Annual Herbs

Credit to : blog.yourgardeningtools.com

 

Basil - Ocimum basilicum

Even if you do not know the first thing about Italian cooking you should learn how to grow basil. This plant is often referred to as the Royal Queen of herbs and it is one of the easiest edibles for anyone to grow at home.

There are a wonderful array of different varieties of basil that you can select from including Spicy Globe, Genovese basil, Thai basil, Lemon basil, Sweet Basil, Mexican Spice, Lettuce Leaf, Magical Michael and many others. Italian cooks are well aware that the sweet, savory flavors of Genovese Basil are the perfect accompaniment for Italian cooking.

Thai and other Asian dishes are enhanced by the spicy, aromatic Thai Basil. Although most varieties of basil have culinary uses there are a few that are highly prized for their ornamental value.

Growing basil indoors:

This wonderful aromatic and hardy herb can be successfully grown in almost any setting. If you live in a very cool climate it might be best to cultivate basil varieties in a greenhouse environment or inside your home. Basil performs admirably when the temperatures are above 60 degrees both during the day and night. Plant your basil plants into 2 to 3 liter containers and place them in your sunniest spot. Water them only through a saucer, never from the top. Pinch out the flowers as they develop.

Warm, dry weather will never daunt the perky green foliage and mature plants are able to withstand drought with minimal watering. Basil is a sun loving plant that should never be set out in shady areas.

Gardeners add these as companion plants in a vegetable or flower bed but basil is equally at home in a visually appealing herb garden. Some people even plant these herbs in rock gardens or use them as specimen plants. This resilient little herb can be grown indoors or outside and you can even set them out in containers of almost any size and basil will happily produce fresh, fragrant leaves throughout the growing season.

How to grow basil:

Start off basil seeds indoors or in a glasshouse in the spring. Cover them only lightly with fine seed compost as basil seeds are very small. The seeds need minimum 10 degrees for germination.

Transplant the basil seedlings when they start to produce their second set of leaves. If you grow basil in pots you can plant 5-10 basil plants into a container.

Watering Basil:

The water requirements for growing basil are relatively slight and once a week watering is more than adequate for the needs of these plants. Should you grow a very mature plant in a very warm and sunny place in a container the water requirements might be higher.

Tips :

Never overwater your basil plant and allow the soil to dry out completely in between watering. If you always let the soil remain a bit on the dry side it will help you prevent any root or plant rot.

Misting or sprinkling the outdoor garden basil with a little water is one way many gardeners choose to handle the watering chores. If you have basil growing in a container watering the plants from the top should be avoided, although you may want to add some water to the bottom overflow saucer and allow the plant to absorb the water that is needed.

Pests and Diseases:

Aphids and whiteflies can attack your basil but both of these pests can be handled without resorting to harsh chemical pesticides. A little soapy water and a cloth or sprayer is all that should be required to eliminate these tiny insects from your bountiful basil garden.

Remember that lacewings, lady bugs, walking sticks and the praying mantis are all beneficial insects that can be an asset when you want to keep harmful bugs away from your herbs, flowers or vegetable gardens. You can order beneficial insects online.

Cooking And Preserving:

The leaves from a basil plant are packed with savory, rich flavor when you use them immediately after harvesting. Always use basil that is freshly picked and only add it to the meat, sauce, stew or vegetable dish after the food has been cooked.

The fresh taste of basil should not be subjected to the high heats needed for cooking and should only be incorporated into the cooked dishes shortly before they are served at the table.

Preserve fresh Basil leaves through freezing in ice cube trays or make a delicious pesto.

 

Quick Guide

Position:sunny, south-facing

Watering:little, from the bottom, never too wet

Feeding:every 2 weeks

Propagation:from seed, cuttings

Cooking:add after cooking

Preserving:Freeze, Pesto

 

Chervil - Anthriscus cerefolium

Chervil is probably a lesser known annual herb but it deserves a spot in your kitchen herb garden. It is easily and quickly grown from seeds. The Romans used this delicate looking herb with the fern like foliage. The flavour of chervil is very aromatic and would remind you of aniseed.

