Herbs Archives - SpadeRunner

June herbs from the garden

June 27, 2016July 14, 2016 Stephen Carlin

Midwinter here can be a little cool and gloomy when the clouds make an even cover all day, but it’s never long before we get some beautiful sun again. Our garden is productive right through Winter, and that includes aromatic leaves to pick for the kitchen; the June herbs. I thought I’d do an inventory of what I can pick, and maybe follow it with Spring and Summer versions. This is what I found on a walk round. Clockwise from the left, in an inward spiral, they are: lemongrass, curry…

How much thyme do you have?

December 5, 2015August 25, 2017 Stephen Carlin

You can probably never have too much thyme. Part of the plan for my herb garden was to have a section of low growing and fragrant herbs like thyme under the clothes hoist. With our second Spring finishing after sowing it the first Winter, it’s almost what I envisaged and filling in nicely.

Growing watercress; green goodness

September 14, 2015December 29, 2015 Stephen Carlin

Whether you treat it like a herb or a vegetable, growing watercress is rewarding for the home gardener. In the cities you’re likely to find a reliable if costly supply, but I haven’t seen it for sale out here, and it’s very handy to have to pick at anytime for a garnish, or to liven up a sandwich, or on the larger scale to use as the main vegetable in a soup or frittata. A problem with bought watercress is that it tends to be all stem with yellow leaves low down,…

Growing shungiku, edible chrysanthemum

July 21, 2015August 15, 2017 Stephen Carlin

Like so many edibles that are hard to come by in the shops and best freshly picked, growing shungiku is rewarding for the home gardener. The Japanese call it shungiku, and some call it chop suey herb. Even though ‘edible chrysanthemum’ is a good general description, it’s actually been moved out of the genus Chrysanthemum and is now officially Glebionis coronaria. This tasty and unusual little vegetable is worth growing to spice up seasonal meals. I used to get it occasionally from my market vendor in Sydney, so thought I’d give growing it…

Pineapple sage

February 20, 2015April 1, 2018 Stephen Carlin

Although a great fan of standard sage (Salvia officinalis) and also of the flowering salvias, I didn’t know about pineapple sage (Salvia elegans, for an updated post click here) until I saw a scrawny cutting in the $2 section of a nursery last Spring. Now, I’m really glad I got it. It’s a fine looking plant with added flavour benefits.

Growing basil: there’s plenty of choice!

December 17, 2014 Stephen Carlin

The light this morning made me stop and admire the colours of the basil. It was a bright morning after rain, and the basil is just coming into its own after surviving the dry weather. In particular the Dark Opal showed up nicely against the Holy basil. Basil has to be one of the favourite herbs to grow for the home gardener, with good reason. First of all, fresh picked basil from the garden is so much better than bought basil. Either you buy a bunch that has been battered…

Borage

October 8, 2014 Stephen Carlin

One of the first herbs I planted back in May, borage is an old favourite. Here it grows through winter, spreading to a rosette of hairy leaves, then in spring it sends up shoots that bear the blue flowers. The bees love it, but for us the flowers are also the useful part, to put in salads. The flowers and leaves taste of cucumber. For picking the flowers,the blue petals are easy to separate from the hairy calyces, just hold the central dark part and gently pull down. The leaves are…

Lemon myrtle

July 7, 2014April 10, 2020 Stephen Carlin

Before we moved here I only knew lemon myrtle (Backhousia citriodora) from powdered leaves I bought at the supermarket, but here we have a few trees, so I’ve been using the fresh herb.

Salad Burnet

November 11, 2012 Stephen Carlin

Maybe it’s because we don’t have a hard winter to kill it back, but the salad burnet ends up being a thick mass of old leaves, which are too coarse to eat. So a month ago it was time for a hard trim. A week later it was coming back with plenty of fresh leaves. And now at four weeks there is enough to start using for salads, and it is sending up flower scapes, which I should probably trim too. The flowers are insignificant and i don’t want it…

Sage

October 21, 2012 Stephen Carlin

The sage is coming back after winter dormancy, always keenly anticipated by me because I like it so much. First we get the pretty blue flowers, then the new shoots and the leaves that are so useful. It’s certainly a strongly flavoured herb, and it’s toned down by cooking, but I like just to chew a leaf off the bush occasionally. It’s pretty tough in Sydney, can suffer a bit from the wet in Summer, so a pot with sandy mix is good. Mine is a bunch of plants, just…