Herbs From A to Z : Herbs are hard-working plants that can be used for flavor, fragrance and even as medicine
How about adding some hard-working herbs to the garden this fall? It’s a good time to plant and they’re easy enough to grow, the only trick is choosing a few truly useful herbs from the many that crowd nursery benches. From Anise to Zingiber (the edible ginger), there are a lot of things called herbs.
About 650 different kinds grow in Glenn Walker’s Long Beach garden, where, as president of the Long Beach Herb Society, he’s building a botanic garden of herbs in his back yard. (Of interest to balcony or patio gardeners, all are growing in containers.)
According to Walker, an herb is “any plant used for flavor, fragrance or medicine,” so not all herbs are edible.
In fact, Shirley Kerins, who heads the Huntington Botanical Garden’s large herb collection, is quick to warn that some herbs are quite poisonous if ingested, especially those with a medicinal background, like foxglove or helebore.
To help sort out the arcane (and maybe dangerous) from the useful, we asked several Southern California herb experts to list their favorites--the ones they use and like the most. As Kerins put it, “These are the herbs I’d want on that desert isle.”
Herbs can be tucked here and there in the garden among other plants, grown in pots or in their own dedicated herb garden. When looking for a spot, keep in mind that most herbs like a very sunny location, and taste best if not watered too often. Keep traditional Mediterranean herbs, like rosemary and thyme, lean and on the dry side so the essential oils are not diluted.
Some herbs, such as basil and dill, are annuals that you must start anew every year in their season, while others are perennials, shrubs or even trees that become fairly permanent parts of the landscape.
Author and herbalist Norma Jean Lathrop begins her essential list with rosemary and lemon thyme. “Everyone should grow rosemary, if for no other reason than to amaze visitors from the East [where it is difficult to grow],” she said. Rosemary comes in all sorts of garden forms, from low, spreading ground-huggers, to stately upright shrubs such as ‘Tuscan Blue.’ She uses it and the bushy little lemon thyme in all sorts of dishes, but especially with chicken.
She also thinks everyone should be growing chives for the fresh leaves and pretty lavender-pink flowers, which she uses as a garnish. Chives may take a year or two to become established, but once they are, they flower heavily and are quite stunning in the garden.
She uses English lavender in potpourri and sachets as well as in cooking. Borage, prized for its pretty blue flowers, is another favorite. Her book, “Herbs, How to Select, Grow and Enjoy” (HP Books: $14.99), shows how to candy the edible flowers. Borage is an attractive three-foot-tall annual that self-sows every year (probably more than you’d like but seedlings are easy to pull out).
Without even thinking, Cristin Fusano, who teaches the potager class at Roger’s Gardens in Corona del Mar, names basil as her favorite fresh herb, but especially lemon and cinnamon-flavored basil.
Both are annuals that can be started from plants or seeds in April, and kept going for months “if you keep picking off the flowers.” She’s “fanatical” about pinching the plants back, right from the start, to keep them bushy and full of leaves.
Fusano uses the cinnamon-flavored basil in surprising ways, in shortbread-like cookies and in a delicious basil and lavender bread. She says lemon basil is best in pesto and for flavoring chicken, fish and barbecue.
Salad burnet and lovage are next on her list, and she says both are easy plants to grow year round. She strips the little leaflets off salad burnet and uses them in chicken salad and other salads and sandwiches. It has a “mild cucumber and nuts taste.” The lovage tastes more like celery and she uses it in salads, soups and sandwiches. She prefers the smaller leaves that come in fall and winter.
Herb author Carole Saville, who is finishing a book called “Exotic Herbs” (to be published by Henry Holt), has a few less common herbs on her essential list. Perhaps her favorite is the true sweet marjoram ( Origanum majorana ), not what is commonly called hardy or Greek marjoram ( O. x majoricum ), or so-called pot marjoram. The true sweet marjorum, growing a little over a foot tall with grayish, felty leaves, is “literally sweet.” She uses it in salad dressings and with chicken.
She uses Mexican tarragon (Tagetes lucida ) just like French, only in smaller quantities since it has a stronger anise taste. “The Mexican tarragon is in the garden long after the ephemeral French is gone,” she adds. This wild marigold relative, growing to four feet tall, has pretty golden, marigold-like flowers in late fall and when it finishes, she cuts it to the ground for a fresh start.
Saville likes both traditional Greek oregano and Mexican oregano (Lippia graveolens ) with its hint of lemon flavor, using them in pasta sauces or with beans and chicken. Greek oregano grows about two feet tall, while she must constantly prune the Mexican to keep it at about four feet tall and as wide.
Berggarten sage is one of the culinary sages (Salvia officinalis ), but it is also a handsome moundy plant in the garden with large, soft leaves. Try sage with pork.
“My children liked sorrel soup better than Campbell’s,” Saville says, so she always grows two kinds of this leafy herb, the tall garden sorrel and the shorter French sorrel, Rumex scutatus , with its “clear, tart flavor.”
Her favorite spreading mint, which she grows in containers, is named ‘The Best’ and she thinks it is the best in iced tea. Though she oversees hundreds of herbs at the Huntington’s herb garden, landscape architect Shirley Kerins has a definite list of favorites.
Rosemary, lemon thyme and chives, with its “1 million uses” top her list. She cautions that entire chive leaves should be picked when some is needed, “don’t just snip off the tops or you’ll have a messy looking plant.”
She also grows garlic chives for those times when she just wants a slight garlic taste without the hassle of peeling cloves. Garlic chives grow a little taller and have white flowers with slightly wider, grayish leaves. They quickly make a thick clump.
Lemon verbena is also on her list because, she confesses, “it’s the only herbal tea I really like.” Her recipe: Put three leaves in a cup and pour in boiling water.
She also likes lavender, but not in cooking. She drys the blooms in June, ties several together and uses them in the linen closet. “Try leaving some in the car,” she adds, for a fragrance better than a dangling pine air freshener. Use only the true English lavender, Lavandula angustifolia , or one of the L. intermedia hybrids, such as ‘Grosso’ or ‘Provence,’ two commercial perfume varieties from France.
She grows basil in summer and annual chervil in winter. Chervil looks like a delicate parsley and has a milder flavor. It grows one to two feet tall and can be planted now. An essential ingredient in fines herbes , “you can’t dry this one,” she said, “it must be used fresh from the garden.” Try it in omelets.
Bay is one of the herbs that grows to tree proportions if you let it, “but it’s the original ‘whatever’ plant,” she says. “You can grow it in the ground or in a container, leave it alone or clip it like a hedge, water it or not, good soil or bad, sun or shade, whatever.” She uses it in stews and likes being able to give sprigs as gifts, a good thing to keep in mind at this time of the year.
If you can’t find some of these essential herbs at the nursery, Kerins suggests ordering by mail from Mountain Valley Growers, 38325 Pepperweed Road, Squaw Valley, Calif. 93675; (209) 338-2775.
