Growing Herbs - Garlic, Sage and Thyme

Growing Garlic

 

Lots of garlic grows in a small space



Superstition has it that wearing garlic around your neck will make the vampires leave you alone. Honestly, if you wear garlic around your neck, everyone will leave you alone. But eating garlic is another story. Nearly every culture on Earth has a recipe or two that includes garlic, either a little bit for flavor or a lot as the main ingredient. There seems to be no in between with garlic – some folks, like vampires, wrinkle up their noses and back away. The rest of us adore the aroma and flavor.
 

Garlic is so easy to grow and store. These are some of the best choices for both growing and eating:

New York White is a traditional favorite with New York's Italian market gardeners, who often call it "Polish White." The skin has a purple blush and is quite pretty. This garlic makes beautiful braids. German Extra-Hardy is one of the easiest garlic varieties to grow. The very large bulbs have four to five huge cloves per head. The outside skin is very white and the skin covering the cloves is dark red. Elephant garlic is mild enough to slice into salads. The bulbs have four to five extremely large cloves that are white on the outside, with light brown skin on the cloves.
 

These are soft neck varieties. The bulbs are large with multiple layers of cloves. They have superior shelf life, and under proper conditions can be stored for up to 9 months. Their flavors are wonderful and pungent. Planted bulbs generally yield 5-8 times their weight at harvest.
 

Hard neck varieties are where the real flavor is, according to garlic aficionados. Hard necks have fewer cloves than soft necks, and the cloves are larger and easier to peel. Try Russian Red, a hard neck garlic with a purple striped wrapper and strong flavor. It has six to nine smallish cloves per head. 



The little curls are called garlic scapes.
Snip them off and add them to salads and stir fries.

Garlic is fun to grow - for every clove planted, a full-sized head filled with cloves will be harvested. To get beautiful garlic heads that will store well into the winter, plant the cloves in the fall, right around Labor Day. The idea is to get the cloves in the ground during warm weather for good root formation. It is good sign to see green shoots peeking above the soil in late autumn. Don't worry - garlic can tolerate frost. Don't plant garlic from the supermarket - it has been treated not to sprout. Get "seed" garlic from a good local nursery or an internet supplier.
 

To plant garlic, carefully break it into individual cloves. It is best to do this right at planting time so the cloves don't dry out. Plant each clove, pointy end up, four to six inches deep (two inches of soil over the top of the clove, three inches for Elephant garlic), leaving six inches between each clove. Garlic roots like to go deep, so well cultivated soil is a big help. Poke holes in the ground and drop one clove in each hole, then cover up the entire batch with a rake. This works best the soil is watered several hours before planting so it is moist but not muddy.

Harvest the bulbs when the lower half of the leaves have turned brown. Test dig one or two plants. The cloves should be starting to bulge through the wrapper skin. Harvest can begin as early as the first week of July depending on the variety. To get the bulb out of the ground, carefully loosen the soil around each plant with a pitchfork. Then lift out the whole plant.

"Cure" garlic bulbs before storing. The entire plant, leaves and all, should be dried out for two to three weeks. Do not wash the bulbs or expose them to water. Tie up a dozen bulbs with string or wire and hang them in a well-ventilated place.

 

 

Or pack them loosely in a large mesh bag and hang them where they'll get a lot of air circulation. After the garlic is cured, cut off the tops an inch above the bulb and trim the roots.
 

Store the bulbs in a ceramic garlic keeper or a burlap bag. Do not store garlic in the refrigerator or it will try to sprout. Hard neck garlic and Elephant garlic can be kept for several months, soft neck varieties can keep up to a year.
 

Try chewing fresh mint leaves or parsley to help neutralize the odor of the dreaded garlic breath. But to really want to ward off the vampires, eat lots of garlic and breathe that garlicky breath with pride.

