# Herbs, which do you have?



## CrystalWriter (Sep 15, 2013)

I was wondering, which fresh herbs do people regularly have on hand. As I was thinking of growing a selection, in the run up to x-mas. Especially now I have found compound butter


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## taxlady (Sep 15, 2013)

I grow chives (a perennial in cold climates), rosemary (comes indoors in winter and back outside in summer), thyme, oregano, parsley, and basil. Those are coming indoors when it gets cold, but I don't expect the parsley or basil to last more than a couple of months. I'll find out how the thyme and oregano do.


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## larry_stewart (Sep 15, 2013)

Right outside my kitchen:

Oregano, Sage, Parsley ( flat/ curled), Chives, Thyme, Dill, Bay leaf, Scallions, Rosemary, basil, ( and there is catnip in there for the cats  ). There is actually some celery in there too ( got mixed up with the parsley at the store by accident, and decided just to leave it there)

In the fall, winter and early spring, I grow fresh basil inside using an aerogarden, hydroponic system)


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## GotGarlic (Sep 15, 2013)

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme!  And basil, dill, bay tree, chives, cilantro, epazote (a Mexican herb I'm trying this year), oregano, mint and tarragon. I also have fennel that provides seeds. Mine are all in the ground, except the mint, so I freeze the overflow for use during the winter. Mint can become invasive, so I have one in a strawberry pot and one in another container.


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## Hoot (Sep 15, 2013)

GotGarlic said:


> Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme!


_Are you going to Scarborough Fair?_

If you do bring me a corn dog and a funnel cake. 
We have basil, dill, and lemon balm (to add to my earl grey from time to time)


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## GotGarlic (Sep 15, 2013)

Hoot said:


> _Are you going to Scarborough Fair?_
> 
> If you do bring me a corn dog and a funnel cake.
> We have basil, dill, and lemon balm (to add to my earl grey from time to time)



People sometimes ask me which herbs they should start with, and that's always my answer


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## CrystalWriter (Sep 15, 2013)

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll try and get to the garden centre to pick up the seeds.


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## Andy M. (Sep 15, 2013)

GotGarlic said:


> People sometimes ask me which herbs they should start with, and that's always my answer



I'd tell you to grow the herbs you use most.


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## GotGarlic (Sep 15, 2013)

Andy M. said:


> I'd tell you to grow the herbs you use most.



I find that a lot of the time, when people ask me that, they're not using any herbs at all.


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## CrystalWriter (Sep 15, 2013)

Andy M. said:


> I'd tell you to grow the herbs you use most.



You found me out  ok fresh herbs we rarely use, as my mother has an extensive spice & dried herb collection (most of which are a few years old.) 

So when I started cooking the meals on a Sunday (she works), I just stash dive, and don't really look. We've had some interesting combinations of herbs/spices & food.


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## GotGarlic (Sep 15, 2013)

CrystalWriter said:


> You found me out  ok fresh herbs we rarely use, as my mother has an extensive spice & dried herb collection (most of which are a few years old.)
> 
> So when I started cooking the meals on a Sunday (she works), I just stash dive, and don't really look. We've had some interesting combinations of herbs/spices & food.



You will be shocked at the difference in flavor between fresh and dried herbs. There's just no comparison, particularly with soft herbs like parsley and basil.


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## taxlady (Sep 15, 2013)

I recommend herbs that are noticeably better fresh (rosemary is horrible little sticks that poke your gums when it is dry. It's really nice fresh). I would especially choose herbs that are less available fresh at the grocery store, as well as the ones that you use in small quantity. If I buy fresh rosemary or mint, the chance of using it up before it goes off or dries up is low, so just cutting the small amount I need is far more practical for me.


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## mmyap (Sep 15, 2013)

I grow chives, green onions, both flat leaf and curly parsley.  I have a  huge rosemary bush and some sage as well.  I need to replenish the basil.  I have a little bay laurel going but I don't harvest from it yet because it's still small and I'd have nothing but a stick left in a very short time.


