2014-04-28-Herbs
Seminars@Hadley
Have a Great Thyme with Herbs
Presented by
Ed Haines
Moderated by
Dawn Turco
April 28, 2014
Dawn Turco
Good afternoon, and welcome to today’s
Seminars@Hadley. I am Dawn Turco and I will be
moderating our seminar. Today’s topic is Have a
Great Thyme with Herbs. And we spelled that thyme
T-H-Y-M-E just in case you hadn’t noticed. So, a little
humor on this chilly afternoon. We’re thrilled to have
our presenter return. Ed Haines is a part time
instructor with Hadley and amongst his teaching
responsibilities is the course Container Gardening.
So, a couple months back when we were conceiving
this topic in what was a particularly brutal winter in
both of our states, Ed and I live in different states, we
thought it would be great to be thinking about planting
and springtime, and here we are ready to learn
something about herb gardening and as a home cook
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I am particularly interested in this topic and will be
taking notes.
Ed, I am a beginner with this sort of thing and hope to
improve once the ground thaws a little bit. So, having
said that, let me not take up any more of Ed’s time
and I will release the microphone. Ed Haines, thank
you for joining us and presenting on today’s topic.
Ed Haines
Well, thank you Dawn, and welcome. Good afternoon
everyone. If you can’t be outside gardening, the next
best thing is to be inside talking about gardening, and
I think on a day like today, most of us are trapped
inside, so why not discuss one of our favorite hobbies.
I’m really pleased to be talking with you today about
herbs and growing herbs and actually, I wanted to
start the conversation with a joke about herb
gardening, and I don’t know any, and I actually
Googled, looking for a joke, and there don’t seem to
be any jokes about herb gardening. I guess
gardeners are literal-minded so, sadly, there’s no
opening joke, but I do want to say that cultivating
herbs is just a wonderful hobby and a wonder
pastime.
You know, herb gardening and herb cultivation had
been with humankind for literally thousands of years.
And the great thing about a lot of these plants is that
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they lend themselves to a multitude of gardening
circumstances. From large herb farms, for instance,
to just a few containers on a patio. You folks probably
know this, but there are records of the ancient
Romans growing and using herbs for a lot of
purposes. Native Americans on this continent have a
huge body of knowledge regarding indigenous herbs
and, of course, lots of cultures in Asia and South Asia
have been using medicinal and culinary herbs as long
as written history.
So, when you grow your own herbs, you’re really
taking part in a human endeavor that’s been with us
for many, many years. It’s really, I think it’s safe to
say, there’s no spot on the planet where people have
not had a long relationship with herbs.
Now, that being said, we need to define what an herb
is and, of course, herbs are marketed as dried,
powdery things that we get in little containers in the
grocery store. Or, some of us think of herbs as little
plants that grow in little containers on our window sill.
And unless you’ve visited a really good herb garden
or shopped at specialty nurseries that’s often how
herbs are marketed to the public and that’s how we
imagine them.
However, herbs have a very broad definition and, in
fact, if you do some research you will discover there is
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no real agreement on what constitutes an herb.
There’s actually some debate on the subject. For
instance, there’s a school of thought that feels spices,
like say Cloves or Cinnamon, are a separate category
from herbs. Other people think that herbs and spices
are one and the same.
If you go to Webster’s Dictionary, you will find a
definition that says an herb is quote “a plant or part of
a plant that’s used as medicine or to give flavor to
food.” Another definition I’ve read is herbs are quote,
“any plant with a useful property.” Now, obviously,
that particular definition puts a lot of plants into the
category of herb, including trees and shrubs and
grains and things like that, that most gardeners, I
certainly don’t grow in my garden beds, and I don’t
grow them in containers.
The definition I prefer is from the United States
National Arboretum in Washington, DC. And it
defines herbs as quote “an herb is any plant that
serves a purpose other than providing food, wood or
beauty.” And for me, I think that’s a useful definition,
because that does leave out vegetables and grains
and trees that we harvest for paper or fuel, and just
flowers that we grow generally to enjoy visually.
Now, as you can see, herbs can encompass many,
many kinds of plants, even with that restriction. So, I
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really am going to focus my presentation today on
culinary herbs. And I just can’t cover everything all in
one hour, so bearing in mind the definition I just
mentioned, culinary herbs are edible, but they aren’t
necessarily plants you’re using for food. You’re using
culinary herbs to impart flavor to food. As I said, we
have a limited amount of time and I can’t begin to
cover the many types of useful herbs, nor do I know a
lot about all the types of useful herbs, herbs, for
instance, that are for medicinal purposes or for
manufacturing purposes, such as herbs that are used
to dye cloth, et cetera.
If you go to your local library you’ll find there are
many, many volumes of books devoted to medicinal
herbs, for instance.
So, I’m going to talk about culinary herbs for several
reasons. The first reason is that I believe culinary
herbs are some of the most easy and satisfying plants
to grow. They are usually very hardy. And by that I
mean they’re able to tolerate quite a great deal of
neglect if not a certain amount of neglect. And they’re
able to withstand all the assaults of insects and
weather and temperature fluctuations that, if any of
you who are gardeners, are very familiar with that can
wreak havoc in your garden.
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Secondly, culinary herbs, often do double or triple
duty in the garden. And what do I mean by that?
Herbs that you grow are not only used for making
your cooking taste fantastic. But they also often have
lovely blooms that you can enjoy or use in flower
arrangements. And they have just wonderful
fragrances as growing plants. So, double or triple
duty – that’s what I love about them.
Now, thirdly, culinary herbs are usually fairly easy to
buy or to find in local gardening stores and even, of
course, in the gardening departments of the larger
“big box” stores, and you know what those are. A lot
of medicinal herbs are more obscure. You have to
really search of them in special herbal nurseries and
catalogs, but culinary herbs, particularly the common
ones, they can really be found almost anywhere.
