If you love to cook, you’ll probably want to start you own kitchen herb garden. I keep my kitchen herbs clustered near my kitchen door so that I can step outside and clip off a leaf, stem, blossom or other piece for my dishes.
So when you’re planning your culinary herb garden think about what you like to cook and start with the herb plants that are included in your favorite recipes.
Here are some fabulous herb plants for your kitchen garden:
- Chives: These are one of the easiest herbs to grow and cook with. From seed to cooking pot, these are a cinch all the way around. If you do have a recipe that calls for fresh chives, just cut the tops off a few of your sprouts and the herb will continue to grow It is awesome for making special meals or sprinkling on your baked potatoes.
- Dill: Dill is one of those utterly foolproof herbs that you just cannot go wrong with. Your dill herb is a self-sower, so if you’re providing the full-sun and well-drained soil it likes and you don’t want more and more dill plants, cut off the flowers before they go to seed. The whole herb is edible, from the seeds to the stems, including the leaves and blossoms. The dill plant also tastes awesome in your tuna salad or chicken salad.
- Cayenne Pepper: Because this sizzling hot plant can grow to more than three feet high, you’ll want to plant it so that it does not block the sun for another plant. If you live in a climate that has frost during winter months, you’ll want to bring your cayenne pepper plant indoors. When starting out with cayenne pepper, you don’t have to buy it, you can begin with seeds indoors and then plant the young pepper plant outside. As your plant grows and begins to bear its fruit, keep an eye on it so that you don’t let it over-ripen.
- Tarragon: Tarragon has a fantastic taste and scent. I make a yummy mayonnaise-based vegetable dip with tarragon that never fails to please. Do not worry about buying seeds, buy young plants from the nursery, greenhouse or home improvement store and go from there, snipping off leaves as you need to use them. Your tarragon leaves can be cut and frozen in a freezer bag to use later in your sumptuous meals.
- Cilantro: This star of Mexican cuisine will add a lot of flavor to your next salsa, tacos or Mexican chicken dish. You can successfully raise cilantro from seeds and harvest leaves in any month of the year, which you can add to your yummy Mexican entrees. Cilantro will also grow well indoors during winter. The leaves near the bottom of the herb have the best flavor, so start here when you harvest the leaves for your next Mexican meal.
- Welch Onions: Although these onions are small, do not count them out, because their mild flavor is reminiscent of scallions. I’ve used them in meals more for their appearance than any other quality. These onions grow in clumps, so be sure to leave plenty of room in your container.
Good luck with your herb gardening. Be sure to let me know how your herb garden grows.
Here is more information on Fresh Herb Gardening. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Herb Gardens.
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