Growing & Using Herbs!

 By Andrea Yoder

Fresh herbs bring a fragrant vitality to your kitchen, may be used medicinally, and add beauty to your landscape or patio.  Back in our early days of CSA, we used to include more herbs in the CSA shares.  We wanted to give members fresh herbs to cook with, however we heard frequently from members that they were not using all of the herbs in a bunch before they went bad.  We brought this issue up at a meeting with our members and one member suggested we send the herbs as plants that they can plant themselves.  What a great idea and an even better way to accomplish the overall goal of making fresh herbs available for CSA members to incorporate in their meals!  When you need a fresh herb, you simply cut it from your plant—it doesn’t get any fresher than that!  

Every year in mid-late May we deliver these special culinary herb packs that we start in our greenhouse.  You can plant these herbs in a garden space or in pots to keep on your patio, porch or kitchen windowsill if you’re limited on space.  Choose good, loose garden soil mixed with lots of compost (up to 1” mixed into the soil if you’re planting into a garden space).  The plants will do best in well-drained soil with full sun.  If you don’t have a space with full sun exposure, partial sun will be ok too.  If you have rabbits or other little herb-loving critters in your yard, you might need to fence your herbs to protect them.  While we usually don’t see frost after the 15th of May, it is still possible that we could see some chilly nights over the next few weeks.  While most of the contents of these herb packs can tolerate a little frost, there are a few herbs including basil and chervil that will be damaged by the frost.  If you see a cold night coming, we recommend you either bring your plants inside (if in pots) or cover them with a sheet or other protective covering to protect them from frost or low temperatures.

If you need help identifying the herbs in your pack, please refer to this diagram as well as the pictures that follow. 

Oregano

There are four perennial herbs in your pack:  Oregano, Sage, Thyme and Rosemary.  Oregano, sage and thyme are more cold hardy and have a pretty good chance of surviving our cold winters.  So, consider where you’d like to establish these herbs in your garden as they will likely come back year after year.  Sage and oregano will get quite large, so it is best to give them about 2 square feet of space in the area you plant them in.  Each year we cut off all the old wood from our sage plant to make room for the new growth.  Thyme is a bit smaller and only needs about 1 square foot of space.  While rosemary is a perennial herb, it is not quite as cold hardy.  To ensure it survives into the next year, it is best to bring it indoors in the fall.  If you have planted it in the ground, you can dig it up and put it in a pot to keep inside over the winter.  

Italian Basil

The remaining plants in your pack are annuals and include Italian Basil, Chervil, Italian Parsley and Curly Parsley.  Annuals will only produce for this season and will not survive the winter outdoors.  Italian basil and chervil need to be cut back regularly to delay flower and seed formation so they continue to produce usable leaves.  If you see even the earliest sign of flowering in either of these plants, cut them back to keep them vegetative.  Parsley will continue to produce throughout the season, so don’t be afraid to cut these plants back too.  If you can’t use your herbs as fast as they are growing, cut the extra herbs anyway and preserve them.  There is more information about that to follow.  When harvesting your herbs, use a sharp knife or scissors so you can make a clean cut.

Chervil

Fresh herbs should be cut as close to using them as possible and with a sharp knife, so you don’t bruise the leaves.  The flavor and aroma from herbs come from the oils in the herb and will lessen over time once they are cut.  This is also why you usually add fresh herbs to a dish at the end of cooking or shortly before serving.  In contrast, dried herbs need more time to develop the flavors that have been preserved in the process of drying.  Dried herbs are added earlier in the cooking process to give them time to develop and come together with the other ingredients in the dish. Many times, recipes will direct you to strip the leaves from the stems of fresh herbs.  If the stem is tough or more like a stick, you will want to do this.  However, some herb stems are tender, flavorful, juicy and totally usable!  I often chop both the leaf and the stem when I’m using fresh thyme, parsley, chervil and sometimes young basil stems.  Sage, rosemary and oregano stems are sometimes a bit more coarse and not usable.

Sage

The herbs in our garden herb pack are intended to be used primarily as culinary herbs, adding flavor and vitality to the foods you are enjoying at your meals.  I do want to mention though, that herbs also have nutrients and compounds in them that impart health benefits and may be used medicinally.  For instance, the Latin name for common sage means “healing plant.”  Over the course of history sage has been used medicinally in many applications including as a central nervous system tonic and a circulatory stimulant.   There is an ancient proverb that says, “How can a man die who has sage in his garden?”  Several years ago, Jean Schneider, a longtime friend of our farm and an herbalist, shared some ideas for medicinal uses of some of the herbs in our herb packs.  You can read her full article on our blog where she shared how to make sage honey.  This is a great way to preserve sage at the end of the season and a nice thing to have in your pantry to use throughout the winter to enhance your health.  

