Thirteen Herbs for Beginning Gardeners,

 Then Seven More For Cooks                                              

by Catherine Harper

Thyme (Thymus family)

Thyme is one of the easiest herbs you can grow in this area, and variable enough in form and scent that one could make a garden of thyme alone. The common culinary thyme is English thyme, which grows in clumps of upright stalks with small silver-grey leaves. But there is wilder, tangled mother of thyme, fuzzy wooly thyme, ground-covering creeping thyme, thymes bred for color, thymes bred for scents from caraway to orange.... Our house favorite is the tiny, spreading elfin thyme, with leaves scarcely the size of black mustard seeds. Nicholas Culpepper, a noted English herbalist who lived from 1616 to 1654, assigns thyme to the influence of Venus. (Though not all sources agree on the astrological correspondences for each herb, Culpepper's is one of the most well-known sources, and I have used his work throughout for ease and consistency.) Thyme has also been used traditionally as a gargle for sore throats, as well as a tea against bronchial ailments. Starts are readily available, even at many grocery stores.

Mint (Menthus family)

In our climate, the challenge is to keep mint from overrunning your yard. It is hardy, perennial and more than a bit invasive. If you don't want it to take over, keep it potted or dig some kind of barrier into the soil (mint propagates through underground runners, so a row of bricks will usually contain it). It has become a tradition to grow mint under outdoor faucets, especially in the shade. It tolerates the wet well, and a shady location will sometimes keep it from spreading too badly. There are now a variety of flavored mints available -- ginger, lime and basil, to name a few -- and these are often less invasive than the more standard spearmint or peppermint.

The scent of crushed mint leaves is sometimes said to help one penetrate illusion, though mint too is said to be under the influence of Venus. The tea is widely used the calm the stomach.

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)

It is said that rosemary is useful for keeping away witches. This has not been my experience, though there is anecdotal evidence that it is likely to put them in better moods. This is one of my favorite herbs, one that I bake into bread and cook with lamb, one that I use in amulets for protection and healing. It is associated with clarity of thought as well. Rosemary is under the influence of the Sun, and prefers a sunny location.

It has been said the rosemary will only grow in households where the master is the mistress, but a survey of our friends has revealed either a community of dominant women (possible) or that the herb is willing to bear up nicely even under adverse conditions.

This is a good herb to spend the extra money on and buy a larger, more established plant from a reputable nursery. Small plants are more susceptible to frost and pests. If you do go for the cheaper starts, such as ones only a few inches tall, plant them out in late spring, and baby them for their first year. Also, beware of the beautifully shaped plants sold in florist shops. These are all too often tended for looks rather than longevity, and are often varieties better suited to Southern California than the Northwest. They make pretty gifts, but more often than not do not survive.

Chives (Allium schoenoprasum)

Chives are the coolest and gentlest of the alliums, less likely to encourage hot-headedness than their cousins, onions and garlic, though they are still under the influence of Mars. Chives can be started from seeds or bought as starts from the nursery. They form clumps of rounded, pointed leaves and bear small globular clusters of pink flowers. The leaves, snipped short, are the chives everyone knows. Delicately oniony, they are best sprinkled over dishes just before being served -- cooking diminishes their flavor. The flowers, too, are edible, and make a colorful alternative to green onions in a salad. The flower stems, alas, are too tough to be palatable. These are some of the first herbs to reappear in spring.

Rue (Ruta graveolens)

Rue is not an herb often used in cooking. It is a pretty herb, with silvery multilobed leaves and little, round, yellow flowers. Its scent, though, is something like rancid sweat socks, hence its traditional use in the Jewish Seder as one of the bitter herbs, symbolizing the suffering of the Jewish people. Also, many people are quite allergic to rue, some to the point where touching it causes them to break out.

I have found rue to be a good herb of banishment. (Indeed, I have found that interplanting rue with more delicate herbs will banish my cats from the area and keep them from damaging the planting. This is the only way that I can grow garlic chives without our senior kitty rolling on them until they are dead.) It is used as a symbol of and balm for sorrow, but alternatively as a way of calling sorrow or of cursing. It is under the influence of the Sun.

Sage (Salvia officinalis and others)

This drought-tolerant plant is a good choice for container gardening. It likes sun, and prefers well-drained soil, but will thrive in poor soil with little water. This is not the sage that is traditionally burned for purification, though some people have used it as a substitute to good effect. Properly "smudging sage" is actually one of a number of different plants, none of which is Salvia Officinalis, and many of which are Artemisias, and not true sages at all. Garden sage has a long association with longevity and wisdom. This herb is under the influence of Jupiter.

