Herb garden

tain

There is sooooooo much you can use herbs with. Literally everything.

A good start is to find out what herbs have an affinity with what foods, and build on that.

So mint goes with lamb, basil with tomato and/or mozzarella, cress or chives with eggs, sage with onion, bay with pork... This is just a tiny fraction. There's whole websites dedicated to food affinities right up to the crazy 'food pairing' subscription website.

So if you've got a bumper harvest of basil one week, be sure to add pasta and chopped tomatoes to your shopping list. If thyme is in season, then chicken is a good bet. Parsley is great in homemade burgers so buy in beef. Etc.

Tberry

I love basil, but have never had any luck growing it from seed, I buy a couple of plants and they grow like bushes on a windowsill. I use it a lot, then when it starts going a bit too bushy, I snip off nearly all the leaves, wash, throw in the blender, add some olive oil, roughly chopped clove or two of garlic and a pinch of salt and whizz it all up. I then decant it into small jars (the sort of tiny jam jars you get at B&B's!) and freeze. Because there is oil in there, the glass wont crack in the freezer, and I have a delicious garlicky, basil-ly mix to add to my pastas through the winter, a lovely taste of summer. I guess you could do similar with most soft leaved herbs.

meritaten

mint also goes well with tomatoes. a lovely herb with lamb is rosemary (especially if garlic is also used in the recipe). Parsley is lovely with fish, but, so too is Dill (a pretty plant) and lemon thyme. experiment!