The Urban Huswyfe's Herbal

I have a terrible habit of reading up on subjects in a hasty voraciousness, becoming passionate about said subject...but ultimately applying very little of the "book learning" to my everyday life and going on my merry way, using my newly gained knowledge in a generally haphazard and lackadaisical fashion. I went through a "herb" fad when I was pregnant with my eldest girl. I read up on herbal folklore, medicinal remedies, culinary uses, herbs for beautifying myself, the history of herbs and I even read Culpepper. However, please do not think that I am a suburban version of the village wise woman; curing scrofula with marigold petals and bad breath with plantains; what I do know however, is that the average summer pasta dish becomes something quite special with the addition of fresh basil or parsley, that you need a lot of coriander and mint to make a good tabbouleh, that calendular cream isn't hard to make and mint tea does cure indigestion! Moreover, using your home-grown herbs is a very cheap way of umphing up frugal cooking, that mint tea is better for you than shop bought indigestion tablets and that making some of your own creams and unguents is fun!

In the my garden I grow lavender (it edges the front lawn), rosemary (in pots), bay (in a pot) sage (in the corner of the veg patch), lemon balm (in the flower border), chives (again in a corner of the veg plot), oregano (veg plot), thyme (flower border), bergemot (flower border), St John's Wort (flower border) mint (invading the veg plot as I type) and chamomile (again, in the flower border). These are the herbs that come up every year, some of which, like rosemary, sage and bay, can even be used successfully during the winter months, indeed I always think of sage as a a very winter-y herb. The most useful of these herbs are the culinary herbs; I use rosemary two or three times a week, it just seems to make a roast chicken a bit more lively and sage and pork is a lovely combination. And, although I do use it quite sparingly, many stews and roasts deserve a bit of thyme. However, there is no better non-culinary (unless you are a posh chef) herb than lavender; you can use it to scent your linen cupboard and underwear drawers, as potpourri in the bathroom, as a cut flower (particularly the French bearded variety) and even as a carpet deodorizer (mix the petals with bicarb in a glass jar, leave for a week or so and sprinkle onto your carpet, hoover it up after an hour or two).

But now is the time to plant my very favourite culinary herbs; coriander, basil and parsley. They are very easy to grow in pots and troughs and germinate quite quickly. You just sprinkle the seeds, reasonably thinly, into a pot of potting compost, cover the seeds with 5-10mm of compost and water well. Put the pots in a sunny position, keep the seeds/seedlings well watered and you may be harvesting your herbs in a month or so. With this in mind, it is best to sow a pot of herbs at two week intervals from now until the end of summer, this should ensure that you have plenty of herbs for kitchen use. They freeze quite well too, that is if you only want to cook with them. Just wash the herbs and pop them into the freezer in "portion" sized bags, you don't need to chop them, just crumble the frozen herbs into the stew or sauce when you need them.

Marigolds are yet another herby winner. I no longer sow them as they have self-set all over the garden, but if you buy a packet of "pot" marigold seeds now, sow them directly into your flower bed/veg patch, and leave them to do their thing you can use the flowers for making a cream for very dry skin, to decorate a salad and making calendular oil. Also, if you let the flowers go to seed you can collect the seeds and plant them next spring...believe me, if you're canny you will never have to buy another packet of marigold seeds again! I do believe they are useful as companion plants too, but I can't for the life of me remember what they're meant to protect/get rid of!

I think the trick to successful herb gardening in a small space is that you must choose herbs which really pull their weight! They must look pretty, as well as smell nice and their uses should not be too dangerous, complex or obscure. So although I grow bergemot and St John's Wort, it is mainly for their value as fragrant and beautiful plants...I shall not be using them to cure a friend's depression, as some things are better left to doctors and medical herbalists! However, lavender is a very benign, beautiful and fragrant herb, a proper hard-working herb, and mint, although a garden bully, is just wonderful in so many drinks and dishes and is very good for your tummy. Rosemary is good around a chicken, but a strong infusion of the herb works well as a hair tonic for people with scalp problems and is anti-bacterial enough to be used as a kitchen cleanser! The joy of herb gardening is that these plants are often incredibly easy to grow and have a myriad of uses within the home, which I hope I have given you a glimpse of here. Is anyone out here a herb gardener too? Which are you favourite herbs and how do you use them?

Edited on Thursday morning when I noticed the glaring homophone error "sew" for "sow"! Ahh!