What are your favorite herbs to grow?

[Maxamillion]

What herbs do you like to grow? What's your favorite one for cooking? Easiest one to grow? I'm trying to plan my garden for next year and would like to try herbs again. The only one I know for sure right now that I'll plant is cilantro.

[herbgeek]

Not surprisingly, I grow a lot of herbs. Mostly for cooking, some for medicinal purposes and some because they are just pretty. For cooking I'm especially fond of growing herbs that lose quality quickly once cut and therefore aren't as good from the supermarket. For me, that's cilantro, dill and basil. I use a lot of rosemary too, but supermarket versions are usually ok. I have a variety of mint called Marilyn's Salad Mint, which is a milder flavored mint intended for salads. I use this in a lot of things, because I find other mints too overpowering and masking other flavors in a dish. I like parsley from the garden too, it has a more earthy fresh taste than supermarket parsley. All of these are very easy to grow, the dill, cilantro and basil are easy from seed. Rosemary and mint either do not germinate well, or don't come true from seed so don't bother with those.

What kind of cooking do you do? That's going to be the big determinant of what to grow.

[Rosemary]

I love to grow rosemary and bring it inside for the winter. Some years it survives all winter, some years it doesn't, but it smells lovely for the time I have it, regardless.

Fresh chives are easy and very tasty for summer salads. Chamomile is easy (annual, but reseeds from year to year) and I enjoy its flowers in the garden although I don't usually have enough to harvest and dry.

I also like to grow flat-leaf parsley, basil, thyme, oregano (bees love it!), and cilantro.

Herbgeek, I'm going to look for that salad mint!

[peggy]

Thai basil is one of my favorites. I just love rosemary in bread, so I grow a couple of plants that I bring in in the winter. And I have a kaffir lime tree that I put out on the deck in the warmest months.

[herbgeek]

@Rosemary: as far as I know, that particular mint is only sold in 2 places. In Canada, its Richter's, in the US its Fragrant Fields. They both have a big collection of the Westerfield mints. These were cross bred for particular flavors, like a berry mint and a pear mint. The berry didn't taste like berry at all to me, but the pear was mildly flavored like pear. There's one that I forget the name of, but taste like a blend of Italian herbs that I use in marinades a lot.

[daisy]

I seem to do better with herbs than anything else lately. For perennials, I have rosemary, sage, bay laurel, garlic chives, chives, thyme, lemon thyme, oregano, spearmint, chocolate mint, Cuban mint and Mexican mint marigold (a heat tolerant tarragon substitute). In the summer I add sweet basil and Thai basil and over the winter I grow parsley, cilantro and dill.

There are also a few I plant just for bees and butterflies, such as fennel (bulb and bronze), hyssop and germander.

[puglogic]

We consume, and therefore grow, a lot of basil (3 dozen plants last year), tarragon, sage, flat-leaf parsley, cilantro, chives, chervil, thyme, oregano. In medicinals, we grow St. John's Wort, motherwort, valerian, and chamomile.

Daisy, we'd like to grow fennel but have never gotten it to germinate. What's your secret?

[CathyA]

I grow Rosemary in containers on my deck and it does really well and dries well for winter. I've also grown parsley, but sometimes end up sacrificing it to the butterfly caterpillars. I also grow chives and thyme, but Rosemary is probably the easiest and my favorite.

[Gregg]

Never met an herb I didn't like, but just plain old basil has to be one of my favorites. We lived way up in the mountains for a couple decades and basically could not get anything to grow (74 day average season frost to frost and with very cool nights in the middle). Basil was $4 for one of those little plastic packs that gives you a couple teaspoons. I hated that. Last summer, in what was a wonderful growing season in the high plains, our basil bush grew to roughly 4' high and wide enough that two of us couldn't reach around it. Packaged up and hauled to the mountains it would have been THOUSANDS of dollars worth. Of course the down side is that I got carried away and made gallons of pesto. It's frozen in small packets, vacuum sealed, so will last a long time and I've given alot away so overall I can only say...YEA!

[Maxamillion]

So many herbgrowers! :D


Basil was $4 for one of those little plastic packs that gives you a couple teaspoons. I hated that. Last summer, in what was a wonderful growing season in the high plains, our basil bush grew to roughly 4' high and wide enough that two of us couldn't reach around it. Packaged up and hauled to the mountains it would have been THOUSANDS of dollars worth.

I know, it's insane how much it costs.




What kind of cooking do you do? That's going to be the big determinant of what to grow.

I cook all sorts of different stuff, but my favorite is Mexican. I love pico de gallo, so cilantro is a must! I also forgot to add, that I'd like to try growing garlic scapes also; I just found out about these last year.

[Merski]

Lemon balm which is actually of the mint family. It also takes over like a mint so beware. Also like several kinds of thyme. I have a perennial sage in the garden and french tarragon, which is not doing so well. I love rosemary and bring mine in and mostly it dies before spring. Just may try starting some from seed this year. We also grew 2 kinds of parsley which we froze for cooking.

[razz]

I grow garlic each year plus spicy basil which is unique in taste, tarragon, thyme, sage, oregano, chives (not garlic chives) and peppermint has invaded from one little plant that I was given. I dry them as well for use throughout the year.
I wonder if I could grow some of the others mentioned? Hmmm, must look into it.

[cattledog]

I always plant basil, parsley, chives, mint and sage. I've planted oregano in the past, but found that I never really used it much in the summer.

[daisy]

We consume, and therefore grow, a lot of basil (3 dozen plants last year), tarragon, sage, flat-leaf parsley, cilantro, chives, chervil, thyme, oregano. In medicinals, we grow St. John's Wort, motherwort, valerian, and chamomile.

Daisy, we'd like to grow fennel but have never gotten it to germinate. What's your secret?

My technique is nothing special. I just clear off some soil and sprinkle the seeds and then press them in lightly. I would say I get less than 50% germination, so I use a lot of seeds. And moving bulb fennel makes it bolt, so I can't start it in pots. Here in Texas, it's an early spring and late fall plant and I have to plant it where it gets some afternoon shade. It seems to like to grow on the east side of the asparagus.

Both the bulb and the bronze fennel die back in the heat and re-sprout when it cools, but the bulb fennel won't make useful bulbs the second time around. I usually let it grow, though, and feed the foliage to the rabbits. It is one of their favorite foods and they will snatch it out of my hand and run away to eat it, as if I'm going to take it back. :)