And, finally, as I said before, culinary herbs can be
grown in large garden beds, in large quantities, or in
small containers in quite small quantities and they can
be equally satisfying and fun to grow.
So, how easy is it to grow culinary herbs? I tell you
what – it’s easy. Here’s all you need to get started.
Find a simple container - that can be made from all
sorts of different materials. A bucket, a flowerpot, et
cetera. Just make sure it has some drainage holes in
the bottom to let water drain out. Herbs don’t like wet
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roots or as gardeners call them, wet feet. Then you
need some growing medium, some potting mix and
then finally you need a few herb transplants.
Now let me stop for a moment here and talk briefly
about transplants. You can grow most herbs from
seeds and the idea of growing a plant from a seed is
certainly very appealing because you’re planting this
tiny little thing and you’re getting a complete plant as
a result. And there’s nothing that can beat that
experience. But, the process can take quite a long
time. Transplants can be purchased easily in most
garden centers and they really cut short the amount of
growing time you have before you’re able to harvest
your product. For me, that’s a big plus. I have a very
short attention span and I want immediate results and
the quicker I can go from planting to harvesting, the
happier I am. Some of you may have a little more
patience than me and that’s fine.
Also, there’s some culinary herbs that take a couple
seasons to really mature, so if you have a semimature plant already, and you put that in the ground
or in your container, you’re way ahead of the game. If
you are like me, and you live in a part of the United
States or Canada that has a change of seasons, this
is particularly true. I have a very short growing
season where I live, so I need to be ahead of my
game as much as possible. If you live in the far south
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of the United States, you may be able to grow herbs
all year around and, you know, therefore using seed
to start your garden might be more practical.
So, that’s all you need. A simple container with
drainage, some potting mix, a couple of transplants,
and of course a little bit of water. I actually don’t think
you need any special gardening tools for herb
gardening, particularly if you’re gardening in
containers and using potting mix. You don’t need a
trowel or a digging tool if you want to keep it simple. I
use my hands.
Another thing I love about gardening in general, it
really is a tactile activity. Now, just one word of
caution, and this is something that there’s really not a
lot of wiggle room about, most herbs prefer a good
amount of sunlight. So you need to identify which
part of your porch or your patio or what window you’re
going to grow your herbs in, and make sure that spot
gets a good five to six hours of sunlight daily, more if
possible. So most herbs need a good sunny location.
They won’t thrive in shade.
So, we’ve identified that we’re going to talk about
culinary herbs today. And I’d like to talk about some
specific types of culinary herbs that I recommend
folks try to grow. Most of these are easily available
and I’ve chosen these particular ones because I think
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they have such a huge payoff in terms of their
versatility, hardiness and their usefulness in the
kitchen. Oh – I should warn you as well, because
we’re talking about culinary herbs we occasionally I’ll
be bringing up the subject of food. So if you went
without lunch, my apologies – I’ll try not to make
anybody hungry. But I just can’t talk about herbs
without talking about the food that they go in. So, be
warned.
All right. Here’s my, almost my first choice for any
gardener who wants to grow a culinary herb. This
plant is incredibly hardy. That means it’s tough. It
multiplies, so you can divide it each season. It has
wonderful flowers and it can self-seed. By that I
mean it can produce fertile seed that will fall to your
soil and grow again into small plants. It’s a fantastic
garnish or flavoring in many dishes and I’m talking
about Chives. C-H-I-V-E-S - Chives.
First choice – right off the top. Chives are in the onion
or the garlic family. And the foliage is wonderful. It
consists of clumps of green shoots that rise above the
soil about twelve to sixteen inches high. Almost like
clusters of bright green knitting needles. It’s very,
very cheerful. And these shoots, actually they’re
leaves, they can be harvested when they’re very
small or very large. You just snip them off a couple
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inches above the soil line and they have a mild,
oniony taste, but very mild and quite nice.
I also like the chive flowers. They really look great.
They’re a bright purple, or bluish-purple ball that rises
up above the clumps of foliage on just a single stem,
like a pompon. A bit bigger than a ping pong ball. It
almost looks like the kind of flower that you might see
in a Dr. Seuss illustration. And the great thing about
them, in addition to them being very pretty, is that
they’re edible. So, they make a terrific garnish for
salads, but they also just look beautiful in your
garden.
And I mentioned already, if you don’t pick the flowers,
eventually they turn brown and the seeds mature and
fall to the ground and often by the next season you’ll
have lots of little chive plants popping up nearby your
parent plant, which I think is a whole lot of fun.
As I said before, Chives are used mainly as a garnish
or a flavoring, but I have used the longer chive stems
to tie up bundles of food for grilling, or for a
decoration. I warned you – we’re going to be talking
about food. They really are a multi-purpose plant.
And anywhere you might want just a tiny oniony taste
whether it be a salad or in a soup, Chives are the
perfect herb to use. And all they really require is a
little water and a sunny location. They’re actually a
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bulb, so a lot of their strength is below the soil. They
will come back year after year in areas that
experience winter and freezing, but they’re also a
good plant to bring indoors and keep on a sunny
window. Chives – you know what I like most about
Chives? They’re just very cheerful. So, I love them, I
recommend them.
All right, the next herb I’d to talk about is Dill. D-I-L-L.
And I’m sure you’re all familiar with it. The nice thing
about Dill is that I think it’s just a lovely growing plant.
It grows to about two to three feet high and has very
delicate fern-like foliage. And I think it makes a lovely
show. If you brush against the leaves as you walk
through your garden, you’ll release the fragrance of
the Dill and it’s just a fresh, spring like fragrance.
And in addition to flavoring and garnishing food, one
of the great qualities of this plant is it can be used to
attract beneficial insects, particularly predatory wasps.
I know having wasps in your garden doesn’t sound so
terrific, but a lot of predatory wasps are smaller
varieties of wasps that prey on worms and harmful
caterpillars that will be eating the rest of your plants.
