Growing Your Own Culinary Herbs

If you love to cook, you’ll probably want to start you own culinary herb garden. Most people keep these somewhere near their back door so that they can dash outside for a couple of sprigs while they are cooking.

So when you’re planning your culinary herb garden think about what you like to cook and begin with the herb plants that are included in your favorite recipes.

Some good herbs for your kitchen garden are:

  • Chives: I love raising and cooking chives because they are so simple. From seed to cooking pot, these are uncomplicated all the way around. If you do have a recipe that calls for fresh chives, just snip the tops off a few of your sprouts and the herb will continue to grow Chives can certainly wake up the other tastes in your meals.
  • Dill: Anyone can raise dill—you don’t even need a green thumb. They like full-sun and well-drained sod, but be sure to clip off the tops before they go to seed so that they will not spread all over your yard. The leaves, stems, and seeds are all nice to eat. Try adding some dried dill seed to your tuna or chicken salad.
  • Cayenne Pepper: Because this sizzling hot herb can grow to more than 3 feet high, you’ll want to plant it so that it does not block the sun for another plant. If you live in a region that has frost during the colder time of year, you will want to bring your cayenne pepper herb inside. You can start with seeds indoors and move outside after the last frost. As summer winds on, harvest your peppers as soon as they begin to ripen, because they will easily and quickly rot on the plant.
  • Tarragon: Tarragon has a fantastic flavor and scent. I make a mouth-watering mayonnaise-based vegetable dip with tarragon that never fails to please. Start with a young plant and clip leaves and stems whenever you need them. You’ll also want to keep the plant trimmed back, so if you need to give it a manicure and don’t have anything on the menu that calls for tarragon; you can also freeze it for the future.
  • Cilantro: This star of Mexican cuisine can add a lot of flavor to your next salsa, tacos or Mexican chicken dish. You can successfully raise cilantro from seeds and harvest leaves in any month of the year, which you can add to your delicious Mexican entrees. You can also take it indoors during winter for guaranteed success. The leaves near the bottom of the plant have the best flavor, so begin here when you harvest the leaves for your next Mexican dish.
  • Welch Onions: Although these onions are small, don’t count them out, because their mild taste is reminiscent of scallions. Like pearl onions, I use these in dinners to add a bit of visual appeal. Leave a lot of room for your Welch onion because they tend to grow in large clumps.

Good luck with your herb gardening. Be sure to let me know how your herb garden grows.

Here is more information on Fresh Herb Gardening. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Herb Gardens.


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This post was written by admin on March 30, 2010

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