Mixed Herbs

These are some of the herbs—and perhaps a few plants that don't quite fit that definition—that I like or find interesting. Only some of these plants are suitable for eating. Many are grown just for their scent or appearance, and a few are poisonous.

The pictures are for enjoyment, but they may also help you to identify something. The notes are just my own thoughts and observations. That said, I do hope you'll stay a while and enjoy this page.
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basil   catmint   catnip   chives   comfrey   dandelions   feverfew   garlic   horseradish   lemon balm   marjoram   mint   nasturtium   parsley   rosemary   sage   pineapple sage   thyme   wormwood   yarrow

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Basil

Sweet basil is a fresh-looking plant with glossy leaves. There's a variant that has purple leaves and there's a somewhat different, smaller variety called bush basil. Definitely an annual, basil can be hard to get started. Although flies will give it a wide berth, snails love it and will completely remove a young plant overnight. Many herbs thrive in poor soil, but basil does not. Without rich soil and full sun it's unlikely to grow at all. Put it in when you're planting tomatoes and cucumbers—it's a great companion plant for either, and grows well with the same sort of soil preparation.

While it's especially good with tomatoes and in all tomato dishes, basil is also used in soups and salads and as a garnish for fish dishes.

Like all members of the mint family, basil eventually sends up untidy spikes of small flowers. The plant may last longer and look better if you cut these off—unless you're saving seed. You can allow seeding without worrying about its becoming a weed, because it doesn't self-sow nearly as readily or prolifically as some of its cousins.

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Catmint

Catmint is a lovely low-growing flower with soft blue-green leaves and a rather strong smell. It doesn't die right down in winter and the mauve flowers are present from late spring through to autumn. Dead woody stems are left after flowering, and need to be snapped off or cut. Bees love catmint and so do many cats and small dogs.

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Catnip

Catnip needs to be protected when the plant is small, because some cats will bite off the leaves or even pull up the whole plant. Once it's well-grown, though, it's great fun to watch puss's antics around the plant. Marmalade has been known to turn somersaults over it.

In summer, catnip has spikes of very small and rather uninteresting flowers. It's best to cut these off as soon as they appear, because the plant keeps its shape much better if they're not allowed to develop.

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Chives

Chives are great. They have a mild onion taste that's good in lots of different foods—mashed potatoes, sour cream and white sauces, for instance. For steaks and salads, there's a variety called garlic chives, too. When you want to use chives, you just snip off as much as you need and the plants aren't bothered by having their leaves shortened. They can be choked by more vigorous plants, though, so you need to weed back any encroaching ground cover to allow the chives some space. Like onions and garlic, chives are a good thing to grow close to rose bushes, because they keep the aphids away. Never plant them near any sort of beans, though. Beans just don't thrive in their company.

Chives can be grown from seed, but it's rather a lot of trouble, as you need to keep the seed-bed free from all weeds both before and after germination. Then, as soon as the seedlings appear, snails will be after them! The easiest way to grow chives is to buy some from a nursery or beg some from a friend. Plant the little clump into rich soil. New plants will be formed around the edges and after a while you can lift the clump, break it into several lots and replant. Just be sure to keep other plants cleared from around them, so that they have space to increase.

The taste of chives isn't as good if there are flowers on the plant, but chives in bloom are pretty. You just have to decide which is more important and remove the flowers if you think it necessary.

The photo of the chive flower head is by Lidy Verweel.

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Comfrey

Comfrey is supposed to speed up the decomposition of compost, and in summer the large cool leaves can be laid over newly sown seeds to protect them from drying out. It can get out of hand, though—any piece of broken root will give rise to a new plant, and it's very easy to have comfrey sprouting up all over the garden.

Comfrey is a traditional wound dressing, but it's incongruous that while juice from the crushed leaves can sooth minor cuts and grazes, the plants themselves, if brushed against by bare legs, can cause considerable discomfort. The stems and leaves are covered in tiny prickles. For this reason it's a good idea to wear gloves if you need to pull up comfrey plants. If you do get prickled, it's said that the best treatment for the irritation is comfrey sap.

Some people say that comfrey is a good thing to feed to chooks that are going to be relocated or otherwise disturbed—apparently it has a calming effect.

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Dandelions

Dandelions are related to lettuce, and it's hard to tell which is which when you're weeding amongst very young plants. Some people use dandelion leaves in salads—although I think they're horribly bitter—and swear by their health-giving properties. There are plenty of old-fashioned recipes for dandelion wine, but it might be a bit like stone soup—there are so many other ingredients that you'd succeed without using the dandelions at all. I suppose they're really just to give a distinctive flavour.