So you want them there and they don’t bother people.
I will tell you, however, that Dill does attract
caterpillars. But the nice thing is it attracts swallowtail
butterfly caterpillars and also in my area, monarch
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butterfly caterpillars. For some reason, they really,
really love Dill. If you have just a few of them, they
won’t do too much damage, but you have to be aware
that if you get an infestation of them, you might have
to do something about them. I try to plant enough Dill
so that there’s room for everyone. But, just be aware
that before you use your Dill for cooking, you might
have to double-check for some caterpillars.
Now, Dill is in the carrot family, so if you’re growing
vegetables, don’t grow Dill anywhere near your
carrots. It might impart a taste to the carrots. And the
carrots might interfere with the growth of the Dill. I
like Dill also because it’s more of a cold weather herb,
so it does well in my climate. But that being said, it
will go to seed quickly in hot weather, so if you live in
the north, it’s best to plant Dill early in the spring and
after the frost. If you live in the south, you might want
to plant it in the fall so it will grow during the winter
months. But, as I said, Dill looks beautiful in your
container garden, but it also tastes wonderful in the
kitchen.
There’s just hundreds of ways you can use Dill.
Everyone eats Dill pickles of course, but you can
flavor everything from dips to fish with, which I think is
just a really versatile herb.
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Well, speaking about versatile herbs, I’d like to move
on and speak about Cilantro. C-I-L-A-N-T-R-O.
Actually, the neat thing about Cilantro, it’s really two
herbs, or it’s one herb and one spice, if you like.
Cilantro and Coriander. Now Coriander we commonly
think of as a spice, it’s usually ground up into a
powder. But, Coriander is actually the seed of the
Cilantro plant. You can grow Cilantro and use the
greens as a flavoring in your dishes and use it as a
green herb. And, you can let some of it mature and
develop seed heads and when they dry, the seeds
are called Coriander. You can harvest those yourself,
and grind them up and use them as a spice.
It’s my impression that dishes from Mexico and India
particularly lend themselves to Coriander. Cilantro is
interesting because it has a long history of human
cultivation and its use in cuisine is mentioned in
ancient Hindu texts, even on Egyptian papyri, if I’m
pronouncing that right, and in the Bible. Spanish
conquistadors brought Cilantro to Mexico and South
America, and as I mentioned it’s used widely there.
Also, very popular in Asia.
A funny thing about Cilantro is that it has a very
distinct flavor and it’s a flavor that people are never
neutral about. Either they love it or they hate it. I
happen to love it and I use it in all sorts of recipes.
Cilantro is an easy, fast-growing plant. And here’s
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where I’m going to deviate from my original
suggestion about using transplants. Unlike other
herbs, Cilantro is pretty easy to grow from seed. And
it’s a plant you can grow inside in the winter from
seed, so you have something green and growing in
the snowy months like I have plenty of, and you can
cook all year round then with your fresh herb.
Cilantro is also, like Dill, a cool weather growing plant.
So in the south or the southwest, it’s a winter herb
and should be again, planted in the fall and will be
most enjoyable when the weather cools. If you live in
a cool climate, you can grow it in the spring of course,
but once the weather gets hot, the plant will bolt.
That’s a gardening term, bolt, and that means that the
plant stops growing leaves and starts concentrating
on growing seeds. So, when a plant bolts, it develops
seed heads. If you let those seed heads mature and
dry, you can harvest your Coriander seed, as I said.
And, just like Dill, actually, Cilantro encourages
beneficial insects in your garden and it also repels
certain kinds of harmful insects, like spider mites and
aphids.
All right, another wonderful culinary herb, again one of
my favorites, and I’ll warn you they’re all my favorites,
so I’ll say this about every herb that introduce. So,
here’s another one of my favorites. It’s called Sage.
S-A-G-E. Sate is a fantastic plant. It’s really very,
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very hardy. It tolerates dry conditions and it has so
many uses. I like plants that tolerate dry conditions
because I like to be able to forget to water my plants
occasionally and not have a catastrophe on my
hands. There are also lots of varieties of Sage. Most
of them separated according to the color of their
leaves, and some of them have quite beautiful leaves.
There are purple-leaved varieties and also variegated
varieties. There’s another gardening term.
Variegated means the leaves are multi-colored, so
one single leave may have blotches or stripes of
purple and yellow and green. They’re just beautiful.
Almost all of them have beautiful flowers as well. As I
said, Sage is one culinary herb that is just really hard
to hurt. It loves to be dry, it’s not attractive to a whole
lot of pests and it over winters even in tough northern
climates. And, as I said, both the flowers and the
leaves of Sage are edible. So, Sage is terrific, we all
know, with roast turkey, et cetera, but it can be used
in a lot of dishes. Italians use Sage with Cannellini
beans. Sage infused butter over raviolis or other
pastas. I’ve got to tell you – that can’t be beat.
In fact, if you brown Sage in butter without burning it,
the Sage almost takes on a bacon flavor, so if you’re
a vegetarian and you crave that bacon flavor, brown
your Sage in butter and you won’t be missing a thing.
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And as I said, Sage over winters quite well. I live in
the far north, not as far north as some places in
Canada, but actually farther north than other places in
Canada, right on the shore of Lake Superior, and I
have Sage plants that have survived for many, many
years. They hide under the snow all winter long and
finally the snow melts and those woody, dead looking
branches and twigs of the sage shrub sprout green
again in the spring with beautiful green leaves and
beautiful blue flowers. So, Sage can take a lot of
abuse.
Also, Sage is a great herb for drying. It retains its
pungent fragrance even if it’s dried. You can pick
bundles of Sage sprigs and tie them together and
hang them out to dry in your kitchen window. It’s kind
of picturesque. I think they look terrific, and also they
make nice gifts as well.