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## taxlady (Sep 15, 2013)

mmyap said:


> I grow chives, green onions, both flat leaf and curly parsley.  I have a  huge rosemary bush and some sage as well.  I need to replenish the basil.  I have a little bay laurel going but I don't harvest from it yet because it's still small and I'd have nothing but a stick left in a very short time.


I'm curious about the chives. You live in Hawaii. One of our members who lives in SoCal can't manage to grow chives. I have no problem growing them in Quebec, but we have WINTERS.


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## Andy M. (Sep 15, 2013)

mmyap said:


> ...I have a  huge rosemary bush...




We have tried a number of times to keep a rosemary plant/bush alive with zero success.  We have planted them outdoors and moved them indoors for the winter, left them outdoors all year, kept them indoors all year.  It doesn't matter.  They die.  SO is the gardener and we follow all the info we find on the topic to no avail.


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## CrystalWriter (Sep 15, 2013)

GotGarlic said:


> You will be shocked at the difference in flavor between fresh and dried herbs. There's just no comparison, particularly with soft herbs like parsley and basil.



I buy fresh from the supermarket, when I can. They tend to die off very quickly. I grow saffron, but that came about as a mistake, when an online garden supplier sent me the wrong crocus. Sadly harvesting the threads are a pain. 

So if there was a herb garden, I might get a chance to replace the dried stuff, before they go seriously off


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## GotGarlic (Sep 15, 2013)

CrystalWriter said:


> I buy fresh from the supermarket, when I can. They tend to die off very quickly.



How do you store them? I put them in a vase of water on the counter or windowsill and change the water every day or so. They last about a week.


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## Andy M. (Sep 15, 2013)

GotGarlic said:


> How do you store them? I put them in a vase of water on the counter or windowsill and change the water every day or so. They last about a week.



Yes, or less for things like basil.


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## mmyap (Sep 15, 2013)

taxlady said:


> I'm curious about the chives. You live in Hawaii. One of our members who lives in SoCal can't manage to grow chives. I have no problem growing them in Quebec, but we have WINTERS.



Maybe it's the variety?  All I ever see on sale her are called "garlic chives" and rather then round and cylindrical they more flat.  But they are "chivey" nontheless.  And as far as the rosemary, I completely neglect it.  I do know that I have mostly sand here.  I always dig a bigger hole and fill it with potting soil.  That rosemary as far outgrown it's potting soil addition.  It must love sand and draught.

My challenge plants are tomato's.  The birds get to them every time. 
I've hung metallic streamers off the tomato cage and I've actually stuck plastic snakes around the plants trying keep the birds off them.  Fail.


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## Steve Kroll (Sep 15, 2013)

Basil, chives, mint, cilantro, and parsley. Next year, I'll probably add rosemary to the mix.

I used to grow a lot of different herbs, but for the past couple years I've just cut back to the ones I use most. For example, I used to grow lemon thyme and it would always end up going to waste. Same with oregano. I've found I don't care for the flavor of fresh oregano and the dried stuff is dirt cheap.


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## CrystalWriter (Sep 16, 2013)

GotGarlic said:


> How do you store them? I put them in a vase of water on the counter or windowsill and change the water every day or so. They last about a week.



I tend to replant them, as I've read that supermarket herbs are always too tightly planted together, so they compete for water & sunlight. Doing things that way, they might last three/four weeks. From what I've heard that's much longer than usually


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## GotGarlic (Sep 16, 2013)

CrystalWriter said:


> I tend to replant them, as I've read that supermarket herbs are always too tightly planted together, so they compete for water & sunlight. Doing things that way, they might last three/four weeks. From what I've heard that's much longer than usually



I thought you said they die very quickly 

Do they have roots on them when you buy them?


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## Mad Cook (Sep 26, 2013)

CrystalWriter said:


> I was wondering, which fresh herbs do people regularly have on hand. As I was thinking of growing a selection, in the run up to x-mas. Especially now I have found compound butter


What's "compound butter", please?

