10 Clever Herbs

Broaden your approach to gardening by growing easy-to-care-for herbs that you can use in your home. Plant exotic culinary herbs like coriander for enhancing Mexican or Thai dishes and cumin for Indian and Middle Eastern food or simply plant herbs that you use already in your everyday meal preparation. You can save lots of money on room sprays and other scented products for the home by growing fragrant herbs like lavender that you can cut and turn into wreaths, potpourris and sachets. And you can even make your own tea from dried herbs like thyme. Most herbs thrive in full sun and require at least five to six hours of sunlight every day.

Grow Herbs in One of Three Ways

  1. Tuck herbs in among vegetables or flowers in your garden if you want to grow lots of varieties.
  2. Plant herbs in a sunny window box if you’re limited on space in your garden.
  3. Choose just one favorite and pot it up in a container for a beautiful accent in the garden or home.

 

10 of my Favorite Herbs and Ways to Use Them

Add the cream and green leaves of pineapple mint to chopped green and fruit salads or use it to garnish summer drinks.

Pineapple Mint

Substitute golden sage for any recipe that calls for dried sage. When using fresh herbs in place of dried, double the amount called for in the recipe. This plant’s fresh leaves make a tasty addition to dressings for roast chicken or turkey.

Golden Sage

Garnish light summer meals with the petite leaves and delicate blossoms of thyme.

Thyme

Flavor desserts like cakes, sorbets and ice cream with lavender or use the highly fragrant foliage in potpourris, wreaths or lotions.

Lavender at Bonny Doon Farm

Perk up grilled chicken with the drought tolerant rosemary. The spiky leaves have a distinctive taste and it is often added to roasted potatoes or used in herbal wreaths.

Rosemary in Bloom

Grow Thai basil in containers; its flowers make dramatic addition to a culinary bouquet. Or use the leaves to top your favorite pasta dish.

Thai Basil Blooms

Spice cakes and puddings with the range of fragrances (from lemon and lime to ginger or nutmeg) of variegated scented geranium leaves.

Scented Geranium

Use chives leaves and blossoms in your favorite dishes; it is a mild-flavored relative of onions, garlic and shallots.

Chive Blooms

Let the bright greenish-yellow flowers of dill develop into dill seeds and them in pickles and vegetable salads.

Dill Flowers in the Garden

Try the fragrant foliage of pineapple sage, which looks good all season and smells faintly of pineapple, on pizza, foccaccia, gnocchi or pasta.

Pineapple Sage

Learn about growing Chinese Garlic Chives in the video below!