You can get curly and flat leafed varieties of chervil. Both are equally good and taste the same.

Cooking With Chervil

Chervil is very popular in French cooking. Use the leaves fresh and add them after cooking. Heat or drying will destroy the delicate flavour.

Chervil is used with Fines Herbes (French herb mixture), Bouquet Garni, salads and soups. They are also a great addition to potatoes, eggs or fish dishes.

How To Grow Chervil

Chervil likes a rich but light soil in a partly shaded spot. Too much heat, sun or dry soil will cause it to bolt and go to seed.

Don't be tempted to store Chervil seeds for too long. Only fresh seeds less than a year old will germinate readily. Sow the seeds thickly into boxes or bowls. Sow them in rows in the ground. They will germinate within a week or two. You can start harvesting approximately six weeks after sowing.

If you let some plants develop seeds you have a supply of fresh seed for the next season.

Chervil is fairly cold tolerant so you can make your first sowings in March. A late sowing in late summer will produce a crop for winter and early spring. If you let some plants go to seed they might start self-seeding and produce a ground-covering carpet of seeds.

Chervil is short lived so sow seeds every two to three weeks for a continuous supply. Use fresh potting soil every time if you grow chervil in pots.

Keep your plants well watered and protect them from drying out. This will cause red leaves and pre-mature bolting. The flavour is also suffering if the plants are under stress. Feeding is hardly necessary because of the short lifespan.

Chervil can be grown like cress on the window sill. This is particularly useful in the winter because it will keep you supplied with delicious and healthy fresh greens when other fresh herbs are scarce.

Harvesting And Preserving

Always harvest the young tender leaves. They have the most flavour. Harvest before the plants start flowering. After flowering the flavour is not as strong.

Freeze surplus Chervil leaves in ice cube trays or freezer bags.

 

Quick Guide

Position:part shade

Watering:moist, not too dry

Feeding:not required

Propagation:from seed

Cooking:add after cooking

Preserving:Freeze

 

Coriander (Cilantro) - Coriandrum sativum

Coriander became popular in the western world only in the last two decades. In Asia and the Middle East it has been used for over 3000 years! This annual herb can easily be grown from seeds. It is a great herb for containers or a window sill herb garden.

Cooking With Coriander

The fresh Coriander leaves are added to dishes after cooking. The Coriander seeds can also be used but have a different more lemony flavour than the leaves. They are an ingredient of curry. Use them as well for pickling or baking.

The chopped coriander leaves can be added to Asian dishes particularly in Thai and Indian cooking. They are also popular for Moroccan and Tunisian dishes like Couscous, Rice dishes or Harissa.

How To Grow Coriander

If you are growing Coriander in the garden choose a sunny spot with good drainage and fertile soil. Part shade is also suitable and might produce a better leaf crop. Keep the plants moist at the seedling stage otherwise they will bolt and go to seed very quickly. Once they bolt you have very little leaf and have to start over again.

Cilantro plants don't like too much heat. During the hot summer months choose a spot that is a bit shaded. A great advantage if you grow cilantro in a pot is that you can keep it out of the hot afternoon sun by moving it around. Find a spot that gets morning or evening sun but is shaded for the hottest hours of the day.

Coriander is short lived so make sowings every few weeks if you want an ongoing supply. Sow the seeds in containers or into the ground and cover them with some soil. Keep them moist (but not wet!). If you keep them too dry they won't produce many leaves and bolt right away!

Put the seed right where you want to keep the plant! Cilantro does not transplant well so don't uproot them. This can cause the plant to bolt. Sow them right into containers for pot growing and not into seed trays first.

Any sort of stress like drought or transplanting will make cilantro go to seed. This is of course not what you want if you plan on harvesting lots of flavourful leaves. So avoid stress at all cost.