Now, here’s another favorite. And I think this almost
everyone’s favorite. I know very few people who don’t
like Basil. Basil, again, is a fantastic plant. It is easy
to grow and like Cilantro, I’m going to go against my
advice regarding using only transplants when we talk
about Basil. Basil germinates really well in warm
weather from seed, and it grows quickly. So, Basil’s
one of the few herbs that I recommend planting from
both seed and transplant. At least that’s what I do. I
buy a number of transplants so I can start harvesting
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the leaves very soon. Remember I said I like to have
a quick payoff. So, I buy some transplants that are
already going. I can harvest the leaves really within,
you know, three weeks or so.
And then I also plant Basil seed. Usually at a couple
of intervals of maybe three weeks apart because I
want to have fresh Basil maturing at planned
intervals. The thing about Basil is that it grows quickly
and that means it goes to seed quickly. So, if you
have some new plants coming up to replace the old
ones that are going to see, you’ve got it made.
Once the Basil flowers and goes to seed, it stops
growing and producing those wonderful leaves that
make everything you cook taste better. But you can,
you know, slow down, if you don’t feel like planting
intervals of Basil, you can slow down the process of
the plant going to seed by pinching the flower heads
off the Basil plants as the flower heads form. Now
you can feel the difference between the flower heads
and the leaves. The flower heads grow in an upright,
almost conical shape from the very top of the stem.
And they feel kind of fuzzy.
The leaves, of course, grow more or less horizontally
from the plant stem, and they’re shiny and generally
fairly smooth. Pinching off the flower heads causes
the plant to produce more stems. And those stems
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have leaves on them, so you can kind of postpone
this process and keep your plant producing leaves for
as long as possible. But it takes vigilance and as the
hot weather goes on and as the season goes on,
those flower heads keep popping up in abundance
and you almost have to trim your plant once a day if
you want to keep up with it. And even then,
eventually the plant just gives up and says, okay, I’m
done. I’ve tried, and that’s all I can do.
There are tons of varieties of Basil. It’s hard to know
which variety to choose from. Of course a favorite
variety in Europe and the Americas is Sweet Basil
and we associate that with a lot of Italian recipes. But
there are many varieties including Lemon Basil,
Purple Basil, Globe Basil, and that’s globe, G-L-O-B-E
which, by the way, is perfect for containers because it
has a nice, compact globe shape and the leaves are
quite small. So if you’re not looking to have herbs for
massive amounts of recipes but you want a little Basil
taste with your dishes of an evening, a Globe Basil
plant is the way to go. There’s Greek Basil, Lettuce
Leaf Basil, Thai Basil and Holy Basil.
This is an interesting side note. Holy Basil is called
Tulsi, or Tulasi in India and, forgive my pronunciation,
because I don’t know exactly how it’s pronounced.
And many Hindu households have Holy Basil planted
in the center of their courtyards. The plant has a
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great deal of religious significance as well as being
used for medicinal purposes, so that’s a nice image
for me to think of all these millions of Hindu
households all over the world with a beautiful Basil
plant planted in the center of the household
somewhere.
Now, Basil is a good companion plant as well,
particularly for tomatoes. There’s another gardening
term – companion plant. That means that two plants,
two different species, go well together and
complement each other. So, it’s nice to have a
container with a patio-type hybrid tomato, like Patio
Princess or Tumbler, some small growing tomato
plant, and then some Globe Basil planted around the
perimeter of the pot. I think it looks terrific, and I can’t
prove it, but it’s generally accepted knowledge that
Basil planted with tomatoes makes tomatoes taste
better.
And then, of course, you can harvest, if everything’s
timed correctly, you can harvest both vegetable and
herb together to make all sorts of wonderful things like
sauces and salads.
Now, Basil does require a lot of sunlight and
consistent moisture. It’s not like Sage where you can
leave it for a week and not worry really about it. It is
more delicate than some of the other herbs I’ve talked
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about. You need to pay attention to regular watering
and have good well-drained soil. But, that being said,
Basil grows extremely well in any kind of potting mix
you care to plant it in, at least that’s been my
experience.
Another popular culinary herb at least in the west is
Parsley. And there are more or less two kinds of
Parsley that are grown in the States and in Europe,
and they are Flat Leaf and Curly Leaf Parsley. A lot
of folks, especially if you talk to people that are in to
cooking have very definite opinions about what kind of
Parsley they prefer, and it’s sometimes said that Flat
Leaf is more robust and flavorful and Curly Leaf is
more appropriate for decoration or garnishing, but
actually the tastes of either Parsley, according to
science, are very much influences by the conditions
under which they are grown.
So, probably in terms of a horticulturalist, it’s really
kind of a tossup. But folks have their favorites. Both
types of Parsley are easy and best grown from
transplants. They do take a bit of time to mature from
seed, so in common with a lot of herbs we’re talking
about today, I do recommend using transplants for
Parsley.
It’s also important to remember that Parsley is a
biennial – not an annual. And what I mean by that is,
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a biennial plant, and there’s another gardening term
for you, produces foliage the first year and then dies
back and produces flowers and seeds the second
year. Now that’s in contrast to Basil which produces
foliage and seeds all in the same growing season.
So, because your Parsley is a biennial, your Parsley
plants will die back in the winter, but more than likely
they’ll come back next year. The problem is they’ll
grow very little foliage, but they’ll produce some nice
stalks with flower head and I like the flower head.
They’re clusters of small blooms that are a green to
pale yellow color.
If I have room, and I generally do, I like to let my
Parsley live the second season and produce flower
heads. I think they make a nice show. They’re
cheerful and if you let the flower heads dry, if you’re
lucky, the seeds, like Chives, will drop into your
garden bed or your container and the plant will reseed
itself for the next season. So, you know what, that
doesn’t always happen for me, but it’s fun when it
does and it’s fun to see these little Parsley leaves
popping up where I don’t expect them to be in my
garden. And the nice thing about the initial leaves of
the Parsley plant, the look just like the adult leaves so
you know exactly what’s coming up. It’s definitely not
a weed, and also they have the same pungent aroma
and fragrance. So, it’s kind of neat. I like to let them
seed themselves if I can.
