Spicing up the herb garden

I've been waiting for a chance to do an update on my herb garden, as it has changed a lot in the last year. The big change is that almost everything is growing in pots now, instead of in the ground. Now is the perfect time for the update for two very good reasons. The first is that it's spring, so everything is growing well and looks nice for photos. 

The second reason is that a new book on herbs and spices, by Don Burke, is going on sale next week, and as I worked behind the scenes helping Don to put the book together, I want to tell you all about it. Pictured below is the book cover, but I'll tell you all about it at the end of this blog post. Before my not-very-amateur burst of rampant commercialism, it's onto my potted herb garden show-and tell.

French tarragon is happy as larry in its new, wider pot,
replanted there during midwinter when it was just a bunch
of snoozing bare roots and runners. It has such a nice
mildly aniseedy flavour that is heaven with chicken, or eggs.

Oregano, grown from seed just on a whim, looking lovely
right now. It was looking straggly about six weeks ago, so
I cut it back all over and now it's at its finest. That's the big
secret with herbs in general, but potted herbs in particular:
cut them back often, a light cut once a month works wonders.

Chives in front, lemon thyme left and sage in flower, right.
The sage is from my original in-the-ground mother plant. I dug
up a section with a rootball and potted that up. It took a while to
bounce back, but it's happy now in its terracotta pot.

Another 'sprog of mum' plant, my common thyme is a roots-
and-all chunk of the former large mother plant, replanted and
doing well in a wide, shallow pot. This is one plant that I
cut back very regularly, to keep it low, dense and bushy.

The rosemary is a cutting grown from the monster size parent,
and I am cruelly trimming it to encourage dense, low growth,
as it can grow to silly sizes if you let it go unchecked. Rosemary
has such a strong flavour you never need much in any dish.

Moist mint is happy mint. I have two pots here, one with common
mint, the other with spearmint, and both need major cutbacks
about three or four times a year. I cut the whole plants down
to pot-rim level, back to just stumps, then give it a good feed.
I love the look of the two pots when they're in their pomp.

I still have a few herbs in the ground, including this chervil,
which I didn't plant here. It turns out that chervil is so happy
here it's behaving like a weed and self-seeding all over the
place. It has a lovely, light aniseedy flavour.

Also in the ground and "on the way out" is this patch of
coriander, which is starting to go to seed as the weather
warms up. The patch has been here for a few months now,
as coriander loves our mild winters the best. That's the
time to grow it here in Sydney. If you grow it in summer,
you'll have to sow, grow and harvest three or four crops
each summer season, as it goes from leafy to seedy in
no time at all during steadily hot summer weather.

That's enough for my own personal update on the herb patch. It's time to show you Don's new book, priced at $29.95 in hardcover, which goes on sale on October 1. It's published by New Holland Publishers, is 304 pages long and has entries on virtually every useful herb and spice you can think of, plus lots that you might not have heard of. Here's the cover.

With only a few exceptions, each herb is covered in what's called a 'double-page-spread' of two open, facing pages. Pam did some of the illustrations used in the book, and my wide-ranging contribution to Don's text goes under the heading of "editorial consultant". Don loves to get down to the practical nitty-gritty of gardening, so he offers tips on how to grow each herb, best varieties, how to harvest and dry or prepare it, then how best to use it in the kitchen. He also quite frankly tells you whether it's worthwhile trying to grow each herb or spice in the garden (as some are hopelessly impractical to grow in backyards while others are dead-easy). 

And Don loves a good debunking of myths, too. This is a no-mumbo-jumbo book! Instead of mindlessly repeating all the ancient myths about herbs and spices being good for curing ague, plague or whatever, he's gone straight to modern scientific research to find out whether each herb really is beneficial or not. (The good news is that many are very useful.) However, this is also where Don's book is full of new, fresh info that might contradict some of the very unscientific mumbo-jumbo that has been long attributed to the healing powers of various herbs and spices. Some traditional 'medicinal' herbs are actually unsafe for human consumption, and several are simply useless. While researching this subject area I was struck by how many herb experts writing their books had unquestioningly just repeated the traditional folk myths about the medicinal benefits of herbs and spices. So I say good on you Don for turning to science for your evidence in this area. I learned a lot at this stage of the project.

And did I tell you it's full of delicious recipes and gorgeous colour photos? And if you like to brew interesting cups of tea we've got the tea brewing recipes for you too.

OK, so I am a bit biased, but it's a new kind of herb and spice book, a deliciously practical one. A few enjoyable months of my working life went into helping Don research and prepare the text for this book, and I am very pleased with how it has turned out. Go check it out if you can. 