German Winter Thyme

Thyme is another example of an herb that is used for both its culinary applications, but also imparts health benefits to our bodies.  The same essential oils contained in the plant that give it its signature aroma and flavor are also responsible for its medicinal benefits including being antiseptic and antispasmodic.  It can help to soothe congestion and calm tense muscles and nerves.  In Jean’s article on our blog, you’ll also find information about how you can make thyme tea.

Rosemary has an interesting history as it relates to health benefits.  Back in ancient Greece, philosophers and students wore rosemary garlands on their heads to stimulate the brain and improve their memory.  Rosemary contains a compound called borneol that is thought to increase blood flow and generally stimulate the circulatory system thereby increasing blood flow to the heart and brain.  If this is true, it makes sense that one may have better brain function with enhanced blood flow and oxygenation to the brain!  

Rosemary

These are just a few examples of the health benefits we can take advantage of by including culinary herbs in our diets, but also using them outside the scope of cooking and eating as medicinal plants that can enhance our health.  With that in mind, lets talk more about how we can incorporate culinary herbs into our meals on a regular basis!

Herbs are a great way to add flavor to your food and can really elevate a dish or recipe to the next level by enhancing other flavors it may accompany.  Most of the time we think of herbs as something we add in small portions to give just a little extra flavor or add background flavor.  An example of this is when you add herbs to the pot when making stock, broth or braised dishes.  In these preparations, herbs are often put in as whole stems or bundles.  They are used to impart flavor and then removed before using or serving.  Other times herbs are used as a garnish, added just before serving with the purpose of complementing the dish.  Examples of this include adding a little fresh parsley to a bowl of chicken soup or a plate of pasta or perhaps you add a little fresh basil to a pizza after it comes out of the oven.  Beyond these small, complementary applications, I would also encourage you to think of herbs as vegetables.   For example, add coarsely chopped herbs to vegetable and grain salads in larger quantities where they are one of the main ingredients.  Vietnamese cuisine is a great example of food where herbs are used in greater quantities more like a vegetable.  Another good example of this type of application is Tabbouleh, a Lebanese salad, which is a combination of bulgur, tomatoes and lots of fresh parsley and mint. 

Italian Parsley

There are some classic preparations from around the world that are characterized by their use of herbs.  When your plants are really producing and you have a lot of fresh herbs available, consider using them more as a main ingredient in some of these preparations.  Pesto is a great example of this and is traditionally made with fresh basil, although you can make pesto out of nearly anything green and leafy!  Gremolata is an Italian condiment made from fresh parsley, lemon and garlic.  It is traditionally served with osso bucco, an Italian dish of braised veal shank, but can also be served with lamb, beef, chicken or bean dishes.  Chermoula is a Morroccan herb condiment made with fresh herbs including parsley and cilantro.  It is often served with fish and seafood dishes.  Chimichurri is another parsley based condiment originating in Argentina.  It also includes garlic and parsley as the main ingredients, but also often includes fresh oregano, red pepper flakes and red wine vinegar.  Salsa Verde is another fresh herb sauce, different from the salsa verde made from tomatillos.  The herbal version of Salsa Verde is a simple herb sauce, similar in some ways to a coarse pesto.  It’s often made with parsley, but you could make it with any fresh herbs.  

Curly Parsley

If you do have more herbs than you can use fresh, cut them back and preserve them.  Some herbs, such as basil and parsley, can be pureed with a little oil and frozen in ice cube trays or muffin tins.  Other herbs such as parsley, sage, oregano, thyme and savory are good as dried herbs.  After you harvest them, give them a quick rinse and then dry them in a low-heat oven or in a food dehydrator.  The other option is to bundle the herbs in small bundles and hang them in a dry place with good air flow and let them air dry. If you do this, make sure the herbs are more on the dry side when you bundle them and don’t put too many stems in a bundle, or they may mold or take longer to dry.  Once your herbs are dried, strip them off the stem and put them in a glass jar with a lid.

Cooking flavorful food does not have to be complicated or time-consuming, and neither does raising your own herb garden!  Anyone, of any level of culinary or gardening skill, can learn to feed themselves healthy delicious food if they approach cooking and basic gardening with an open mind and a willingness to learn.  You do have to invest a little time and effort, but it doesn’t have to be terribly complicated and it’s definitely nothing to be afraid of!  In her book The Homemade Kitchen, Alana Chernila says “Fresh herbs will take whatever you create in the kitchen and make it better.”

We hope you enjoy growing your own herbs and find interesting and delicious ways to make use of them throughout the year.  They really are a simple way to brighten up your landscape as well as your meals and the benefits they offer go beyond the flavor.