Herbs? Mine grow in big pots on the south side of the house. 2 or 3 types of mint, oregano, marjoram, fennel, dill, chives, chervil, flat leaf and curly parsley, French tarragon, rosemary, sage, lemon balm, bergamot and a bay tree. Basil has to live in a pot on my kitchen window sill as it flatly refuses to grow outside. I've tried coriander/cilantro outside and inside but don't seem to have much luck with it.

I grow geraniums (pelargoniums) outside in the summer and have been known to use the leaves for flavouring cakes (I line the baking tin/pan with clean leaves and it gives the cooked cake a geranium flavour - a very old-fashioned trick.) Good in strawberry jam and for flavouring the custard for home made ice cream. I try to grow scented leaved geraniums as well but Im not successful at over-wintering it and I didn't see any in the garden centre this year.
'
I also have a selection of these dried in a spice drawer in the kitchen for use in winter (or, let's be honest, when it's raining cats and dogs and I don't want to go out and get wet just for a few fresh herbs.


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## Mad Cook (Sep 26, 2013)

GotGarlic said:


> You will be shocked at the difference in flavor between fresh and dried herbs. There's just no comparison, particularly with soft herbs like parsley and basil.


It's worth keeping fresh min and dried mint for the kitchen as they are virtually two different herbs. In the middle east dried mint is often preferred for cooking purposes. Fresh mint is for mint tea (and very refreshing it is too on a hot August day's "doing" the antiquities in Egypt)


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## Mad Cook (Sep 26, 2013)

Steve Kroll said:


> Basil, chives, mint, cilantro, and parsley. Next year, I'll probably add rosemary to the mix.
> 
> I used to grow a lot of different herbs, but for the past couple years I've just cut back to the ones I use most. For example, I used to grow lemon thyme and it would always end up going to waste. Same with oregano. I've found I don't care for the flavor of fresh oregano and the dried stuff is dirt cheap.


Interesting you should say that. I was watching Ina Garten a few weeks ago and she said exactly the same thing about oregano fresh and dried. I just thought she was being faddy but it seems she may have something


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## Dawgluver (Sep 26, 2013)

Mad Cook, compound butter is just softened butter mixed with herbs, then usually rolled up in a tube of wax paper and chilled.  It's nice with a pat on a steak or potato.

I grow chives, several different kinds of mint, oregano, several types of thyme that the oregano overgrows, sage that the oregano overgrows, rosemary that I dig up and baby during the winter, lemon balm, basil, dill.


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## taxlady (Sep 26, 2013)

My oregano went crazy. I made oregano pesto. That was really good. You could probably make pesto out of most herbs that have grown more than you can otherwise use.


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## Whiskadoodle (Sep 26, 2013)

I prefer fresh tarragon, rosemary, parsley, and basil and thyme.   Probably some more.  Chives,  I grow,  green onion tops work just as well all seasons.   I grow oregano, sage, and thyme, and dry these.   I prefer dried oregano, I think the flavor intensifies, and if you keep the leaves whole, you can strip off the stems and crush and release the oils at time of use.    

There are a couple things I used fresh oregano on this summer, which were quite good.  Some grilled meats,   a fresh made pizza and in tzatziki sauce.  None of the foods were themselves unusual,  the flavor of the oregano was noteworthy.   

You can bet your bottom dollar, as soon as the first frost hits,  I will discover something that wants Fresh Mint, not dried.   Count on it. 

I make tons of basil pesto.  If I want fresh basil in the winter,  I just lob off some from it's freezer bag, stir into a sauce,  and it's as good as garden fresh. 


Buying rosemary is always expensive.  And try as I may, it does not overwinter indoors  at my house.    I have tried freezing extra branches,  doesn't work so well, at least for me.  Otherwise, one can pretty much just place whatever herbs in a freezer bag and pull out as needed and incorporate in a cooked dish or sauce.


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