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Parsley can tolerate some pretty hard conditions, so
it’s like Sage. It can take a lot of abuse, but that being
said, it’s more of a cold weather plant. It’s often
damaged more by heat than it is by cold
temperatures. So, if you do live in a hot climate, you’ll
need to give it some shelter or probably some shade
from the hot sun and I recommend some good mulch
as well.
The one issue I should warn you about with Parsley,
and it’s a problem I have is that it seems to be a
favorite with my neighborhood rabbits and deer.
Particularly if I plant my Parsley in early spring and
there’s not a lot of clover or other natural food for
rabbits. They seem to just run right over and
decimate my Parsley crop. So I have to actually use
a protective cover. I put some screens over my
young Parsley plants to keep them from being eaten
down to the roots, especially when they’re young.
Later in the season, I don’t worry about it. It seems
like there’s enough natural food out there, the rabbits
and the deer decide that they don’t want to bother
with Parsley. Perhaps the Parsley is stronger
flavored at that point, I don’t really know. But when
they’re young and you know you have rabbits and
deer in your neighborhood, you might want to give
them some kind of protective covering.
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Okay, we’ll move on to a nother herb. Oregano. OR-E-G-A-N-O. Again, Oregano is an herb used all
over the world. In China, actually, it’s a medicinal
herb, but of course in a lot of Europe and the United
States, Canada, it’s a culinary herb. And just like
Sage, Oregano does really well in poor soil and
neglect and dry conditions. Now, it does need good
drainage. It doesn’t like to have its roots constantly
wet. So if you have a wet, shady place in your
garden, that’s not the place for Oregano. But if you
have a nice dry, sunny spot, that’s where you can
consider planting it. There are lots of different
varieties of Oregano and there are some varieties that
will grow quite happily in a hanging basket or a
container. As I said, Oregano needs good sunlight,
but it will tolerate a little bit of shade. A little more so
than say Basil or some other herbs.
I have Oregano plants in my garden that have come
back every year. They seem to last for about three to
five years in my neck of the woods before they die
back. And here’s something, and it’s probably my
imagination, but in my northern climate I sometimes
feel that my Oregano tastes more intense than other
Oregano plants that I’ve grown when I lived in the
south. I’m not sure why that is, maybe it’s my
imagination, but I don’t think so. In my climate, to
give you an example of how hardy Oregano is, when
the flowers go to seed and the seeds fall on the lawn,
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I have Oregano that germinates right in my turf. Right
in my lawn. And when I mow the grass, I mow over
the Oregano and it smells just fantastic.
Now we all know Oregano does, of course, taste
great in pizza or pasta sauce. But it can be chopped
up, especially when new in the spring when the
leaves are tender. I chop it up and use it as a
garnish. I also like to use some of the leaves in green
salads.
Well, as Dawn pointed out, the title of this webinar is a
little corny. It’s “Have a Great Thyme with Herbs,” so
it’s appropriate that we do talk about Thyme and
that’s T-H-Y-M-E. And, by the way, I take full
responsibility for the title. That was not Dawn’s doing.
Thyme is just another fantastic culinary herb to grow,
either in containers or in your garden beds. Like a lot
of other Mediterranean herbs such as Oregano,
Thyme does very well with neglect. That’s what I
love. It likes heat and sun and dry rocky soil and it
really can only be killed if the roots stay wet and
soggy. Otherwise, it can handle a lot of abuse and
still do very well indeed.
I mentioned just a minute ago that my Oregano
naturalizes in my garden and my Thyme does this as
well. In fact, I have a friend who, at some point, and it
must have been years and years ago, long before he
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bought the house, he has a home with an entire front
lawn that is more or less taken over with an older
variety of Thyme so that when he, in the springtime
when it flowers with beautiful delicate pink blooms, his
yard just looks terrific. And then when he mows his
yard, the whole area is overwhelmed with the
fragrance of fresh Thyme and I just can’t even
describe it it’s so great.
Now there’s three basic varieties of Thyme. And
they’re just really classed according to size in terms of
their varieties. There are upright plants that grow to
about twelve to eighteen inches tall. There are
varieties that grow about six inches tall, and there’s
some very low-growing varieties that people often
plant in cracks between flagstones or on footpaths.
And, of course, the purpose of that is that when you
walk on the Thyme it releases the fragrance. Most of
culinary Thyme is the taller variety. There are lots of
flavors of it. But because it’s a taller variety, Thyme
can get a little woody and gangly, so I recommend
pruning it back to encourage new growth.
And it’s probably best to prune it on a regular basis,
because sometimes, a couple times a season at
least. Because you can sometimes kill the plant if you
prune it just once a year, so, just keep track of it. If it
gets really leggy, you might want to prune it gently. If
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you have a shape you want the plant to maintain,
prune it regularly to that shape.
I’ll mention one more thing about Thyme. There’s a
specific variety of Thyme of called Lemon Thyme, and
it is absolutely my favorite kind of Thyme. It’s perfect
to flavor fish dishes, used raw in salads, it seems to
be extremely hardy and in my northern climate, I have
a Lemon Thyme plant that has lasted easily twenty
years and it still comes and flowers every spring and
produces as much Thyme as I can possibly use. So,
just throwing that out there for folks that are looking
for a really tough variety of Thyme.
Now, we’ll move on to Rosemary. It sounds like a
Simon & Garfunkel song here. Rosemary is
wonderful and I recommend using transplants for
Rosemary. Like a lot of the woody herbs, it is slow
growing. It’s slow to germinate from seed and
Rosemary will tolerate a certain amount of neglect
and dry soil, so it’s perfect for containers. If you live
in a southern climate you can grow Rosemary as a
perennial shrub, and I’m so jealous of people that can
do that.
