Culinary Herbs

[aftermidnight]

Ah ha, mint, that's one I forgot. I only grow one, Spearmint a must for new potatoes and fresh peas .

Annette

 

[valley ranch]

I do grow spearmint but haven't used it, I wonder if we're talking about the same mint when we say spearmint.

Spearmint has a pretty sharp taste, maybe milder when cooked with potatoes, is it cooked with them?

 

[aftermidnight]

I like spearmint more than peppermint, not so sharp a taste, think spearmint gum .
I put a sprig in the water when cooking but also with new potatoes after I drain the pot I add a dollop of butter and some finely chopped fresh mint before serving.
Annette

 

[ninnymary]

I use thyme when I'm cooking steaks. Oregano in my tomato sauce. Chives with eggs, mint in fruit salads. Bay leaf with my spaghetti.

Basil I buy a plant at Trader Joe's and it keeps going for a long time so I don't bother growing it.

Mary

 

[valley ranch]

Chives with eggs, now that sounds interesting!

 

[digitS']

Spearmint and potatoes? Oh, my! I thought we were remiss if we didn't "mint the beans."

I nibble on parsley, not thyme. It is almost a fresh vegetable, parsley is. Other than an unnoticeable amount in dry herbal mixes, I don't think I have ever eaten it cooked.

Although basil is important, mostly for pasta sauce, I don't care for pesto. Somehow, that seems a shame because I do appreciate basil!

Steve

 

[baymule]

So far I have rosemary and spearmint, well established. I have a start of onions they call fencerow onions, just clip the greens and use like chives. I got a start of elephant garlic last week and planted it. I have dill about 2 inches high. I want a herb garden!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

In it's season I MUST have both Cuban Oregano and Spanish Thyme. I find the fact that they are succulents makes their use in things like horatiki almost indespensible (since they can be converted into oregano/thyme "juice" which infuses into the salad a lot faster that the "normal" kind does.) Alas, I live too cold to keep them outside, and bringing them inside to overwinter never really works all that well (they stop growing when inside, so I have to avoid using them through the winter (when I need them most) and take a little too long to return to usable size (they grow crazy fast, but I use/need three or four branches (oregano)/ leaves (thyme) per time I make salad so I still use them up faster than they can keep up.)

I also use a lot of mint but there there is a problem. My mint of choice is Egyptian mint (Mentha nilacea) which, unfortunately is too tender for my climate. And the kinds that ARE hardy here tend to be too coarse for my taste and grow a little TOO well (they become invasive).

There is usually some basil, though we tend to forget to pick it before it goes leggy and coarse. Plus most of it is "leopard basil" (my name for basils with purple splotches on green leaves) which really doesn't taste very good.

I also would like to have some pine rosemary (Rosmarius augustifolius) but again, too tender for here.

I HAVE played around with some more exotic herbs but most seemed of limited use. Zataar oregano (Originatum maru) is just too strong (one little leaf is more than a whole pizza needs). Conehead thyme (Cordithymus capitatus) is RIDICULOUSLY strong, so strong it's actually painful. Plus it's a PIA to grow (it took me buying four plants just to get one that lived more than one or two months). Tree basil (Ocinum granitissimum) just tastes weird to me. I use a LOT of holy basil (in tea) but it does not seem to work well when I grow it.

 

[so lucky]

I grow oregano, dill, sage, parsley, lavender, chives, basil, onions and mint. But what I use most of, that I don't grow, is chili powder and garlic.

 

[ducks4you]

I don't have a lot of thyme (or time) for cultivating herbs. I blocked off an herb garden that is begging to be weeded and revamped and I hope to do that this year!
I grow the easiest herbs: mint, oregano, common sage. I put them in once and don't have to babysit them.
Mint can be invasive, but my mint patch is on the west side of my house, where the house and backdoor shade 1/2 of it and it was growing weeds when I bought the house. Even so, adjacent to the house in the shadiest part, even the mint struggles without some watering. Still, I harvest it for mint sauce and fresh mint for lamb at Easter.
Oregano is just a tasty weed! It will and HAS taken over the bulk of my herb garden, and I intend to thin the oregano, if I do nothing else, and give some to my DD's. It is really easy to pull oregano out where you don't want it.
I put it several sage plants when I moved to this property. Only one survived, the common sage. I don't do anything to it, but I harvest the leaves for cooking chicken and turkey to season, even in the dead of winter where they are dried out, but still flavor very well.
I created a bed around my satellite dish next to a power pole and a sidewalk, where it was downright impossible to mow, and I plant 5-7 nasturtiums every year. They spread out and spill outside of the bed and is so much nicer than weeds. I have planted some bulbs there, too, the ones that I accidentally dug from another bed, stuck in my pocket and needed to replant. I am not sure that the peace rose in that bed survived last winter. Apparently roses are zone rated, something I discovered looking at a tag at WM for a pretty white rose that wasn't selling. It was rated zone 10. Could be THAT peace rose doesn't like living in IL.
I have Heard that Bee Balm is invasive. MINE wasn't. I planted it in a sunny part of my herb garden...and it died.
I think I need to plan it out better and I was considering blocking off each herb in it's own section with bricks. The garden is surrounded already with bricks and cement 1/2 moon bed dividers.
I am keeping a rosemary as a house plant. If it survives by on again off again care it will go outside this year as an annual.
Menard's'(hardware chain) clearanced some very nice basil last spring--75 cents/plant. I bought 5, kept three that grew to giant bushes, and gave my DD's 2, which I tucked in with their 2 tomato plants in a giant tree pot, and they grew huge, too. I harvested all of them before the freeze and dehydrated them, and they are stored in canning jars.