In the kitchen, it is well-known for Thanksgiving stuffing, though I would be more likely to grind it with sea salt and use it for poultry or pork. My favorite use, though, is to chop sage and mint finely together and mix them with steamed summer squash, and a bit of olive oil and lemon. Sage also makes a nifty tea.

Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis and others)

Soapwort is a hot contender for most generally amusing herb in the garden, because you can use it to make soap. (Technically the saponins are not soap, but they can be used similarly, though they are more gentle, and who wants to pick a nit?) There are at least two varieties commercially available, one having small leaves and flowers and forming neat, compact and well-behaved mounds. The other is the form that grows wild here, and tends to be larger and weedier, with beautiful, pink, scented blossoms. Both are hardy, and recommended.

To make soap, simmer a handful of the chopped leaves (or the root, or a tablespoon or two of the powder, which is sold commercially) in a cup of water for several minutes until the water starts to form bubbles. This gentle cleaner is used in museums to restore antique lace, and works nicely to clean dry or damaged hair. Soapwort is under the influence of Venus.

Saffron (Crocus sativus)

Saffron crocuses are pretty much my idea of a perfect plant. They are easy to care for -- you plant the bulbs in fall, perhaps with a bit of bone meal, and then mostly ignore them except perhaps for dividing them every three to five years. They are beautiful, sending up pale purple crocuses in the fall. And not only are they useful, the crocuses produce saffron, among the most expensive spices in the world.

Culpepper assigns saffron to the influence of the Sun, cautioning that its solar influence is so powerful that care must be taken in its use. I am most likely to use it to color buns and rice, though I have also encountered it, mixed with amber resin and honey, in love charms. (Following, it seems, the theory that expensive things make the best charms. I am dubious, though I was amused to find such a mixture available a few years ago in a spice bazaar in Turkey.) It is said that saffron should not be brought onto fishing boats, or they will not make a good catch, but as my presence seems to have the same effect I have not been able to evaluate this claim.

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)

Fennel is the only plant that I have seen successfully beat back blackberries, and that is reason by itself to grow this plant that is at once herb, spice and vegetable. It is a beautiful plant of long green stalks with a texture reminiscent of celery and a taste like licorice, though fresher and cleaner. Its leaves are delicate, feathery froths, its flowers tiny and white, forming umbrella-shaped clusters that later become clusters of the sweet anise-flavored seeds.

In my teens, my friends and I had read that fennel wreathes were used as emblems of military victory, and we gathered bunches of the herb and bopped each other with them for luck. (Fennel had taken over a few abandoned lots on Capitol Hill, and so it was readily available.) Nowadays, I use the leaves to flavor fish, eat the stalks and bulbs fresh or braised in salads and soups and use the seeds in meat sauces or to aid digestion. This is an easy plant to start from seed, though starts are also readily available. The green garden fennel is the hardier variety, though the foliage of the bronze fennel is striking and it will do very well in full sun.

Lavender (Lavandula family)

The name Lavender comes from the Latin "laver" meaning "to wash," and this herb has long been associated with washing, bathing and purification. Lavender is under the influence of Mercury. Don't let the fact that it has been one of the trendy landscaping herbs of choice in this region deter you. It is a lovely plant, covered each summer by fragrant clusters of flowers that attract bees and other beneficial insects. The flowers can be collected in the bud stage and dried for culinary use, and use in sachets or sweet-smelling dried bunches and wreathes. (I've even had a lavender jelly.)

Like rosemary, this plant prefers direct sun and well-drained soil. While it will be weedy and sad in partial shade, it will thrive in rocky dry soil that will leave more water-loving plants withered. Small starts of a great many varieties are readily available.

Parsley (Petroselinum crispum)

Parsley seeds, it is said, must journey to hell and back nine times before they will germinate. Which leaves one in a bit of a quandary, for if it is tedious to start this herb from seed, it is also said to be unlucky to transplant it. And this herb is one where the dried material just won't do.

For myself, I usually buy a number of small starts and plant them in mid-spring. This is a biennial, meaning it grows for two years, and so new starts must be obtained at least that often. (The flavor from the first year plant is generally considered to be better, but I use both quite readily.) Like rosemary, parsley is said to grow best for dominant women, or for the dominant member of a couple. Parsley also is said to be under the influence of Mercury.

Sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum)

Sweet woodruff is so hardy and so enthusiastic in its growth that I would recommend it most for either a tightly cordoned-off part of the garden, or as a ground cover in a wild corner of your yard. I have given it some of the driest, poorest soil down by the base of the driveway, and it has returned with enthusiasm year after year. This herb is the flavoring for May wine. It is a low-lying plant with attractive clusters of leaves and tiny white flowers that bloom in time for Beltaine.

