What herbs complete your kitchen?

[petra]

In my quest to stay enriched inside, I have invested in a small herb garden. What would be in yours if you could have such a thing?

Comments

[petra]

Ours is peppermint, basil, rosemary, and oregano.

[jadelennox]

this is a bit of wish list and a bit of description.

I have rosemary, but I have to get a new one every year because I've never been able to keep it alive over the winter, inside or out.

My sage is the size of a small shrub, so for the second year in a row I have tried and failed to make cuttings to start little plants (because the big sage is so large I had to plant it in the ground, out of a pot).

Dill grows wild like a weed in my little plot.

I have some thyme, and I've also planted thyme in the front where I can't get anything else to grow.

Also I have sorrel, parsley, marjoram, oregano, and of course basil.

I have a single elderly lavender plant which sprawls like and elder thing and smells lovely.

I wish I could overwinter the perennial herbs more reliably but they can be rough in an icy winter, so I usually get new ones in the spring.

[petra]

That sounds like a lovely collection of good-smelling plants. I envy you the happy sage and the wild dill.

I have fond memories of mowing thyme as part of the yard where I grew up.

[althea_valara]

I'd want rosemary and basil because they smell amazing.

Back when I had a condo I tried container gardening on the balcony. I had basil, rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage, and catnip. Every time I tried to water the plants I had to fight to keep my cat indoors because the plants attracted her so much.

[desireearmfeldt]

I have a porch garden with all of those but the catnip (no cat), plus lavender and cilantro. Also strawberries of the small-but-fragrent kind -- it smells really nice out there at the moment. ETA: also chives but they have already flowered and pretty much finished for the year. And the spouse's unkillable hyssop, now competing with the remnants of the unkillable dill.

(I also experimentally planted some squash and cantaloupe seeds and am now watching in awe as they're starting to hit their stride...I'm not sure what will happen when the vines leave the pots, which will be like, tomorrow.)

[petra]

Mm, fresh cilantro is a lovely luxury.

Chives just don't chive for very long, do they?

Good luck with the vines that will want to take over the world.

[desireearmfeldt]

Yeah, chives don't last long, and they come up super early. (Really, we just don't know how to get much use out of them, we never think, 'Hey, you know what this dish needs? Chives!'

The vines are exciting. And terrifying. The melon has lots of flowers today. Maybe they'll actually get pollinated! (There are even two separate plants of each.)

[petra]

I can just imagine the march of vines over All Available Space.

[desireearmfeldt]

It's a second floor porch. :>

[petra]

That sounds like a lovely herb garden. I hope the memory of it sustains you.

[minoanmiss]

I want lemon balm and chives and chervil and purple basil, and maybe a sunken pot with some mint in it.

[petra]

These sound like achievable goals, in the main. Containing mint is damn hard but you could probably manage it.

[fred_mouse]

Our herb garden has never got very healthy, but is currently at an all time low -- our rosemary and lavender are elderly/senescing, our parsley all bolted at the end of last season and the new ones are barely out of the ground, and I'm not sure whether our sage has survived.

But I have Plans! for a herb garden, just as soon as I get rid of some of the plants in the front garden, and I want so many many things. Mint in all the possible options. Oregano. Thyme and lemon thyme. Lemon balm. Basil, sweet, purple, Thai, etc. Pyrethrum daisy. Many other things I'm forgetting. But not borage, because it is the one I know I'm contact allergic to.

[petra]

Your plans sound delicious. Enjoy implementing them!

[fred_mouse]

Reporting back on this -- I now have mint, marjoram, thyme, and oregano all flourishing in the front garden. The first three are in 'raised beds' each consisting of a single tyre filled with good soil while the latter came in a six punnet so I tried it out in several places, two of which are flourishing. I continue to have the occasional parsley pop up. And I've put in a new lavender and a new rosemary out the front.

Have failed to get basil or rhubarb, which are the two must haves for this particular garden.