Let’s generally talk about herbs! Not one specific herb, but just all of them as a whole. We think we’ve got some good ideas around them and figured you all might like it if we share.
We’ve definitely observed a relationship in the proximity of our herbs to our cooking and the inclination at which we’ll use them. We grow our herbs literally right outside our front door, making it super easy to access them for cooking. It doesn’t matter the weather, when they’re easy to access, you’ll find yourself more inclined to use them up fresh. When they are far away, you’ll easily make excuses as to why not to put them in your food while you’re cooking.
We also used to grow a lot of different kinds of herbs and historically, we’ve pretty much grown them all. We’ve found a lot of value in highly limiting the herbs we grow. We defined sort of a “core herb” list, the things we really enjoy using fresh or use a lot of when they are preserved. Of all the various plants we grow, we’ve struck more herbs off our growing list than any other type of plant out there!
Earlier this season, we talked about early flowering. Two of the major herbs that are sensitive to long daylight are marjoram and oregano. Unfortunately, these are also wildly popular among gardeners. With these, we try to focus on growing a large quantity of plants that we can harvest relatively early in the season, prior to flowering. Our general goal, since they’re such a pain, is to grow enough to have a meaningful preservation. This allows us to grow them only every few years, as opposed to dealing with these problems every season.
In that same vein, it might be best to consider growing some types of herbs more intermittently. For example, we found we only use so much sage and tarragon in our cooking. We love using them and they have their place in the kitchen, but the reality is that the “flavor profile” doesn’t “fit” a massive amount of common dishes we cook. So, we also choose to grow these every other year or every few years, with the ultimate goal of preserving what we grow for the long haul.
We’ll talk about harvest and preservation of herbs later in the season, but if you want a “quick tip” on how we preserve our herbs? Air tight and using glass is the key. If you can eliminate air exchange around your herbs, you can actually get a surprising amount of storage time out of most herbs and spices. We’ve invested heavily into proper herb storage techniques and over the long term, it’s paid off. (We’ll make it a point to talk about what we do at some point, maybe super late season.) We see ridiculously low estimates of storage time for herbs out there, it’s not uncommon for us to use herbs that are even three or four years old!
It’s also important to realize that virtually any dish you might want to cook can feature herbs. In very few cases we can think of would adding herbs “ruin” a dish. Even “chive pancakes” are probably not that bad, despite not being our first choice of combinations! Whether it’s a more basic thing like parsley acting as garnish or using the “heavy hitters” of flavor, herbs can go in practically everything. Adding those herbs will light up practically anything you’re cooking and make it much more enjoyable. As you practice with herbs, you’ll also start to develop your ability to use them. This also includes combining herb flavors for some really deep flavor that puts those dishes off the charts. Use them and your herb garden will really work hard for you!
If you’re a cocktail/mocktail connoisseur, we can’t recommend integrating those herbs into your drink making enough! Whether it’s a garnish, an alcohol infusion or a simple muddled base flavor, we love using our herb garden for our occasional summer cocktail. Learning the ropes around using herbs in cocktails has elevated our bartending skills far more than we would have expected!
We think a lot of gardeners love the “idea” of an herb garden, but might need a little help in actually using an herb garden. Hopefully some of these thoughts help you grow and use your herbs more effectively.
