While cooking has always been a hobby I’ve loved, my actual education and work experience is in Horticulture. For this reason every year around this time I get especially antsy to get planting a garden! There is nothing I love more in the summer time than a big basket of fresh garden veggies and herbs cooked with little else and there’s something really fulfilling about growing things yourself. I especially love it now that my boys are old enough to be excited about planting things and watching them grow.
One of my favorite things is the bounty of fresh herbs in the summer. Fresh herbs are SO delicious and add so much flavor to your food. They just can’t be matched by the dried stuff in a bottle. They can be expensive to buy in the stores, but can be grown literally for pennies so it makes sense to plant some because for a couple of bucks you can have fresh herbs from spring time all the way into the fall.
I’ll have lots of fresh herbs this summer, so I’ll have a lot of recipes to help you use up yours if you plant some. So that’s your homework- go plant something, even if it’s just one! You can plant seeds, but you need to have room to plant (and grow, and use up) a lot and you need to start them early so they have time to grow. Some herbs grow really well from seed, but for a lot of them I honestly I think it’s easier to just spend a couple of bucks on an established little plant. The smallest size available is great- they’ll grow fast! Here’s some of my little cuties I got in the ground this past week:
I’ve planted a lot of things over the years, but now I only plant the ones I use the very most and I just plant more of them. There’s so many to choose from, just plant what you like! My very favorite herb is rosemary, and I also love basil, thyme, and oregano for basics. Here’s a list of the most common culinary herbs; they’re all easy to grow :
Lavender
The great thing about herbs is the more you pick them, the more they grow! So use them often and they’ll keep producing. If you leave them alone, most will go to seed, meaning they’ll start to grow flowers- you don’t want that to happen, so if you see it start, snip those suckers right off.
Cutting Herbs
We get a lot of questions about the right way to cut herbs. With soft stemmed herbs like cilantro and parsley, just bunch them up and hold tight with one hand and slice with the other. With this type of herb, slice up the stems too. I’m always surprised how many people waste time plucking off every little leaf. The stems have just as much (if not more) flavor then the leaves, so just slice everything up! Start with the leafy ends and cut down until the main bulk of leaves stop and you start to see more stems than leaves.
With woody stems, like oregano or rosemary, just hold one end of the stem and slide your fingers to the other end. All of those leaves will just pop right off.
With either type, you can also bunch them up and tie a string around them, stems and all. Pop the little bunch into soups and stews for added flavor.
Cooking
1 Tbs fresh herb = 1 tsp dried herb
or use 3 times fresh that you would dried.
Wash and dry herbs completely. Leave leaves on stems, but pick off any damaged ones and also the lower 1/3 of the sprig. Taking a few sprigs together, gather by the end of the stems. Place a small brown paper bag around the herbs so that the opening of the bag is gathered at the end of the stems and the herbs are inside the bag. Tie with a string or rubber band to secure. Cut several holes in the brown paper bag and then hang upside-down in an airy location. It will take a couple of weeks at least for them to dry completely. Once dry, remove leaves from stems and place in sealed jars.
Lemon-Herb Zucchini Fettuccini
Garlic-Rosemary Roasted Baby Potatoes
Pork Tenderloin with Chimichurri
So tell me about your gardens! Are you planting anything this year? What have you got?
LOL… just went outside to check our garden and our dill had a "little" growth spurt. It is now up to my chest. Time to make dill butter for everyone I know again! 🙂
I use a LOT of cilantro so I'm always hoping. But it doesn't work for me. At least it is only 49c a bunch at the produce market.
We have designated a little spot right next to the door for an herb garden this summer and I am so excited to try it. We're planning peppermint (I LOVE peppermint tea), basil and parsley at least. I know I need more, but I'm not sure what.
I'm so glad somebody else mentioned cilantro. That one drives me nuts. It goes to seed right when I'm ready to use it and tons of little baby cilantro plants come in, but never enough to actually use. I'm glad there's a consensus so I can quit trying to grow it.
I agree that chives are easy to grow from seed- and sometimes basil if you get lucky.
Lisa- if it makes you feel any better, I have NEVER been able to grow cilantro! I've tried it in 3 different states and for whatever reason, it just stinks! So I quit trying and I just buy it at the store, lol.
I've got four basil plants, dill, mint, rosemary, cilantro (which I haven't had tons of luck with), oregano, and chives. I LOVE to use the fresh…makes a huge difference.
YEA! I just started a mini (really mini) herb "garden" (box) this year! And now I have chives coming out my ears and have no idea what to do with them! And I love cilantro and fresh salsa, but a person can only eat so much of that, right? So I would love ANY ideas. Thanks!
Thank you for the info. I have been wanting to try planting some herbs for a while now. I have a condo, so I might try doing them by my front door in a pot. Thanks for the tips. I am excited…I love fresh herbs, but they are SOOO expensive at the store.
Oh boy do I ever love fresh herbs too! My only problem is that I get aphids that want to devour things like cilantro and dill. So frustrating.. and spider mites on my mint.