Harvesting And Preserving

Harvest the young and tender leaves and use them fresh. The seeds can also be harvested when they are ripe. They can be used whole, crushed or ground.

Store the seeds in airtight containers after drying. If you have surplus coriander foliage try freezing it in ice cube trays.

 

Quick Guide

Position:sun to part shade

Watering:moist but not wet

Feeding:very little

Propagation:from seed

Cooking:add leaves after cooking

Preserving:Freeze

 

Garden Cress - Lepidium sativum

Cress is a fun little herb to grow. You can grow it literally anywhere and anytime. It is child's play to grow and if you want to start kids on gardening growing cress is a great project. Within two weeks you will have fresh greens that are loaded with Vitamin C. You can watch it grow!

Cress can be grown outside or indoors at the kitchen window all year round! It is a great herb to grow in the winter when other fresh herbs are scarce. It takes very little effort to grow this tasty herb. Your rewards are tasty salads or sandwiches in the middle of winter and a boost to your immune system.

Cooking With Cress

Cress has a peppery flavour and would remind you a bit of Radish. It is used fresh for salads, sandwiches, yoghurts, eggs and as a garnish for soups. Don't cook it.

How To Grow Cress

Cress is an annual herb and grown from seeds. The seeds germinate within two or three days. Sprinkle the seeds onto moist peat, sand or potting compost. Cress is a very short crop so the growing medium does not really matter. You can literally grow it on damp cotton wool or kitchen towels. Cress can also be used as sprouts.

You can grow it on plates, shallow bowls, plastic containers, yoghurt pots, egg cartons...anything that will hold a handful of potting soil.

Cress needs light for germination and is therefore only sprinkled on whatever growing medium you choose. Don't cover them with soil. The seeds can be sown close together so you end up with a dense carpet of cress.

Start with the first sowings in March if you grow cress outside and choose a semi-shaded spot. Sow new seeds every 8 days to keep you supplied with fresh cress.

If you grow cress indoors a north or west facing window is better than a hot south facing window sill. Too much heat and sun will make the cress bitter. Keep the seeds moist all the time. Feeding is not necessary.

Harvesting Cress

Cut the cress with a knife or scissors when it is about 4-5 inches high. Discard of the roots after cutting it. It won't re-grow.

Preserving is not necessary because you can grow it all year round.

 

Quick Guide

Position:part shade

Watering:moist

Feeding:not necessary

Propagation:from seed

Cooking:add leaves after cooking

Preserving:not necessary

 

Dill - Anethum graveolens

Growing Dill plants is easy and these plants may even become a self-seeding part of any garden or yard landscape. Tall, delicate blue-green leaved plants with a large flower head that is umbrella shaped, light yellow green in color with very tiny flowerets.

Thetime to plantdill depends on the area in which you live as it is not frost hardy but the seed can be planted in two or three week intervals until mid-summer.

The seeds prefer to germinate in cooler temperatures and if Dill has self-seeded you may have to remove some of the plants to prevent crowding. Growing Dill plants do not transplant well, so plan carefully if you will allow this plant to self-seed.

How To Grow Dill

When planting Dill remember this is a tall, slender-stemmed plant that may reachthree feet in height. Planting this culinary plant behind smaller flowers or shorter herbs will allow you to enjoy it without it hiding other plants. They easily self-seed and may show up in other areas of any garden and occasionally other locations completely as the wind carries away the small seed.

Unlike some culinary plants, learning how to grow dill can be as easy as filling a decorative pot with soil and setting a few seeds in the dirt. Dill can grow indoors and outdoors providing year round leaves for those who live in regions where it gets cold. You can harvest dill for both leaf and its seed.

When growing Dill indoors keep in mind that it prefers warmth so keep it in a warm room where it can get sunlight. Dill prefers a soil that is about pH 6, although a little over or under will not harm it.