I’ve been in Australia and Italy and I’ve seen
Rosemary plants that are grown as high hedges. And
they’re just unbelievable, and when they flower in the
spring it’s a beautiful show. It’s a wonderful thing, but
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in my reality here in my northern climate, Rosemary is
an annual. Now that being said, Rosemary does
pretty well if you want to over winter it inside your
home. So, if you live in a cold climate, if you have a
good sunny spot to keep it in, you can dig it up out of
your garden bed, or try moving the container in for the
winter. It should over winter pretty well.
Now, I’d like to talk a little bit about a craft project here
because Rosemary is one of those plants that’s fun to
use for topiary, and there’s another gardening term.
Topiary is the practice of trimming a plant into an
ornamental shape. The nice thing about Rosemary is
that it resembles small evergreen trees. The needles,
the leaves of a Rosemary plant look like little tiny pine
needles. So people like to shape them in the same
way they shape evergreen shrubs or trees in their
yard, and in fact you may have notices around
Christmas time, grocery stores sell Rosemary plants
trimmed into small Christmas tree shapes, and maybe
they have some ribbons or decorations on them as
well.
It takes a couple years to get a good topiary out of a
Rosemary plant, and as I said before, if you do live in
a northern climate, it’s important you have a really
good sunny place to overwinter your plant so it keeps
growing and thriving all year around. But if you do
trim your Rosemary plant regularly, not only will you
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achieve a nice specimen of topiary, but you can use
the trimmings to flavor your food. So you can do
landscaping and cooking all at the same time.
I want to give you just some simple instructions for
making a Rosemary Topiary. It’s a fairly easy project
to make and very rewarding. So I’ll give you
instructions for making a standard topiary. There’s
another gardening term. A standard means that the
plant has a strong, single, thick stem that becomes
kind of like a trunk. Then the stems at the leaves of
the Rosemary plant are pruned at the top and clipped
into a certain shape. That’s a standard.
Now, that shape can be anything, a geometric pattern
like a square, or a pyramid or a sphere or something
more elaborate, but I like to keep it simple. I
recommend starting with a Rosemary plant that is at
least eight inches tall. That’s not that tall, and has a
good upright growth pattern with a really single,
strong, central stem. That’s the most important thing.
And you can find Rosemary at lots of garden centers
or nurseries.
And as I said, around Christmas, you can buy one
already made and you can just keep growing it. I start
by repotting the Rosemary plant into a larger
container. Because, really, the plan is it’s going to be
growing for several years. And I want to have a
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container that’s going to have room for a larger plant.
And I also wait a week or so after repotting to give the
plant time to get over transplant shock. There’s
another term – transplant shock. Like every living
thing, when something’s uprooted and put into a new
environment, it takes a little time to get over the shock
of that and then start growing again.
So once it’s repotted, it’s over transplant shock, I
remove all the side shoots and leaves from the lower
two-thirds of the plant. Now you can use your fingers
to pinch them off, or you can use scissors or clippers.
The important thing is that you don’t pull them off by
pulling down or pulling up, because you don’t want to
pull off some of the bark of the central stem that might
peel off as these little side shoots are pulled off. You
need to pinch them or cut them. These side shoots
are easy to locate by feel and it’s really not that hard.
Then I get a piece of bamboo, maybe fourteen to
sixteen inches long. I put it into the pot right next to
the central stem and then tie the central stem to the
bamboo stake, which is what it is, in two or three
places and use something like yarn, or something
that’s not going to cut into the stem itself. Don’t use a
twisty. It’s tempting because they’re so easy to find in
your kitchen drawer, but as the plant grows that little
bit of paper around the wire disintegrates and then
you have wire cutting into your stem.
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The point is, as the stem grows I want the central
stem to be upright and straight, just like a tree trunk. I
should say also there’s a bit of a hazard if you have a
bamboo stake poking out of your container. Be aware
that now there’s a sharp stick sticking straight out of
your flowerpot that can poke you in the face while
you’re leaning in to examine your plant. If you think
this might be a problem, and it can be, you want to be
cautious. You can insert a ping pong ball or
something like that over the tip of the bamboo stake.
Number one, you can see the ping pong ball more
clearly if you have low vision, and it of course makes
the stake harmless if you bump into it or lower your
head down on it. So just a little caveat there.
Once the plant gets to the height that you want, start
imagining what type of shape you’d like the top third
of the plant to become. If you have a Rosemary plant
that’s about a foot high, you’ll want a shape about the
size of a grapefruit maybe, or a softball, maybe a little
larger. And as the foliage grows beyond the
boundaries you’ve planned, trim the tips of the stems
to encourage thicker growth and to maintain the
shape you have in mind. This part of the process
takes a while, but it’s fun. A couple of growing
seasons, possibly, but I think the effort is worth it. It’s
a fun project and if you are interested in growing
topiary Rosemary, you just have to Google
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“Rosemary topiary.” There are tons of websites
devoted to the subject and also lots of YouTube
videos.
All right. We’ll move on to a subject that’s a little less
fussy, a little less crafty. I’m talking about Mint. M-IN-T. Everyone should have at least one container of
Mint. If you don’t, you’re missing out and there
absolutely is no effort to having Mint. Mint is versatile.
Of course you know it can be used in all sorts of
culinary combinations. Mint pesto for meat dishes,
Mint chopped up in Tabouli or other Mediterranean
dishes. Mint garnishing ice cream – the list is
endless. The great thing about Mint is that you will
more than likely have a neighbor or a friend that
already has a bunch of Mint, a big patch of Mint, and
they will be more than happy to give you a start.
For that very same reason, the bad thing about Mint is
that it is very, very invasive. Invasive means it
spreads easily and it’s more dominant than other
plants. It will take over. So, once you’ve planted it in
an open garden bed, it will try to take over. So for
that reason, I recommend planting Mint in a container
or in some kind of container that’s buried in your
garden bed. That way you’ll keep it in one spot.
