Cooking Medley mixed planter

This planter has been a long-standing favorite among customers! It’s chock full of cooking herbs, and the flavors are well-suited to Italian and French cooking.

Contents:

Thyme: either ‘Tabor’ or English

Sage: ‘Grower’s Friend’

Oregano: Greek

Rosemary: either Prostrate, ‘Taurentius’, or ‘Tuscan Blue’

French Tarragon

Chives

Care:

This planter is relatively small, but contains a lot of plants; water daily so that nobody dries up!

All the plants in this planter require sun. It’s been very popular as a windowsill garden, and would work equally well on a wide railing or on a patio table. Keep it somewhere handy, so that you can harvest it easily for use in the kitchen. Using it is actually better for the plants– trimming off topmost leaves and stems will encourage growth further down the stem (ie more branches), increasing the amount you’ll be able to use!

Using the herbs in this planter:

Most recipes will tell you what herbs are needed. However, if you’re freestyling or just looking to spice up a bland dish, here are some hints on matching flavors.

Oregano is great on pizzas and combines well with tomatoes, olives, onions, and garlic. Pair with basil for a simple but effective seasoning blend. Oregano’s flavor changes as it dries, and it is typically used dried instead of fresh.

Rosemary is superb for flavoring meats and works well in soup or stew. Add to stuffing. Bake into bread. Infuse in oil or vinegar for a flavorful dressing or sauce base. Add flowers to salad. Drink as tea.

Thyme can be used to flavor fish, meats, stuffings, cooked vegetables, and soups/stews. Infuse in oil or vinegar. It’s an ingredient in classic spice blends like bouquet garni and herbes de Provence. Thyme has a somewhat similar flavor to oregano; use it instead of oregano on pizza for a subtly different taste.

Sage is another great herb for flavoring meats, especially pork. Also good for stuffing, soup/stew, for flavoring cheese, and absolutely delicious as tea.

Tarragon goes well with chicken and egg dishes, can be used in dressings in sauces (such as Béarnaise and tartar), and infused in oil or vinegar. Try in omelettes and potato salad. The flavor is quite strong even though the leaves are small– use sparingly, and add more to taste if needed.

Chives are incredibly versatile. They complement potatoes and eggs; add to baked potatoes, potato salad, omelettes. Good for flavoring butters and cheeses. Chop finely and use as a garnish. Mix with sour cream for a simple but tasty dip. Try substituting for garlic or onions if you want a milder flavor or a bit of color. Flowers can be used whole or in pieces atop salads and other dishes (and they’re a delicate purple, great for making a tasty dish pretty as well). Best used fresh; a better alternative to drying is to chop finely and freeze.

*Use fresh or dried, although if using dried you will need to use more. Why? In most cases some of the oils that are responsible for flavor will evaporate during the drying process, resulting in decreased flavor.

*When adding herbs to hot dishes, you’ll get better flavor by adding them towards the end of cooking than at the beginning. Adding them at the beginning gives those oils more time to dissipate.

Some great recipes: AllRecipes.com> Herbs

Rosemary

Perennial?

No. Rosemary requires warmer winters than we ever have, and if planted out doors must be treated as an annual and replaced next year. I’ve tried planting it in various sheltered locations– no luck. Alternately, try growing in a planter that can be brought indoors to a sunny spot during the winter.

If you have a greenhouse to overwinter tender plants in, they can turn into monsters!!! This is my ‘Salem’ rosemary, which is at least seven years old now and currently in a huge 24″ diameter planter. Yours probably won’t get this big, but then again I never thought mine would either!

Sun vs shade?

Full sun.

Upright vs Trailing?

All of our varieties grow upright except for ‘Prostrata’, which will trail and cascade over rocks walls or from window boxes.

Uses?

Rosemary is probably best known as a culinary herb. All of our varieties have good flavor and can be used for cooking. Use leaves fresh or dried in a variety of dishes;  ‘Barbecue’ and ‘Skewer’ varieties grow especially straight, and when the branches become thick and woody they can be used as flavorful skewers for barbecuing meats or vegetables.

Flowers?

In my experience, rosemary blooms best in cooler temperatures. My monster ‘Salem’ is in a cool section of the greenhouse and is currently blooming; when I arrived in New Zealand it was winter*, and all of the rosemary was in bloom.

Flowers are typically a light blue-ish purple, exceptions being the Pink and White varieties.

*In an ideal world… aka New Zealand

Several years ago I studied abroad in New Zealand. I lived in Wellington, where winter temps never drop below freezing and frost doesn’t zap tender plants like rosemary. It was like heaven for plants that I’m so used to seeing as annuals! Our New Guinea impatiens get fairly big in hanging baskets; the same plants there were 6-foot tall trees with trunks several inches thick, covered in flowers. In other parts of the country I saw fuchsias growing as trees, more impatiens forming hedges, and orange trees in most of the yards. The roses were to die for. And the rosemary! In Wellington, it was planted everywhere in private gardens and in public areas, on banks, trailing over rocks walls and forming the occasional hedge. I only wish it could do the same here!

————————————————————————

To see all 2010 plants, check the Complete List of Varieties.