Dill invites good insects including parasitic wasps that lay their eggs on plant eating caterpillars. Dill also attracts bees which are great for pollination of all plants especially vegetable plants. Tachinid flies which devour other pest insects including moths, beetles and fly larvae are also attracted by Dill.

Growing Dill outside during the summer and in a pot indoors during the winter will provide fresh Dill leaf year round.

Companion Plants

Dill grows well with lettuce, potatoes, cabbage, onions and cucumbers, and helps protect those plants from bugs that feed on them. Dill stalks can also be harvested and may be used fresh or dried as a substitute for Dill weed in refrigerator pickles and herb tea.

Cooking With Dill

Each part of the growing Dill and dried plant has a unique flavor. Here are some cooking suggestions for Dill:

* Add it to salads, scrambled eggs, omelets and rice.

* Use Dill to create refrigerated vegetable pickles where you add flavored vinegar, dill weed and a touch of oil to raw vegetables and allow it to marinate in the fridge.

* Add it to vegetable dips, chip dips and sauces.

* Season fresh herb butter with fresh garlic and Dill to make a magnificent spread or for toast.

* Dill leaf makes a nice tea.

* The dried seeds have a different flavor and you may add them to pickles, some varieties of sauerkraut and relishes.

* Ground up Dill seed can be used instead of table salt

* Roasts seasoned with crushed Dill, Garlic and Coriander have a very interesting flavor

* Soups, especially potato, tomato and cream based soups flavored with crushed Dill seed are a way to add variety to these soups

Harvesting and Preserving

Dill leaves can be snipped off using a small pair of scissors at any time but be careful to leave the small flowerets.

You can dry dill leaf in a dehydrator, on a counter top or in a sunny windowsill. Freezing also works well.

Harvest dill seeds once they have set by clipping off the entire seed head. Be sure that the seeds are fully developed prior to snipping. If you do not want Dill to grow the next year, timing is important otherwise it will self-seed.

 

Quick Guide

Position:head in sun, root in shade

Watering:keep moist but not wet

Feeding:little

Propagation:from seed

Cooking:add leaves after cooking

Preserving:dry or freeze

 

Nasturtiums - Tropaeolum majus or nanum

Most people would look at Nasturtiums as being a flower but it is edible as well as very decorative and colourful. The bright orange, red or yellow flowers appear during the summer. New selections include compact varieties with deep red flowers (T. majus 'Empress of India') or speckled variegated foliage (T. majus 'Alaska').

There are two varieties to choose from depending on what you want them to do. T. majus has long shoots often 3 ft or longer. T. nanum in comparison grows more bushy and compact. There are many new cultivars out there so check the seed packet for size and growth habit.

Cooking With Nasturtiums

You can use the leaves, flower buds and flowers of Nasturtiums. The flavour is similar to cress but less peppery. Chop the leaves into salads, soft cheese, eggs and yoghurts but don't cook the leaves.

The flowers can be used as colourful edible decorations and garnish. The unripe seeds can be used like capers and can be marinated in a salt brine or vinegar.

How To Grow Nasturtiums

Nasturtiums are annuals and have to be started from seeds every spring. The seeds are quite large and can be sown right into the ground or pots about 3/4 inches deep. If you want your Nasturtiums to flower early start them off indoors in March or early April. Plant them out or into the ground or bigger containers, hanging baskets and window boxes once there are no more frosts at night.

Nasturtiums don't do well inside. They arenot suitable for an indoor herb gardenbut are great in larger containers on patios and balconies, for under-planting large container plants and edging of flower beds. Don't hesitate to shorten the shoots if they get too long.

Plant Nasturtiums in a sunny place. The ground should have good drainage but should not be too rich. Rich soil will encourage a lot of leafy growth but few flowers. Plants in pots should be fed moderately but watered regularly.

Nasturtiums will produce a lot of flowers until the first frost kills them off. They leave a lot of seeds behind though and usually self seed if the place suits them. You can also save some seeds and keep them for the following year.