Sweet woodruff has a long history of use as a strewing herb and being dried in bunches for its scent. A few small starts will reliably grow to cover the area allotted to them (or more, if they are given the opportunity) in a few years.

Southernwood (Artemisia abrotanum)

This is known as "lad's love" and has been used in courtship rituals by inarticulate young men. A young man carrying a sprig announces that he is in search of a partner. It is an Artemisia, and therefore a close relative to wormwood, but its foliage is green and more lacey than its silver cousin. (Wormwood also grows in this region, though it seems, surprisingly, to attract slugs.) Southernwood has been a reliable container herb for me, though it is even happier in the ground under full sun. Its scent is strong, lemony and a bit medicinal. Southernwood is under the influence of Mercury.

I use little bunches of southernwood to keep moths out of my closet, and it has been used as a treatment for lice as well. It has also been used to flavor cough syrups, but I find myself suspicious of it in that role. Given a sunny spot and a few years, a small start will grow into a fragrant, feathery bush.

Other Resources

If you want to grow any kind of edibles seriously, or if you even want to know more what to do with these, read Steve Solomon's Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades.

There are also a bazillion books on herbs and kitchen gardening -- I am particularly fond of Sylvia Thompson's The Kitchen Gardner and Arabella Boxer and Phillippa Back's The Herb Book --but Solomon's book is the one essential for this area.

I would also highly recommend taking a look at joining Seattle Tilth, our local organic gardeners' society -- http://www.seattletilth.org. Their organic plant sale is held annually the first Saturday in May at the Wallingford Good Shepherd Center.

Winter Savory (Satureja montana)

Summer savory is considered by some to be slightly the better culinary herb, but winter savory is a hardy perennial, and this advantage wins out for me. It is traditionally used with beans, but works well with strong-tasting poultry or generally as one might use thyme.

Oregano (Origanum vulgare)

There is little reason to explain why to grow oregano (except to note that it can be used as productively in landscaping as it is in the kitchen). How takes only a little more explanation: Buy the plant, plant it in a reasonably sunny location. Each year it will come back to form a slightly larger, but generally well-ordered mound. The golden form is especially appealing to the eye.

Wild ginger (Asarum canadense)

Wild ginger is not related to the familiar culinary ginger, though the rhizomes and stems have a similar flavor. This low-lying plant with heart-shaped, glossy, dark-green leaves is a native of this area and can be found growing wild in the woods. It can also be bought in local nurseries. It tolerates shade and damp well, though it is plagued by slugs. The rhizomes and stems can be candied, though I generally use them up in savory dishes before I get the chance. A superb herb.

Cilantro (Coriandrum sativum)

Cilantro is one of the few herbs I would recommend for even the novice to grow from seed. Begin sowing the seeds in mid-April, in small quantities with subsequent sowings every two weeks if you would like a steady supply of the leaves. Cilantro bolts quickly, flowering and producing seeds that are the spice coriander.

Vietnamese cilantro (Polygonum odoratum)

If, on the other hand, you do not want to replant cilantro every couple of weeks, the plant known as Vietnamese cilantro (or Vietnamese coriander) is a hardy perennial that produces beautiful leaves with a taste very similar to cilantro but spicier. A single plant will form a small bush its first year. This herb is not nearly well enough known.

Salad burnet (Sanguisorba minor)

Salad burnet produces numerous stalks covered with leaves shaped like crenellated coins, tasting of cucumbers. Next year, you will have a cluster of plants. These can be dug up and separated into multiple plantings, or given to friends. Salad burnet leaves are wonderful in tea sandwiches.

Basil (Ocimum basilicum and others)

Basil is not an easy herb to grow in the Northwest, but if I could have only one fresh herb it would be basil. As many of you may feel similarly, I have a few hints that might help.

First, remember that basil will not tolerate temperatures below 50 degrees. Though nurseries begin to offer basil starts in the early spring, they should not be planted outdoors until June, or perhaps May if you have an unusually warm and sheltered location. Basil, too, is loved by slugs, so you will need to take measures to deter them. (Beer traps are a classic, as slugs will rush to drown themselves in beer. Growing your basil in pots will also help deter them, but will not do the whole job.) Basil will grow well in a sunny window, especially the Greek globe or bush basil. Basil is relatively easy to start from seed, indoors, but your results will be much better if you place the seed trays on something warm -- like a propagation mat, a computer, the top of a refrigerator or a heating pad on its lower setting.