Caged birds are very happy to eat dandelion seeds. It's easiest if you pick the heads—with a good long stem attached—just before they're ready to puff out. Poke a head through the mesh and the stem through a few squares further down. The head will stay in position and the birds can pull the seeds out at their leisure.

Little children, of course, love to see how many breaths it takes to blow all the little parachuting seeds away from a dandelion puff. One little girl told me her daddy wouldn't allow this, because it makes weeds grow in the lawn. How sad! I have my own thoughts about grass lawns in Australia, and they're pretty negative.

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Feverfew

Feverfew is also called "Golden Border". It is an annual that seeds very freely and can pop up all over the garden in midspring. It's quite a short plant and its ferny leaves and bright daisy flowers are very cheerful beside or amongst patches of green vegetables or along the edges of a path. I haven't found any plant that objects to its presence, and I don't think it's particularly attractive to garden pests.

The name seems to indicate that it has at some time been used as a home remedy, and I've heard people recommend some preparation made from it as a cure for migraine. A skilled herbalist would know about that—and be able to identify the plant accurately.

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Garlic

Garlic has been reputed to keep away the devil, assorted evil spirits and bubonic plague. A fair surmise is that the odour could keep people too far from the garlic eater or wearer for infection to happen! Nevertheless, there are those who still try to avert a chest infection by eating as much as a soup bowlful of chopped garlic—and swear that it works.

Of course you can buy “odourless garlic” tablets. Sounds a bit like fat-free cheese to me—takes the fun out of it altogether.

To be serious, there are many useful and protective substances to be found in garlic. Garlic is, indeed, good for you.

Without worrying about any of its positive effects, you can crush garlic over steaks, lard it into a leg of lamb before cooking, or crush lots and add it when you're making egg yolk and olive oil mayonnaise. Use that with a salad, or as a dip for cold parboiled vegies on a hot day. Totally evil! Just be sure that everyone has some though, and thus avoid the shun effect.

Garlic is a good garden pest repellent. Among the creatures that dislike it are ants, aphids, cabbage butterflies, mosquitoes, tomato worms and weevils. Bees, however, can often be seen gathering nectar from garlic flowers. I wonder what the apiarists do with the garlic flavoured honey?! A few garlic plants growing in a rose bed really do seem to keep aphids away, and the flowers, when they come, are unusual and quite pretty. Other plants that benefit from having garlic growing nearby are fruit trees and strawberries. Don't plant it near beans or peas, though; it'll stop them from growing well.

For specific problems, garlic sprays can be made up and used on plants that are suffering from insect attack. Sprays can be bought, too.

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Horseradish

Horseradish is nice to grow, but preparing it could be a pain. The roots have to be grated out of doors, because the released oils sting eyes and nose. Vinegar has to be added at just the right moment and ... well, you can buy horseradish already nicely prepared.

As for growing it, it's easy and it looks fresh and healthy. It'll grow in any sunny spot and in most soils, although it prefers acid soil to limey. It's perrenial, so once you've got it established it's there for good. Horseradish increases from the root, so that you can break bits off and pot them up. Although it seems remarkably hardy, it doesn't take off and fill the garden. On the other hand, once it's in a spot, it isn't easy to remove it completely.

There's heaps of information, including the plant's very own resume, at this great horseradish site.

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Lemon Balm

Lemon balm is a plant that can get horribly out of hand. It seeds freely, the seed is small and seems to be blown all over the garden in a very short time. Apart from that, it reproduces rather more sedately from underground stems. If you want to grow it, the trick is to faithfully remove the flower spikes whenever they appear. Then, if you want to pot a plant for a friend, just cut away a small part of the rootstock with a couple of green shoots showing. Keep the pot moist and in semishade until it's established.

Lemon balm has a lovely clean lemony smell and is supposed to be very soothing if used as a tea. Sprigs of tiny top leaves can be used to garnish iced drinks or for decorating any food where the lemon flavour works well. Dried, it's nice in pot-pourri.

If you keep chooks, lots of lemon balm in their yard may make bird-lice infestation less likely to happen. You can grow it right in the yard, or throw in cut-off flower spikes or whole plants. Sometimes, if you crush some leaves in your hand and rub the resultant oil on your skin it seems to keep mosquitoes away. Not always, though.

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Marjoram

If you have space to grow only a few herbs, marjoram should be one of them. You can buy seeds, but they take ages to grow. It's better to buy a small plant or get a cutting or a piece from the outside of an established plant's root. Marjoram seems to grow equally well in sunshine and semishade, although the shaded patch will look fresher during hot months. It's quite nice in a hanging basket, and since it likes to be very well drained it copes with some summer dryness. Water it, but don't worry about it. Marjoram was used in early medicines and as a strewing herb to make houses smell pleasant. It's one of the basics in “mixed herbs”, but if you have it growing the fresh leaves added to a stew or whatever have a fresher scent. They can also be added to salads or salad dressings, where crunched up dried leaves just don't have the same effect.