Green and black flies like Nasturtiums. They are often used to attract these pests and keep them away from other cultivated plants.

Harvesting And Preserving

Harvest the young leaves and use them fresh. They are not suitable for preserving. The flowers can be used for Nasturtium vinegar. The unripe seed pods can be used as a substitute for capers and can be marinated in a salt brine or vinegar.

 

Quick Guide

Position:sunny

Watering:water regularly

Feeding:every 2 weeks

Propagation:from seed

Cooking:add leaves after cooking

Preserving:unripe seeds like capers

 

Parsley - Petroselinum crispum

Learning how to grow Parsley is not at all difficult, once you have got it started, and parsley is certainly one of the most versatile and useful herbs.

It can be grown in the open ground between other crops in the vegetable garden or even between flowers in a flower bed, since it is a very attractive and decorative plant. It can be grown in pots on the patio or close to the kitchen door. It can be grown indoors if you don't have a garden, on a sunny windowsill or a balcony.

And, perhaps best of all, it can be grown at all times of the year provided you can protect it from freezing conditions. It is a trouble free plant, which is seldom attacked by pests or diseases.

Cooking with Parsley

The Two Types of Parsley Herb: Flat Leaf Or Curly Parsley

You can have either flat leaf Parsley or curled Parsley. Some people believe that flat leaf Parsley has a stronger flavour, but whatever type you prefer (and you can, of course, grow both) you grow them both exactly the same way.

Add chopped Parsley to salads, potatoes and vegetables, sauces and egg dishes. Add it after cooking.

How To Grow Parsley Plants

As with most plants, Parsley likes being in full sun although it will tolerate some shade. If you are growing it indoors, put the pot on a south-facing windowsill.

Parsley should really be grown as an annual herb with fresh seed being sown every year. It is actually a perennial, which means that it continues to grow year after year, but from the second year on, it will have a tendency to shoot to seed, growing long coarse stalks that carry seed heads. Although there will always be some leaves worth picking, on the whole it is better to have young fresh plants each year.

If you are growing parsley in a pot, it is best to fill the pot with good general potting compost and add some vermiculite, which you can buy in a garden centre. Vermiculite is a natural mineral that absorbs water and then releases it gradually to the plant. I also like to choose a deep pot for Parsley plants because they have a long tap root.

In open ground, Parsley will grow in almost any soil provided it has been reasonably well dug over and loosened beforehand.

Sowing Parsley Seed

Seed can be sown out of doors from early spring until late summer and sown indoors at any time of the year.

Seed should be sown thinly on the surface of a finely raked soil and lightly pressed into it. The seedbed or pot should then be lightly watered with a very fine spray. Parsley seed can take up to six weeks to germinate and the soil must be kept moist throughout this period.

For planting Parsley in a pot, cover the pot with a sheet of glass or a polythene bag to keep conditions inside moist. Out of doors it can be helpful to cover the seeds with some horticultural fleece.

The main point with growing Parsley is not to give up after sowing the seed - it may look as if nothing is happening but be patient!

How To Care For Parsley Plants

Once the Parsley seeds have germinated and the little green shoots are big enough to handle, you need to thin out the plants so that they are about an inch apart. After that, there is no further care you need take with outdoor plants, apart from keeping it free from weeds.

Indoor plants must be kept reasonably moist. Once the plants are half an inch high, you should no longer water from above, but let them drink up water by pouring water into the tray the pot stands in. You only need do this once a week, unless the soil seems very dry.

Harvesting And Preserving

Pick the Parsley stems at the base. If you leave the stems they will wither and look ugly. Dead plant material is also a food source for fungi like Botrytis.

Preserve Parsley by drying, freezing or use it for a herb salt.

Quick Guide

Position:sun to part shade

Watering:water regularly

Feeding:every 2 weeks

Propagation:from seed

Cooking:add leaves after cooking

Preserving:freeze, dry, herb salt

Credit to : blog.yourgardeningtools.com