I've noticed that while it doesn't 'officially' go on sale until October 1, it's already up and available for pre-order on websites such as Amazon, the ABC Shop site here in Australia, and numerous other book sellers' websites. Just search for 'Herbs & Spices' by Don Burke and you'll find it.

Timely trims

I hate to start off a blog posting with a yucky image, so for starters I'll whisk us back to happier times.

This was when the tarragon was lush, the zinnias were singing and March was really the fourth month of summer and not the first of autumn. But that's not how things are with the tarragon now, in July, in midwinter.

... yuck factor 110%. But fear not, this is just the normal seasonal cycle with this tasty herb. Every year my pot of tarragon looks like it's dying off in midwinter, so it's time to get out the secateurs for a timely trim.

I cut very stem down to pot rim level with my trusty Felcos. If you look at the photo carefully you can see the next generation of tarragon babies already poking through.

Here they are. Late July is the time I always trim back the tarragon, as August is a time when things start to warm up just enough to get the willing growers growing. And tarragon is a willing grower. To give you some idea of what's likely to happen next, here are some pix of tarragon's rapid progress last year.

This is September tarragon, loving the sunshine.

October tarragon, in its beautiful, leafy adolescence.

"Pick me, pick me" says December tarragon, so leafy and lush that soon after I took this photo I trimmed it back all over and took the trimmings inside for cooking.

What does tarragon go best with? Well, it has a mildly aniseedy flavour that is heaven with chicken, and it's very lovely in egg dishes, too.

The main things to know about tarragon are these: there are three types – French, Mexican and Russian, and the French variety has the finest flavour. By comparison the Russian and Mexican types are bland. Also, the French type rarely sets seed and almost exclusively grows from runners. The other two types do set seed. Yet sometimes you might see a packet of French tarragon 'seed' but that's not likely to be right - it's most likely the seed of one of the other two types. So, it's best to buy French tarragon as a small plant, or to take some runners from a friend's plant and grow it on from there.

Like most herbs it likes sunshine and regular water, and a monthly liquid feed. I find that in a pot the runners grow so densely that soil drainage suffers after two years, so every two years I repot it into fresh mix, breaking up the dense clump of runners and replanting them. This operation usually results in lots of leftover runners, so I pot them up into other pots to give away. Tarragon is both a lovely herb and a nice gift.

While I'm rabbiting on about trimming herbs, two more to mention before I sign off. These are the chives I cut back to pot rim level – to stumps just 5mm high – about four weeks ago. Fortnightly liquid feeds and they're bouncing back nicely. I must have freshly snipped chives with our scrambled eggs on Sunday mornings, otherwise they just wouldn't taste right!

And the sage isn't ready to hack back yet. I'll wait until the very end of winter and the beginning of spring to do that job. In the meantime, the sage will just get crappier and crappier over the next four weeks. Then I'll cut the whole thing back by about half. It will look very ordinary indeed for a couple of weeks, and then it will bounce back beautifully for the rest of spring, summer and most of autumn, needing no feeding or extra watering from me. Sydney's abundant natural rainfall is more than enough for sage's needs.

Proof of the pudding is this lush beauty photographed in March this year. Sometimes I just want to put my head into that forest of fragrant leaves, they're so soft, inviting and furry, like a cuddly pet.

And so this old herb grower says keep your secateurs both sharp, clean and handy, and every year a bit of the old 'chop-chop' on your perennial herbs will provide rewards to those who are prepared to make some timely trims.

Herbal tonics

A few weeks ago I decided that some of my herbs were looking a bit tatty in one way or another, and so I took to them with my favourite herbal tonic: my trusty secateurs. With February's rain and warmth, all of them have bounced back very nicely, and so I thought it's time for a little herbal show and tell.

The big surprise is how happy my sage plant is. This Mediterranean herb ought to cark it during a month of torrential rain and humidity, but after I cut off all the daggy, saggy, wilty bits in late January it has thrived. This is one herb I never water, never feed. All I do is cut it back occasionally. It gets a savage cut-back at the beginning of spring each year, and then I simply cut off anything crappy looking whenever I notice it at other times of year.

Mint is the opposite to sage, in that I'm always watering and feeding the thing. But I do also cut it all back down to the pot-rim level every few months, when it gets leggy and scrappy. This morning, it's really getting going again.