The pink-flowered variety is golden marjoram. Its leaves are more pointed, and the colour is lighter and slightly yellowish. The photograph of the bee on a head of white-flowered sweet marjoram is by Dean Slabak.

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Mint

Mint—peppermint, spearmint, pennyroyal—there are literally hundreds of varieties of mint, besides which many plants that have quite different names—horseradish, balm and lavender, for instance—are members of the mint family. Every mint has a fairly noticeable smell, some delightful and some less so. Common mint has the typical fresh minty smell and taste. You can chew it, cook it with young green peas or new potatoes, make it into mint sauce or mint jelly for roast lamb, or float the smaller leaves on cold drinks.

Apple mint has a delicate flavour which does have an apple taste to it. The leaves are quite rounded and have a covering of downy hairs. Some apple mint has a white margin on the leaves. Apple mint is not as robust as some other varieties. It prefers some protection from hot sunshine; if it gets too much the leaves will burn.

Some varieties of mint, like the Eau de Cologne, are too sweetish and strong to go well with most foods, although they may be pleasant with particular drinks.

Mint is notorious for spreading. Given half a chance it'll have roots right through a small garden in no time flat. It seems that the most successful way of dealing with this problem is to plant it in a container, and then put the container into the ground. You need something reasonably deep, though. If it's in a pot less than 30 centimetres deep it'll just send a few stems out through the drainage holes and be on its way. This seems to apply whether it's sitting on the ground or sunken into it. So: a deep pot or else a pot that's sitting on concrete, a balcony or some other plant-unfriendly surface.

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Nasturtium

Nasturtiums are easily grown from seed. They aren't fussy about growing conditions, and actually seem to show more blooms where the soil is poor or depleted. In nitrogen rich soil the flowers are fewer and often hidden by vigorous leaf growth. Nasturtium seed comes in two kinds; the second, “globe” variety is supposed not to run.

Nasturtiums are good companion plants to fruit trees, all of the cabbage family, cucumbers, squash, zucchini and marrows, potatoes, tomatoes, radishes and roses. All parts of the plant are edible. The leaves taste a bit like watercress—some people call nasturtiums “Indian cress”— and you can chop them and put them into sandwiches or add them to green salads. The flowers can make a salad look special and inviting, and I'm told that the young seed pods can be pickled and used like capers.

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Parsley

Parsley is a better source of vitamin C than orange juice, and, if you grow your own, a great deal less expensive. It's supposed to be cooling if chewed, and it's a good breath freshener. It's also probably the most often used garnish on or in all sorts of foods, making bland-looking dishes like scrambled eggs look a lot more interesting.

Parsley likes a good, well-drained soil, preferably in a place where it doesn't get the worst of the afternoon sun. Curly parsley is compact and makes an attractive border for a vegetable bed. If you allow one plant to go to seed it will self-sow and you can then scoop up the seedlings with a little soil and transfer them to a pot or another garden bed. The flat-leaved parsley is much older than the curly kind, and seems to germinate more readily. The flavour is a slightly different.

Interestingly, I've noticed that when curly parsley self-sows the new plants are all like the parent, but when the older, open type self-sows, a very small number of new plants are curly.

The family to which parsley belongs has an odd assortment of members. Carrots and parsnips, celery, coriander and aniseed—all good to eat—and a group of the deadliest plants on earth—the hemlocks. Many of these plants look almost identical. If you live where these plants grow wild, never assume that what looks edible is edible.

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Rosemary

Rosemary is said to be for remembrance—and it's great with roast lamb! This is a lovely bush to have growing, and the bees appreciate it, too.

Rosemary can be touchy. It likes to be well drained, but if its roots get really dry it's likely to die. I find that it's hard to get started, so it's best to buy a potted plant. If you do take cuttings, take several, as not every one will succeed. It likes full sun, but doesn't care to be exposed to fierce winds, so plant it where it has some shelter.

Rosemary is often described as “scruffy” or “straggly”. Pam Fisher's bush, (first picture) though, responds nicely to careful pruning.

Because of its pleasant smell, rosemary was used as incense by those ancients who couldn't afford more highly priced substances. It grows naturally around the Mediterranean and was sometimes used in religious ceremonies.

There's a prostrate form that you can plant at the top of a wall or high in a rockery.

If you'd like to know more about the cultivation and care of rosemary, try these excellent and comprehensive cultivation notes.

