Don’t tell anyone, but I grow quite a few herb plants and don’t use them as such.
I grow oregano, basil, thyme, and rosemary right outside my door in Granny’s old porcelain dishpan; the combination is pretty as all get-out, even when I don’t use them in my kitchen.
In my attempt to demystify a slough of simple, durable garden plants that are dauntingly lumped under one leaky umbrella, I insist that herbs aren’t special unless you use them for other than just pretty plants. Just as a bicycle isn’t transportation unless you ride it, okra isn’t a vegetable unless you eat it, zinnias aren’t cut flowers until put in a vase, and mint isn’t tea until steeped.
First, some tidbits. In general, herbs are plants that produce natural compounds which can be used in small amounts for flavoring food, repelling pests, dyeing cloth, creating fragrances, or medicinal or even spiritual use. Not to parse a point too finely, but spices are usually ground up seeds, bark, roots, and the like. Hard-core herb experts can quickly complicate things up. A lot.
Note to non-linguists: Like my English gardening friends, I say “a herb” with the hard H, unlike how the French who say “an erb.” I mean, it’s got an h, like history, home, and Herbie; doesn’t matter really if you just don’t know, or are trying to finesse someone. In fact, the Herb Society of America says either/i-there is perfectly fine - only way you are incorrect is when correcting others.
My little cottage garden includes dozens of in-ground and potted plants listed in books as herbs, but I grow most like anything else, as shapely, colorful, aromatic creatures that can double or triple as cut flowers, wildflowers, food, pollinator attractors, and any number of other non-herb uses.
I cook a fair bit in my tiny cottage’s kitchen, and can’t imagine not popping outside to my big pots of fresh, home-grown oregano, rosemary, garlic, chives, ginger, and hot peppers for cooking. They easily make the leap from being pretty yard plants to favorite culinary herbs.
Ditto for my beautiful basils, some of which I cook with but others I grow just for the pretty leaves and flower spikes. I have green kinds, dark purple ones, and a variegated one; but I use only two of them as culinary herbs. In fact, my African Blue basil tastes so strong I don’t know if anyone can cook with it at all – but what a great hummingbird plant!
On the other hand, some of my other garden favorites, including iris, purple coneflower, artemisia, horsetail, yarrow, and monarda, can be used as medicinal herbs, but since I don’t use them that way, I just call them “plants.”
Main thing is a lot of lovely regular garden beauties are overlooked because novice gardeners are sometimes intimidated, thinking they need a herb garden and special knowledge or skills to grow them. Not so. Kids can grow herbs easily in pots.
I had to replace my frozen rosemary this spring, but I did so gladly because it is a fantastic upright or cascading shrub with pretty blue flowers and fragrant foliage. I even plant one partly across my front walk, forcing whoever comes that way to brush through it; anyone who’s reluctant to brush through it is not someone I particularly want on my porch.
But until I skewer shish-kebab on its stem or chop its leaves into pasta sauce it isn’t an herb. Herbs, ‘erbs, whatever, they are lovable, dependable garden plants no matter what you call them or how you use them. Or not.
Felder Rushing is a Mississippi author, columnist, and host of the “Gestalt Gardener” on MPB Think Radio. Email gardening questions to rushingfelder@yahoo.com.