The French tarragon was in dire trouble, as the clump had grown so dense that it formed a tight ball in the pot. There was moss forming on the soil surface, so bad was the drainage. And so I unpotted it, cut off the bottom half of the rootball with my pruning saw, then pulled the remaining clump apart to make several plants (tarragon forms runners, so each 'plant' is actually a set of runners). Then, into fresh potting mix, I created two new pots of bare stems and roots. Later on, I fed them with a high-nitrogen liquid food as soon as the first green shoots appeared (which didn't take long at all, just a week or so).

Here's the other pot, doing equally well. I love the slightly aniseedy flavour of tarragon, which goes especially well with either egg dishes or chicken. It's nice to have a good, healthy supply once more. These plants will die down slightly over winter, but they'll bounce back once spring arrives. I'm not sure how old my tarragon plants are, but they've been here for a long time and with this rejuvenation they'll last for many years more.

The only tonic my thyme plant needs is an occasional trim with hedge shears. Just cutting off an inch or two all over creates a new flush of growth. Like the sage, the thyme never gets watered or fed. Our plentiful natural rainfall is all it needs.

I know I often bang on about herbs here in this blog, and that's because I'm a keen cook. And when I cook, I use herbs almost every time, most of the time my own home-grown herbs. And in my small garden herbs are one of the best ways to use precious space. By comparison, vegies are just a bit of fun on the side. I could never hope to grow all the vegies I need, but I do come quite close to growing all the herbs I need.

Backyard babies

It's a lazy gardener's dream come true when you hear the rain on the roof in the morning. "Oh, good, I don't have to worry about watering the babies – thank you rain god." And so it was this morning. Nothing to set the weather bureau humming with excitement, but a couple of mills of rain nevertheless. And the cloudy weather makes everything look and smell so nice.

Even in their adult glory tiny alyssum flowers look like a cluster of so many babies, so I thought I'd start with them.

Sown as seed a few weeks back, this pot of chervil is enjoying its semi-shaded new home. I tried to grow it last year, presuming it was a typical sun-loving herb, and it didn't thrive. And then I discovered that it's a shy thing that likes its semi shade. Looks a lot like parsley (see the next pic) and it's said to be lovely with eggs. Will report back on this one later on. So far, so good.

And speaking of parsley, here's this year's seed-sown parsley border powering along. Parsley takes about three weeks just to sprout from seed, then another couple of weeks to get

serious about growing. But about 10 days ago it announced its adolescence and it's belting along. Four weeks from now it will probably want to leave home.

A free packet of tomato seeds with the latest gardening magazine: Grosse Lisse tomatoes. There are also Tiny Tim cherry tomatoes coming up well from seed, plus Roma egg tomatoes from seed, all side by side in the same little suburb of punnets.

An encouraging sight – new growth on the bay tree. At the very bottom left of this pic you can see a typically winter-blighted bay tree leaf with scale damage. I truly tried to be a diligent gardener and sprayed the thing with PestOil this winter, and still the relentless scale set up colonies. At least this new growth compensates for the lack of success with the pest prevention.

Roast chicken here I come! Oops, forgive me, I haven't made introductions. This is the 2008 spring crop of French tarragon, springing up and rapidly making headway. This herb dies back in winter and then bounces back in spring from the runners it sends out. It has a mildly aniseedy flavour that is just made for chicken (and French mustard, and garlic, but that's another posting). One of these days I'll get really adventurous and try it with something else...

I guess I'm stretching the concept of babies with these little winter-sown cherry tomatoes, but they changed colour from green to red the other day, and it at least they get a 'coming of age' award for doing that.

Raised from seed, this Zucchini 'Black Beauty' baby will soon become a tearaway teenager and then a hardworking, productive adult a few weeks after that. Hopefully there will be a full zucchini blog with recipes a few months from now. So far, the kid is doing fine!

And this large person is a baby, a newly planted big baby. My Pammy has always wanted a frangipani tree, and I love them, too (the classic one with white flowers with a yellow centre and a tropically sweet fragrance). A few years back one of my workmates, Krissy, decided to renovate her house, and the hardest thing for her was getting rid of her big, old frangipani tree to make way for the snazzy new building. So, all sorts of family and friends received cuttings from her tree, and they're growing well in several new homes, including ours. Last Sunday we decided the time was right for 'baby' to go into its new home in the garden, having spent two summers growing and developing nicely in a pot. One funny little thing is this: 'baby frangipani' looked like a whopper in the pot, but it looks just like a small but perfectly formed tree in the ground.

Babies might come in all shapes and sizes, but the nurturing instinct is blind to size.