Beginner's Herb Garden

My kitchen garden is stuffed with flowers and fruit, veggies and herbs. I grow spring and summer crops on the same soil. They go in turns, overlapping sometimes. My challenging climate allows little wiggle room. When the peas go caput, the tomatoes take over. Lettuces leave as eggplant enters.

How come the herbs have a full-time home? They’ve earned it, a full quarter of the foursquare garden. Herbs give me the most bang for my buck, sweat and very few tears.

Beyond baked potatoes and sour cream, chives pair with egg and cheese dishes, dress up vegetables and fish. A demure member of the onion family they grow in clumps, multiplying each year. The purply-pink blossoms make divinely colored vinegar.

Italian parsley is more pronounced in flavor than the curly variety. Parsley is a team player, improving the taste of other herbs in any dish. I like to use it by the handful. Replace it each year, or if you’re lucky it will re-seed.

Rosemary has a piney taste that stands up to beef, pork and chicken. Yet it stars in herbal teas and desserts, like rosemary-shortbread cookies. Rosemary is a perennial in zone 7 and above, and overwinters indoors in colder climates. Dainty blue flowers are an added attraction.

Thyme’s leaves are tiny but mighty in taste. A smoky, resinous flavor that’s hard to describe. Roast chicken with thyme and lemon is a simple sophisticated pleasure. At home in rock gardens as much as in herb gardens, Thyme likes well-drained soil, asking little else.

I can’t explain why my son shuns green beans yet adores pesto. I just grow more basil. Basil, the essential summer herb loves hot weather. Enjoy it fresh or freeze it for a rainy day. Snip the tips to keep it from blooming too soon.

Grow these herbs close to your kitchen door. The next time you find a delicious recipe asking for herbs; don’t trudge to the grocery store. Just step outside.