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Sage

Sage is supposed to improve one's memory, and recent investigations have found that it does in fact contain an agent rather like the drugs that have been developed to slow down Alzheimer's disease. Maybe that's why some old cooks are so heavy-handed with it! I think that too much sage in a stuffing or a sauce can overwhelm the main flavour of the meal. Also, chewing great handfuls isn't a good idea—ridiculously large amounts are poisonous. Used in moderation, it can probably be beneficial, especially to older people. It's reputed, too, to be cooling and to control hot flushes.

The plant itself can be very attractive, with it's greyish-green leaves and mauve flower spikes. The bush grows to be about knee-high, and looks best if regularly pruned to maintain a compact shape. The flower spikes need to be cut off to encourage new ones to form.

You can grow sage from a cutting or buy a potted plant. Choose a sunny spot in your garden. Sage doesn't like acid soil, so it'll grow better if you've limed the area some time previously. Work in some sand, too, if you can, because it needs to be very well drained.

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At our house we call this plant Pineapple Sage, but illustrations on the web show a similar plant with differently shaped flowers. If anyone can set me right here, I'd be grateful.

OK. This particular salvia, whatever it's called, is a favourite of honey-eating birds. We have an eastern spinebill who visits it very regularly. My parrot loves to be given a flowery tip, from which she pulls the flowers one at a time. If you pull off one of the flowers, nip the white end with your teeth and then suck, you'll know why!

The plant is about a metre wide and a metre high. It is open and woody inside and is covered with fresh-looking green leaves and lots of flowers. About four times a year the flowers disappear for a short time, then flush again.

If a branch of this plant is in contact with the ground, it will take root, so an easy way to make a new plant is to ease a branch down and put a weight—such as a small rock or half a brick—onto it. Check it in a few weeks. When you're sure it's established itself, cut the branch and your new plant is ready for potting or putting into the garden.

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Thyme

Thyme comes in many varieties. There's even a tiny, low-growing form that can be used as a lawn. The more familiar common thyme is easy to grow, a favourite seasoning, a delight to bees and a main ingredient of many mouthwashes, both traditional and modern commercial ones. Although it's by no means a rampaging plant, thyme is very easy to grow. Wherever it touches the ground it will, if conditions are right, make a new plant, and a large plant can be taken up and divided. Putting a weight of some kind—a small rock, perhaps— on a branch where it touches the ground will encourage a new plant to form. Pot some of these up for a flat-dweller or for school fairs. Grow it along the edges of vegetable beds, in rockeries or as a lawn edging. Regular cutting back will keep it from becoming straggly.

This newish (to me, anyway) variety is called pizza thyme. It has a shorter and more rounded leaf than common thyme.

Golden thyme has almost the same leaf shape as common thyme—just a little less pointy at the tip—but the leaves are a softer green and are edged with cream. Golden lemon thyme—I don't have a picture—is a fresher colour and has a lemony scent.

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Wormwood

Here's a nasty one. This is wormwood, or absinthe. With its silvery-green foliage it's an attractive plant, and many insects are repelled or even killed by it. Indeed, it is very poisonous, but this doesn't seem to be known by quite everyone. I have a book printed in 1976 which recommends this plant as a remedy for various health problems, and I've seen more recent suggestions that it be used as some sort of medicine. As the name suggests, wormwood was long used as a cure for intestinal worms in people and animals. It was also used in the making of some alcoholic drinks, and it's now believed that regular use of these could either cause or exacerbate mental illness as well as having serious physical effects.

Like the mercury based teething powders that were given to babies until the 1950s, many “tried and true” traditional herbal preparations are downright dangerous. Always research thoroughly before trying unknown plants or following printed advice.

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Yarrow

I like yarrow. It's pretty. The flowers come in shades of pink from palest to quite a strong colour. The leaves are feathery and often make a lovely rosette behind the flower head. It reproduces from underground stems, and I've been told that it'll take over quite quickly, but I haven't yet found this to be so.

Apparently yarrow is good for stopping bleeding and for helping wounds to heal, and there's a story associated with this. They say that Achilles used yarrow to dress the injuries of his men at Troy. I must've missed that bit. It's good to know that he spent some his time being compassionate.

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Getting Information

If you need really solid information on a particular plant, type its name into Google—or Google with your own country's suffix when looking for information on growing it—there're heaps of authoritative herb sites all over the web. Some deal with the use of herbs in cooking and some give botanical details. You can also find “how to grow” help for different climates. If looking for their value as medicines, don't believe the first thing you read. Some herbs that've been in use for centuries—millenia, even—have been found to have some extremely unpleasant effects. Therefore, read half a dozen different sites, including at least one up-to-date scientific one, looking carefully for words such as “toxicity”.

Here are some sample searches. If you want a recipe, type marjoram cooking or marjoram recipe or marjoram "beef stew", for instance. If you want to grow it, try marjoram grow "north Queensland" or marjoram "cold climate". If you're after scientific facts, marjoram species or marjoram family should help.