SWEET, POT AND MEDICINAL HERBS
Are a very welcome addition to the kitchen garden, giving just the
often needed touch to the achievement of a successful dish, a touch
that will change an everyday vegetable or meat course to something
unusual and fancy in cuisine, and with no trouble or added expense to
the cook—just a little pinch of this or that, and what a difference
it makes! In most households sage is depended on for the flavoring
of poultry dressing, sausage and the like, in spite of the fact that
it may be anything but pleasing to some member of the family or the
welcome guest; so accustomed are we to its use that substitution is
scarcely thought of, and yet a very pleasing one is found in summer
savory, which most people like better than sage, once its acquaintance
is made. Coriander and caraway seeds are used in bread, cake and
cookies, but just a touch of caraway is a very piquant addition to
salads. Tarragon is used for making tarragon vinegar—the leaves
being steeped in pale cider or white wine vinegar until the flavor
is extracted and then used in the concoction of salad dressing. Dill
is used principally for making dill pickles, the leaves being laid
alternately with the pickles when laid down. Sweet fennel is used for
salads and soups and also for fish sauce.
If one has a strip of land at one side of the garden that is not
needed, and can be conveniently skipped in the plowing, that will be
the place for the herb bed. The soil should be rich and mellow and
contain a fair proportion of humus. A poor strip of land may be built
up by adding to it from season to season the old manure from the
hotbed; this is nearly reduced to humus and the action of the elements
will soon complete its transformation.
As many of the herbs are perennial it is best that the bed should be a
permanent one, not subject to annual disturbance. It should be long,
rather than wide, so that the herbs may be gathered without walking
on the bed; three feet is a good width as that can be reached across
fairly well. As the amount of any one herb used in the average family
will be small it is not necessary that they be set in regular rows;
they may rather be started in rows, for convenience in planting and
identifying when up and then the fine, vigorous plants set in clumps in
the border, or in colonies of sorts. The leaves of the various plants
are the part used and they should be cut or gathered on a bright, clear
day just as the plants are coming into bloom, tied in bunches and hung
up in a dry place, an attic with open windows, or a shed, or spread
out on racks or a floor, anywhere where they will dry quickly so as
to retain all their flavor. When thoroughly dry the leaves should be
stripped from the stems and packed in bags or boxes for use.
The annual varieties are cultivated the same as the perennials but if
one prefers these may occupy a row through the garden where they can
have the cultivation accorded the other vegetables. The following list
is quite complete and will indicate the various uses for which each is
suitable.
PERENNIAL HERBS
_Balm._ Lemon-scented and used for making balm tea.
_Catnip._ Beloved of cats and useful in colic of infants.
_Fennel, Sweet._ Used in salads and soups.
_Horehound._ Very useful in coughs and bronchial colds, made into
syrup or candy, with sugar.
_Lavender._ For perfuming linen. Not hardy and should be protected
in winter.
_Mint._ For mint sauces.
_Pennyroyal._ Used medicinally, and for seasoning puddings and
various dishes.
_Peppermint._ For flavoring and in candy.
_Rosemary._ For flavoring. ("Here's Rosemary, that's for
remembrance.")
_Rue._ For roup in fowls and for medicinal purposes.
_Sage._ Seasoning for sausage, poultry dressing and the like.
_Savory, summer._ Used in place of sage and as flavoring with
string beans.
_Savory, winter._ Used the same as summer savory.
_Sweet Marjoram._ Used green in summer and dried in winter.
_Tansy._ For medicinal purposes.
_Thyme, broad-leaved English._ For seasoning and poultry stuffing;
also a tea for nervous headache.
ANNUAL HERBS
_Anise._ For garnishing and flavoring and in making cordials.
_Basil, sweet._ The stems and seeds are used in soups and sauces.
_Bene._ Used medicinally—the leaves in water, beneficial in cases
of dysentery.
_Borage._ Excellent for bees. Leaves used in salads, the flowers in
cooling drinks. _Caraway._ The seed used in bread, cakes, cookies
and salads.
_Chamomile._ Medicinal. Prescribed by physicians as an emetic and
vermifuge.
_Coriander._ Seeds aromatic. Used as a stomachic.
_Cumin._ As food for pigeons.
_Dill._ In making dill pickles.
_Pimpinella._ The young leaves, used as salad, have the flavor of
cucumbers.
_Saffron._ Used for flavoring and coloring.
_Tarragon._ For flavoring and in salads. Does not come from seed
but plants must be purchased.
_Tagetes._ This possesses in its green parts almost the true
tarragon flavor.
_Thyme. French Summer._ Used for seasoning.
_Waldmeister._ Used in May wine and also for scenting clothes.