The Ultimate Herb Garden?

This is really useful, as we have a herb garden and I'm wanting to plant some more stuff in there to cut down on weeding ;-) So i will give and take to this discussion if that's OK!

Lavender - lovely, our herb garden was too full of it so I freecycled a couple.
Rosemary - ours haven't survived the last 2 winters, and I always forget to take cuttings. I always use it in the kitchen so I'll be buying another. Watch out for rosemary beetles.
Thyme - we have 2 varieties, normal and lemon, I want to buy 1 or 2 new varieties this year, as it spreads nicely and looks lovely.
French tarragon - disappeared completely over winter but is now coming back very nicely and has spread a little. Used in Delia's chicken and grape salad...
Mints - garden mint and chocolate mint, really nice for pimms! they're buried in pots in the bed to try and stop them taking over, but not sure how helpful that is as it seems to spread over the surface.
Fennel - this is so pretty with feathery leaves and huge yellow flowers in the summer! Haven't really used it in cooking yet though.
Chives - a mainstay for us. We use it throughout the summer on our homegrown potatoes with a bit of butter. I relocate clumps around the garden as the flowers are so pretty. Bees seem to love the flowers.
Sage - seems to have survived the winter althuouh looks a bit tatty. Use it quite often.
Parsley - flat and curly, This is a biennial so you have to grow new plants every other year. Easy to grow from seed, I find.
Lemon balm - actually not in the herb garden but all over the garden, it does spread so is handy for covering bare soil quickly! we don't actually use it in cooking, I use the lemon thyme instead.

Basil - usually grow this in pots - I rarely start it from seed but buy a pot in the supermarket, split it up, and snip off cuttings to root in water. By the end of the summer I've usually got enough of the stuff to make a couple of jars of pesto. I might try some in the herb garden this year just to fill space.
Coriander- again usually grow in pots but like many people find it a pain to stop it going to seed. Might try it in the garden.
Catnip! - I put this in the herb garden last year but think I will relocate this year. Last yr our cats were pretty young and not fussed by the magic herb, but this spring there is already a big flat patch around the stubs of the plants where they roll around on it.

other things I might add this year - oregano, sorrel, chamomile, and I really want to get a lemon verbena too. And would love a bay tree...

I've got quite a few herbs, but someone seems to have nicked the nametags from the ones in pots, so I'll just have to do a taste test on them (hopefully most of them will be edible...)
I grow fennel at the back of the flowerbeds - it can be a bit of a monster (6' tall & sprawls ) but I also have a bronze variety which is much better behaved.
I also grew lovage, hyssop and some other ones I've forgotten now. You can get a lot of herb seeds quite cheaply on ebay, especially if you buy them from the same seller, so the postage is low.
It's not only bees that like them - my cats love falling asleep underneath lavender, rosemary or fennel!

We had unexpected success with a cheap bulb of garlic. Seperated it into its cloves, shoved them into the earth, forgot about them & strewth! An orderly row of garlic this spring! :j

Rummer wrote: »

That has really inspired me! I really like the idea of growing traditional plants with healing properties!

Another book I saw in the Library the other day
Grow Your Own Drugs- James Wong.
Don't know what the books like but the T.V programme was good.
I have also just ordered the Hatfields Herbs from the library now thanks Kyrae!.