trouble with leafy herbs like rocket, as too many slugs and other bugs come romping out from under the trees at night, and the garden does not get enough sun or air during the day, but do well with the toughies like lemon balm and pineapple sage (have lost my ordinary sage), and an extra-tough Japanese soup herb. I also have a Szechuan pepper tree (very small) used for the tender green leaves at this time of year. Many people grow these in pots trimmed back to nothing more than a stick with tufts of leaves. Left alone, they will grow into very thorny small trees.

In the 9-inch gap between house and concrete retaining wall, I grow mints and thymes. Silver thyme and pineapple mint have proved the toughest, and they survive having bicycles parked on top of them - garden space in Japan is all about multi-tasking! Parsleys will survive here, but do not propagate.

Aphids in windowsill herbs? I've always found that plants allowed to dry out will attract aphids. And while excessive wind will damage soft-leaved herbs, a bit of a breeze annoys the aphids too.

Wishlist? Wish I could find a spot where basil would grow well -- in the ground, bugs eat it; in pots, husband forgets to water it when I'm not in Japan.

Wish my shiso (perilla) would self-seed itself -- I think it should be happy in dappled shade under the plum trees, but it certainly is not.

Wish my Chinese chives tolerated dry soil better.

Wish I could find a spot where lavender would grow happily in the ground (narrows eyes at altogether too huge daphne which occupies the only really suitable spot in my garden).

Wish, in fact, that I didn't have a work deadline this morning, but was out in the garden!

[edsel]

Also, there is a superstition about transplanting parsley; it's supposed to be very bad luck. (Why? for a long series of mutually contradictory reasons, about which I'm planning to write an article one of these days, because most of them are quaint or funny or charming or at least interesting....) I pretend to be all modern and not care about superstitions, but when you get right down to it I don't care to chance it. My mother taught me never to transplant parsley... so I don't.

Maybe it's "bad luck" because parsley seems to transplant so bady. Same thing with cilantro - so much as look at it with a spade in your hand and it keels over dead. Direct-seeded in the sol it does fine until the warm weather comes and it bolts.

[balmagowry]

Also, there is a superstition about transplanting parsley; it's supposed to be very bad luck. (Why? for a long series of mutually contradictory reasons, about which I'm planning to write an article one of these days, because most of them are quaint or funny or charming or at least interesting....) I pretend to be all modern and not care about superstitions, but when you get right down to it I don't care to chance it. My mother taught me never to transplant parsley... so I don't.

Maybe it's "bad luck" because parsley seems to transplant so bady. Same thing with cilantro - so much as look at it with a spade in your hand and it keels over dead. Direct-seeded in the sol it does fine until the warm weather comes and it bolts.

...and then obligingly reseeds itself for the next season.

Yes, that probably is the real reason for the parsley superstition, but the reasons assigned by folklore are far more colorful. They say that only the truly virtuous can grow parsley; conversely, there are those who say that an ability to grow parsley is proof of desperate wickedness. (If you think about it, these both mean exactly the same thing: one-upmanship and sour grapes.) There are picking myths about parsley and virginity; parsley and pregnancy; in each case, both pro and con. A superstition for everyone. There are several variations on the theme that in order to grow parsley you have to follow its root all the way down to the devil in hell and then back again; alternatively, that the root itself makes that round trip but that the gardener need not tag along.

Last year I discovered a related truth the terrifying way: there is another member of the umbelliferae family that looks like an enormous mutant Queen Anne's Lace but is actually dreadfully poisonous even to the touch; it is known as Giant Hogweed, and fortuitously I learned all this on the day after I discovered one in my cold frame and dug it out with a spading fork and my bare hands, thank you very much! How I escaped dire consequences, I don't know; somehow the luck of the stupid was with me that day. The descriptions in the following day's newspaper (what are the odds?) barely did the thing justice: it was some seven feet tall, its stem a good three inches in diameter; and its taproot (think: huge pale carrot or parsnip) certainly did reach all the way to hell and back.

Ugh. Though classified as an invasive, noxious weed, they are extremely rare on Long Island, and long may they remain so. Apparently the culprit was an accidental bird; I'm just glad the consequence wasn't an accidental disfigurement, or worse!

IAC, you can see why I'm quite happy to live by my mother's dictum.

I don't transplant parsley.

Edited April 7, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[robyn]

I have

-parsley

-chives

and that's it!  It's a pitiful little garden. 

I was wondering...do you normally start your plants from seeds or cuttings?  Or do you just purchase whole plants?  I've visited quite a few nurseries and Home Depot-type places and I can only find parsley, chives, rosemary, and lemon mint. And I'm in California...I would have thought the selection would be pretty good here.

I always start with plants. I buy a fair number at Home Depot. They stock dozens of different varieties. In prime planting season (now in north Florida) - the plants arrive on Thursday afternoon - and are pretty much sold out by early Saturday afternoon. I don't know about California - but your best bet at Home Depot here is late Thursday - early Friday.

By the way - I plant a lot of things - but I only plant parsley as a larval plant for butterflies. I pair it up with milkweed. Makes a great combination if you like butterflies. Robyn