Mint can come in a variety of flavors. There’s
Spearmint, Peppermint, Lemon Mint and I even have
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some Chocolate Mint that is taking over a garden bed.
I didn’t plan for it to do so, but now it has. And each
variety has specific uses in the kitchen.
Mint is not demanding at all. It only needs about a
quarter to half day of direct sun, fairly moist soil, but it
will survive in very difficult conditions and I’ll give you
an example. I have a patch of Mint that’s right against
my concrete parking pad behind my house. And I live
in a very northern climate, so all winter long I shovel
snow and ice and accumulated road salt that’s fallen
from my vehicle onto my Mint bed. And guess what?
Every spring that soil has to be toxic at this point – the
Mint pops right up. It’s unphased. I reappears year
after year. So if you want a foolproof herb and you
want something to start with, you can’t go wrong with
Mint. And, really, there is nothing better on a hot
summer day than a glass of iced tea with lemon and a
big sprig of your own, home grown, fresh Mint.
Now, we’re already, we’re fifty minutes into our
presentation here and there are lots and lots of more
herbs I could mention. But we only have a limited
amount of time, so I’m going to stop at this point. I
have even other things on my list I haven’t been able
to touch on. And, of course we haven’t talked about
medicinal herbs at all. That’s just a whole other topic.
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But I do want to say one thing in closing about
culinary herbs. I’d like to speak to the people who
think that because they don’t cook, culinary herbs are
not for them. Well, let me reassure you, culinary
herbs are not just for foodies or people who spend all
their time in the kitchen. I have plenty of friends who
don’t enjoy cooking at all, and I’ve persuaded quite a
few to try growing a few containers of culinary herbs.
And here’s why.
Just the addition of a few herbs can really improve the
taste of any food you’re eating. Even if you haven’t
cooked it yourself. Now here’s some example for
maybe college students out there, or people that just
hate to be in the kitchen. If you have a couple slices
of ham and cheese and a couple slices of bread, put
some fresh Basil leaves in with the ham and cheese
sandwich and you’ll find that the taste just jumps way
up to two hundred percent better.
If you’re heating up a can of tomato soup from the
supermarket, sprinkle some fresh chopped Chives in
the bowl – you won’t believe how much better it
tastes. It will taste gourmet. If you have a bag of
salad, like me, you don’t want to be washing a lot of
lettuce, but just opening a bag and dumping some in
a bowl, chop up a few leaves of Thyme, some fresh
Oregano, some Chives, put it in your salad, you’ll be
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amazed at how fresh and piquant the taste is. Fresh
Dill is fantastic as well.
Here’s one for college students. Do you have leftover
pizza from the night before? You warm it up in the
microwave for lunch? Put a few Basil leaves on there
after you take it out – you’ll love the fresh taste. And
finally, if you have Chinese food that was delivered a
few days ago and it’s in paper cartons sitting in the
fridge, heat it up in the microwave, sprinkle it with
chopped Cilantro and Chives and you just won’t
believe the difference. I suppose you guys can tell I
love to eat….
So, what I’m trying to say is that culinary herbs are
not just for people who are in to cooking. They are for
everyone. The reward of growing culinary herbs, I
think, far outweighs the small amount of effort it takes
to plant and cultivate them. As I stated throughout
this webinar, herbs are generally very, very easy to
grow. They don’t have a lot of pests or diseases, and
even if you don’t cook with them yourself, fresh herbs
make a great gift to hand out to your friends. You’ll
get invited over for dinner to other people’s houses
more, I promise.
And I do promise you, your fresh herbs will taste
better than any herbs you can buy at a Farmer’s
Market or a grocery store. And when you grow your
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own culinary herbs you’re giving yourself an
experience that money can’t buy.
Well, thanks very much for listening. That ends my
presentation today. And I really appreciate your
attention.
Dawn Turco
And I took it right away, Ed – oh – my goodness you
so delivered on this. So many great ideas and tips.
I’m so motivated. And now I know what went wrong
with my Basil last year. Anyway, I’m going to start
with a question that was texted in while the people
with the mics can get themselves organized. And we
have the question, when you speak about plants living
for many years, are these in containers or are they in
the ground?
Ed Haines
That’s a good question. The herb plants that I have
that have survived for many, many years have
actually been in the ground. They’re actually in raised
beds. One of the advantages I have here where I live
is that we get many, many inches of snow. Lots of
inches of snow. And that actually acts as an
insulation, so we are able to grow plants that over
winter plants in the garden that sometimes people
further south of us can’t because their ground freezes
more deeply. If you want to over winter herbs in a
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container, it’s best to have a really large container.
And you might have to put some pretty heavy mulch
over the top of it as well.
Dawn Turco
The other text message we had was, do you need to
wash our hands after picking? And I’m not sure which
herb you were talking about when this question came
in. And if so, how?
Ed Haines
Well, you know, herbs, a lot of these herbs are
smallish plants, so they do grow low to the ground.
Therefore, there will be a certain amount of dirt on the
leaves or a certain amount of grit, depending on
whether it rained recently or you’ve watered it recently
or if you have a layer of mulch between the leaves
and the dirt. So, it’s a good idea to wash the leaves.
But you can actually feel whether there’s grit on the
leaves or not. It’ll feel like sand. So, a lot of times if
I’m fairly confident the leaves are pretty clean, I don’t
wash them. Many herbs have volatile or oils, not
volatile oils, sorry, they have oils that will get on your
fingers and I supposed those oils might irritate your
eyes if you rubbed your eyes right after picking herbs.
But I’ve never had that experience.
Dawn Turco
All right. Let’s open it up to the microphone.
