Herbs
By Val Whitmyre, U. C. Master Gardener
I laughed but he wasn't far off with his description of sorrel (Rumex acetosa), a French herb with a strong tart flavor.
We sat by the newly planted sorrel and decided to have a salad party, pulling off and tasting leaves of several other plants, such as mint, tarragon, parsley and salad burnet. The party ended when he headed toward the poisonous oleanders.
We use herbs for myriad purposes. They are a part of our daily lives. Most gardeners plant herbs as landscape plants or as tasty additions to food.
Herbs are defined as any herbaceous (non-woody) plant that provides flavor, fragrance or medicinal value. I would add comfort to that. Many of us drink chamomile tea for a calming effect. If I need something to cheer me up on a cold, rainy day, I pick a few rose-scented geranium leaves and steep them in boiling water. With a little lemon, the result is a delicious, fragrant tea that makes my day a little rosier.
You're lucky if you have an east-facing kitchen, the perfect place for herbs to catch the morning sunlight. You can grow perennials like thyme, tarragon, Italian parsley and chives and the annual basil on a kitchen windowsill, and they will be at your fingertips when you need them.
Out of lemons? Use lemon or lime thyme or lemon verbena in poultry dishes for the same effect. Need something to spike up an artichoke dip? Use chopped tarragon, either fresh or dried. Want to add a little pizzazz to a salad? Throw in a few edible flowers. Typical flowers used in salads or desserts are violas, nasturtiums, roses, marigolds, squash blossoms and lavender. Borage flowers are a striking blue and taste like cucumber.
Use rosemary stems as skewers to add aroma and flavor to lamb shish kabobs. Mix chopped herbs into softened butter to spread on biscuits or flavor vegetables. In general, use three times more of the fresh herbs as you would of the dried kind. Add fresh herbs to cooked dishes near the end of the cooking process.
Herbs are the aromatic stems, flowers and leaves of the plant, while spices come primarily from the dried roots, bark, seeds, buds or fruit. Most spices are from the tropics. Some plants provide us with both herb and spice. From coriander, we get the leafy green herb we know as cilantro or Chinese parsley as well as the hard dried seed we use as a spice in baking.
Herbs are easy to grow. Like other plants, they need regular water for the first two or three years. They aren't fussy about soil type, but all need good drainage and several hours of sunlight each day. Herbs native to Mediterranean climates, such as rosemary, thyme and sage, can survive for years in dry, rocky soil. They don't mind our hot, dry summers or wet winters.
A relatively new herb (to me) is stevia (Stevia rebaudiana). A perennial from South America that is hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, stevia makes a natural, calorie-free sugar substitute. It is used in drinks, baked goods, desserts and preserves, contributing a pleasant flavor that never dominates. I found it in four-inch pots and planted several. They grow to about three feet. You can buy powdered stevia at health-food stores.
Certain herbs, such as mint, are often grown in pots because they may be invasive if planted in the ground. Think about how much space you have before you place a vigorous grower in the ground.
The Puritans of the early 1600s thought that God left clues to a plant's safety and use in its shape and color. Lung-shaped flowers were meant to help diseased lungs. Now we know that nature offers many beautiful but inedible herbs—among them aloe, hellebore, foxglove, lobelia, mistletoe and deadly nightshade (belladonna). The safety of angelica is still in question. In that light, it is just common sense to use only herbs that you know to be safe and free of pesticides.