 

 

 

 

Growing Sage

 

Variegated Sage

 

Here’s a description of the perfect garden plant - a beautiful perennial that grows up to 3 feet tall and wide and comes in a variety of leaf and flower colors, and is edible. Imagine it in a perennial border, herb or vegetable garden, even in containers. No plant can be all of the above, right? Say hello to sage.

 

Native to the Mediterranean region of southern Europe, sage is a strongly flavored, aromatic evergreen sub-shrub of the mint family. Garden sage (Salvia officinalis) is the most common of the many varieties of green sage and is most often used for culinary purposes. This variety produces purple flowers and gray-green leaves which have a rough, woolly texture. The drier the weather, the grayer the leaves will be. The flowers are clustered together in whorls around the stem tops. The name salvia is from Latin salvere meaning to heal.

 

Through the ages, sage tea has been a popular drink. The Chinese once preferred it to their own teas and exchanged theirs with the Dutch for sage tea. The ancient Greeks and Romans used it as a meat preservative, and also to enhance memory. Tenth century Arabs believed it could extend life to the point of immortality. The Crusades brought this belief to Europe as well. In Italy, sage was believed to preserve health, and country folk would eat bread and butter sandwiches filled with sage leaves. (Don’t be afraid to try it – it’s good!)

 

Garden Sage

 

Garden sage will grow in almost any well-drained soil in a sunny spot, reaching a height and width of up to three feet. Varieties include golden sage which has gold tipped leaves; variegated leaf sage which has green leaves flecked with cream; and tricolor sage which produces gray-green leaves speckled with white, purple and pink. These are lovely as accents or grouped together in the garden or container plantings. The golden, purple and tricolor sages can also be used for cooking, but they are not as flavorful as the green garden sage. Sage grows well with frequent clippings, taking leaves as needed. Prune it down by about 1/3 after it flowers to stimulate new growth.

 

Grow sage with broccoli and other members of the cabbage family. Sage is protective to cabbages and all their relatives against the white cabbage butterfly, and it also makes the cabbage plants more succulent and tasty. It is good to grow with carrots, protecting them against the carrot fly, whose larva attacks rootlets of young plants. Do not plant sage with cucumber, which does not like aromatic herbs in general, and sage in particular.

 

Pot some up for the winter windowsill. Sow seeds or rooted cuttings in separate pots or an area of the garden in late spring to early summer. They will still be young and vigorous when they come indoors. Don’t forget to de-bug them with Neem or other systemic insecticide before bringing them in.

 

Medicinally, sage can reduce perspiration and is used in treatments for hyperhydrosis. Sage tea is recommended as a gargle for sore throats and hoarseness. Make sage tea by simply steeping sage leaves in boiling water.

 

Sage is a delicious flavoring for sausage, pork, duck, and poultry stuffing. Sage helps make meats more digestible. It cuts the richness and fattiness of pork, goose, duck, veal, and other heavy meats. It is also good with eggs, cheeses, beans, onions, tomatoes, risotto, salads, and pickles. Use long stems of sage leaves as a brush to marinate meats on the grill, or lay them over the coals to flavor to barbecued meats, fish, and vegetables. Sage goes with just about everything.

 

Fresh sage has a prominent lemon zest flavor that is lost in drying. Fresh sage can be frozen - place small sprigs in plastic bags to freeze for up to two months.

 

In the garden, sage is an old-fashioned, easy-going, colorful plant. On the table, sage will add a gourmet touch to just about any dish imaginable. Grow some, and try this tea.

 

Lemon sage tea is a refreshing summer drink.

 

Lemon Sage tea:

 

2 cups water

20 fresh sage leaves

1/2 lemon, zest and juice

1 tbsp sugar or equivalent

 

Boil the water, keep at a simmer. Add sage leaves, lemon zest and juice, and sugar. Steep for 20 minutes. Strain out the leaves. Enjoy hot or iced.