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Jane
Would you consider Oregano and Dill to also be
invasive? We have Dill in one of the gardens that’s
outside in the backyard of my house. I live in
Canada, I’m just east of Toronto, Ontario, so I believe
that is Zone 5B and the Mint of course takes over
everything, but we find that also Oregano and Dill can
also take over. Also Tarragon which was one herb
that you didn’t get to, I find those tend to be invasive,
if you will.
Ed Haines
Yeah, I think I mentioned that, you know, the Oregano
actually comes up in my yard. I’ve not had as much
luck with Dill over wintering. Usually my Dill plants die
off and I have replant them in the spring or else
maybe they’ll self-seed. So I haven’t had that luck.
For the most part, I’m in huge favor of invasive plants.
Because it means I have to do less planting. If they
just show up in other parts of the garden, I pull them
up where I don’t want them and I leave them where I
do. And you’re right, Tarragon is a fantastic herb. I
didn’t have time to get to it, but that does over winter
here in the north and it’s one that’s less common to
purchase fresh in supermarkets, so it is a terrific one
to try to grow.
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Dawn Turco
We have another text question, Ed, about can you put
different kinds of plants in the same planter box?
Ed Haines
Sure. Absolutely. You can have an herb planter with
three or four different kinds of culinary herbs. I’ve
seen people create planters with certain types of
foods in mind. For instance, they might have one
planter that has Oregano and Basil together because
they’re making pasta sauce, even with some Garlic
plants growing up in the middle. So you can choose a
theme as well. Herbs generally do very well with
other plants and they do well together and they make
a nice show. The foliage is very distinctive in different
herbs, so when it’s all blended together it looks quite
pretty.
Dawn Turco
Any other questions from the group?
Jane
Ed, we tried to over winter Sage because we thought
we needed to bring it in because as you know, being
in the north here we had a very harsh winter this year.
And we tried to bring the Sage in and let’s see what
else. I think we tried to bring in Sage, Rosemary and
I can’t remember if it was Basil. I’m not sure. And
they did okay for a little bit and then they all died off.
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So we’re probably going to need to replant the Sage
this spring. Can you over winter Sage in a container
in side or is it better to keep it, you know, keep it
outside? Also, if we do have to in fact replant our
Sage, should be start from seed or should be start
from transplants that you’ve say buy at a local garden
center?
Ed Haines
I suspect that the over wintering difficulties arose from
perhaps not a sufficient amount of sunlight. I’ve never
had to over winter my Sage indoors because it seems
once it gets covered with snow, it seems to withstand
the temperatures. That being said, we just had an
historically cold, cold winter and I’ve yet to see any
growth on my Sage plant, so the jury is out right now.
But Rosemary should do fairly well if you have a good
sunny location. If you’re starting over again with
Sage, I would get transplants. It’s just quicker.
Jane
I’ll tell you one plant that did survive this harsh winter
that had, and it’s out in our front yard. We have a
west-facing backyard, so the front is east. Lavender.
The Lavender has sprouted again this spring and it
was, like you say, historically frigid this winter. And
the Lavender is going strong. We’ll have to see, the
jury is out for the rest of the ones that are out back.
The Chives, the Dill, I think we’ve got a little bit of mint
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back there, Oregano, we’ll see if any of them come
back.
Dawn Turco
Ed, I’m going to get one last text message in, and it’s
a good one. We’re going to move to a different part of
this country and the question is, what are good herbs
for the Pacific Northwest? Not much sun, lots of
moisture, in container gardens? That’s the question.
Ed Haines
Well, these are the questions I’m always afraid of
because every region is so different and I wish I knew
exactly what to tell you. However, I can tell you that I
was just in Bellingham, Washington a couple of
weeks ago. And I saw quite a few different container
gardens there. And people were growing herbs. I
think here’s the key – because there’s so much
moisture, I would think that herbs, generally, you
could grow most of the herbs we’re talking about,
particularly when the weather gets warmer. But they
would grow best in containers because they
containers can be drained properly and even if it does
rain, the water will, they won’t have wet feet, as I
mentioned in the webinar.
I went to a Farmer’s Market in Bellingham and I saw
lots of fresh herbs there. I didn’t have the wherewithal
to ask if those were grown in greenhouses or outside,
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but I did notice that there were lots and lots of
beautiful gardens, ornamental and culinary gardens,
around town and things seemed to be going pretty
well. So, even though there isn’t much sun, I think
you have sufficient sun. It may be cloudy, but you’re
getting the sunlight. The plants don’t have to have
blaring sun to thrive. They just have to have sun and
not shade, if that makes any sense.
Dawn Turco
Ed, I took the microphone back because we are out of
time and I’ll read one last comment that came in.
“Great topic! Ed is an excellent and enthusiastic
presenter. I’m off to the nursery.” I suspect the rest
of us are planning that trip as well. What an
absolutely fabulous seminar. I’m going to have to
relisten to it to pick up the points. I know I was
missing them as we went along.
For those who might want to do the same, the
seminar as always will be posted on Hadley’s Past
Seminars page and it will take us just a couple days
to get it there. It will be at the top of the list of the
newest recordings and then moved down later on.
Maybe we’ll put it next to your other presentation you
did on container gardening a couple years ago,
because there all so good.
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Ed, thank you so much. Let me hand the microphone
back to you for a final thought or farewell. And for
those who are able to hand in there with us, we will
launch the short survey. But you always have
feedback at Hadley.edu if you have a thought or
question after the close of the seminar. Send it along
and if it’s for Ed, I’ll get it to him. Ed, here’s the
microphone.
Ed Haines
Well, Dawn, thanks once again for giving me this
opportunity. It’s just a favorite topic of mine and I
appreciate everyone taking the time to listen today.
And I hope maybe you’ll think about going out to that
nursery and just getting a few little plants and giving it
a try. Thanks so much!
Dawn Turco
Thanks, Ed. We appreciate all the thought and effort
and preparation you put into today’s seminar. I’ll say
farewell officially. Bye bye all and thank you for
attending.
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