We have thigh high dill, knee high basil, rosemary, thyme, mint, and parsley right now. Our lavender, cilantro, oregano, and sage are smaller- ranging from a 3-8 inches. We grew all from seed in January except the lavender.
I never can get a great cilantro plant but I keep trying. I wonder what I could be doing wrong? I'm also in Louisiana so you'd think we'd have the right conditions!
Great post! We just built a garden and will be panting the seeds this weekend. WE've got the usual… carrots, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions. I also have a separate herb garden that I did last year and it consists of basil, thyme, mint, lavender and oregano.
Jen T- yes, mint WILL go crazy! That's a good one to put in a pot for that very reason!
Taylor- where to cut depends on the type of herb. For broadleaf herbs (think basil) the newer, younger leaves will be the most flavorful, but you'll want to keep the plant itself well snipped to help it grow the best, so you can cut further down a stem. For woody stemmed herbs (rosemary, thyme, etc) snip the whole little sprig. What you want to avoid is only cutting off the very tippy tops (even if that's the only part you'll be eating). If you do that, your plants will get tall and leggy.
I've never planted my own herb garden before, but I love cooking with fresh herbs! This might just be the spring I do it :). I have a relatively large bay windowsill in my kitchen that gets a decent amount of light – that should do the trick :).
Thanks for the How-To!
I totally forgot to plant rosemary and mint! I guess it is not too late to add them to my herb garden… so far I have oregano, cilantro, basil, thyme, parsley, dill and chives!
You've inspired me. I have always been too intimidated to plant my own herbs, but I am going to give it a try!
I love my herb garden! This is (I think) the third year I've had it. Besides the usual suspects, I have room for maybe 4 more herbs . . . I'm thinking mint (It doesn't seem to love being in a pot), lavender, and . . .??? Savory? Chervil?
I love fresh mint, but didn't realize that it is like kudzu and will take over your whole yard if you are not careful…and do this for many, many years!
I started my first "herb garden" this year and I am crossing my fingers they won't all die on me! Where do you snip the herbs when picking them to use?
I would actually suggest growing herbs from seeds. It's just as easy and for my favorites you end up with TONS. Chives is super-duper easy to grow from seeds & comes up very fast so that you know your successful (which is a wonderful feeling). You also end up with more basil if you grow from seed (my aunt grew from plant and I grew from seed and we compared).
Rosemary grows slow so buying plants there makes sense. I didn't have good luck with some of my experiments last year due to bad weather & neglect so I can't tell you about all the others.
I grow a whole vegetable garden and most of it I buy plants for (its a small garden I should say). But my herbs I just plant from seed.
I haven't harvested anything from my garden yet but I am expecting it next month! I will have my own herbs in my garden.
kitchen tables
New to the site and LOVE it! How do you properly freeze fresh herbs? Mine are growing like crazy!!
Sara, I love to garden. This year the herbs I planted are basil, rosemary and cilantro. I also did tomatoes, corn, green beans, zucchini, cucumbers, strawberries and raspberries. I hope that everyone is getting exciting about gardening. Also don’t feel silly, my husband and I also loved to garden so much we had one while we were in college.
Nat- Yes, you’ll need to take them out of the little pots they come in. And by all means, get a larger pot and put a bunch of different plants in it. That’s how I do mine.
Heidi- Seeds can be a pain, so just try a little plant that’s already established and pop it in a larger pot. As long as it’s on a window sill that gets a lot of light, it should do great!
no corn…the guy who leases our back 40 acres and the front 25 acres is NOT doing sweet corn, so we didn’t want to run the risk of it ruining ours.
Okay, I kill all plants, but I really want to try this. If I keep them on my back deck in little pots, I would need to take them out of the pot they come in and put them in a bigger pot, right? Is it okay to buy a big (wide) pot and plant a few different herbs in the same pot side by side? Or is that a no no?
I have planted herbs before, I tried doing it from seed and was not successful at all and the plants I planted kept getting eaten by the bugs, but I wanted to do organic so I didn’t want to spray them. Maybe this year I’ll try them inside, any suggestions? I would love to know how to store extras as well.
Chelsea- did you end up planting your corn??
Cami- I agree, LOVE chives on eggs!
I started my herb garden in April. I am growing cilantro, basil, thyme, rosemary, chives and parsley! They are SO easy to grow, I started them inside and wasn’t very hopeful. But if my hubby can keep them alive for the 10 days I was out of town, then ANYONE can keep them alive!
I have planted herbs before, and I love them! I have so many different favorite herbs it’s hard to choose just one.
I love fresh chives in scrambled eggs with some cheese. Heaven!
I love oregano and cilantro too.
I can’t wait for summer!
No way, you can do it! Maybe it was the Utah factor, I bet LA is prime herb country 😉
Oh, Sara, I’m willing to bet you that if anyone could kill herbs, it would be me!!!
And me! But You’ve inspired me to try again.