 

 

 

 

Growing Thyme

 

Garden Thyme

 

Here's a lovely little herb that no garden, whether vegetable, flower or herb should be without. Thyme is a low-growing shrubby perennial in the mint family called Thymus vulgaris, also known as common thyme or garden thyme. Its tiny grayish-green leaves are about a quarter of an inch long. Aromatic garden thyme grows up to 9 inches tall and produces small mauve flowers in summer. As soon as the flowers have finished, the plant should be trimmed to encourage new growth. Thyme can be harvested anytime during the growing season, but the flavor is best just before flowering.

 

Although it grows easily in light, dry soils, thyme will also grow in heavy clay soils, but it becomes less aromatic. It prefers lots of sun and well-drained soil. As a companion plant, thyme will deter the cabbageworm, and is good planted anywhere in the garden where it can accent the aromatic qualities of other plants and herbs, such as lavender. Thyme flowers can be used in the same way as lavender – in sachets to scent and preserve linen from insects.

 

There is quite a selection of low-growing thymes with different colored foliage and flowers, such as wooly thyme, creeping thyme and mother of thyme. It will thrive despite being walked on, and give off a pleasing scent with each step. It is also wonderful planted between the stones of a walkway.

 

Thyme is the little plant with a big flavor. A little goes a long way, and too much can smother more subtle flavors. Closely related to garden thyme, aromatic French summer thyme has more narrow, pointed leaves with a grayish tint. The famed culinary thyme from France, it is higher in essential oil content than other varieties, which means more and better flavor. This is the one to grow for cooking.

 

Lemon Thyme

Use thyme to season meat, poultry, fish and seafood, chowders, and soups. It goes well with lamb and veal as well as in eggs. Thyme is delicious in salads, on vegetables like beans, onions and tomatoes, and in herb butter and breads. Use it to flavor stuffings, sauces, pickles, stews, or soups. The Spaniards use it in the pickle with which they preserve their olives. Romans used thyme to give an aromatic flavor to cheese and liqueurs. Benedictine monks still use it as an ingredient in their liqueurs.

 

Thyme plants are available in an incredible range of scents and flavors, like orange, nutmeg, caraway, mint, pine, pepper, lemon and citronella. Try scattering different thyme plants around the garden, just for the fun of seeing, smelling and tasting the differences between them. Lemon thyme is beautiful – emerald green leaves edged in chartreuse, with a spreading-but-not-invasive habit. Pick or squeeze a handful when you walk by. It smells delicious. With that in mind, these unusual cookies will satisfy the desire to take a bite of lemon thyme right off the plant. Try substituting orange zest and orange thyme for the lemon. Either way, try serving these cookies with thyme herbal tea by infusing a handful of leaves in boiling water for 5 minutes. Strain, sweeten if desired, and enjoy.

 

Lemon Thyme Cookies:

 

1/4 pound butter (one stick)

3/4 cup sugar

1 whole egg, beaten

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon milk or cream

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1/2 cup fresh lemon thyme leaves, finely chopped

1 1/4 cups flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

 

Preheat oven to 350F. Cream butter, gradually adding sugar, and beat until light. Add egg, vanilla, and milk and blend thoroughly. Blend in lemon zest and thyme. Mix flour, salt, and baking powder and sift into butter mixture. Blend well. Arrange by teaspoons on greased cookie sheet and bake 8-12 minutes, until lightly brown. Makes three-dozen cookies.

 

Here's another recipe from The International Herb Association. It is easy to prepare, and it will disappear quickly, so be sure to do a lot of taste testing before serving.

 

Thyme And Again:

 

8 oz. cream cheese

4 oz. sour cream

2 tablespoons chopped thyme leaves

1 tablespoon coarsely chopped basil

1 tablespoon minced parsley

 

Blend all ingredients thoroughly and chill overnight. Place in serving bowl and garnish with basil, parsley, and thyme leaves. Serve on a tray with crackers and/or vegetable sticks. Guests will visit this appetizer "thyme and again".