2 Jul 2007

Herbs


It is so easy to grow herbs in pots on the patio it seems a shame to buy them from the supermarket.
My bay is a few years old now and just starting to produce lots of new growth, the rosemary bush is about a year old, and the sage, mint and thyme are new this year.
I have bought a lavender bush to sit amongst the herbs because the thyme seems to attract lots of little flies, and I am told the lavender helps to keep them away.
With the exception of mint, when the herbs grow too big or woody for the pots I put them in my vegetable garden and basically, I just let them grow into small bushes.
I chop the rosemary leaves and put these in the freezer for the winter, the thyme is too fiddly to chop and so I just cut the stems complete with leaves, and freeze these too.
Mint and sage can also be chopped and then stored in the freezer. The bay I cover up for the winter months to protect from the frosts and so in the winter I am able to also use fresh bay leaves.
Herbs are a cooks best friend and the uses for them are endless. An excellent book about herbs is The New Vegetable & Herb Expert by Dr D G Hessayon.