Subject: Re: Herb Gardening

From: [email-masked] (L.A.Z. Smith)
Date: 5 Apr 94 21:01:14 GMT

Most herbs are easy.  They just need lots of sun and good drainage.
Don't water or fertilize too much or you will have green, leafy herbs
with no flavor.  For the best production of essential oils, it's
best to keep the plants a little dry and hungry.

The exceptions are parsley, chervil and mint, which can take
moisture and a little shade, and sweet woodruff, which likes it
really shady.  And watercress, which likes it really wet, but sunny.
And probably some others that I'm forgetting, but the common
culinary herbs do like it sunny and dry.

I recommend growing the annuals and biennials (basil, parsley, etc.)
from seed, and buying plants for most of the perennials.  If you are
just growing plants for your own culinary uses, you probably don't
need more than one or two of each kind.  One sage plant gives me
enough to use fresh all season and enough to dry to use all winter.
(If you want to make sage wine, or are a devotee of sage teas or deep-
fried sage leaves, then obviously you'll want more.)  But I like
lots of basil, to use fresh and to make into pesto.  I have a couple
of thyme plants, but I use a lot of it, and am thinking of putting
in a couple more.   But the perennials row and spread and can be
divided.

Two cautions: be sure to get _French_ tarragon (Artemesia dracunulus
sativa) and _Greek_ oregano (Origanum heraclioticum).  The other
varieties have little flavor.  For the tarragon, you will have to
buy plants; it doesn't grow from seed.  Also, I find it's a good
idea, before buying any herb plant, to taste a leaf to be sure it's
what you expect; seedlings don't have the same intensity of flavor
that mature plants do, but you'll be able to get an idea.

Leah Smith		[email-masked]