What herbs grow in your garden?

The plant that was coming up in corner was not shiso at all, but lovage. Betsy said she dug up the shiso last year as it was overwhelming our small herb garden.

Well, that's interesting, too. I read that lovage is quite strong and that the flavor runs in the celery-parsley-anise pathway. Curious to hear your experience of it.

[Jenise]

Same color? I love the purple variety best when I can get it for my garden. And it's just so damned pretty.

Btw, re the miso vinaigrette? I used Kenji's NYT recipe which I believe you're also a fan of, but did not use Balsamic Vinegar. Rather I used more white wine vinegar and dropped in two little heads of fermented black garlic which I picked up on my last visit to a Korean market. OMG, good.

Both shiso and Korean perilla have red and green varieties.

[Jenise]

I have heard that tarragon is very fussy. Hard to grow and even hard to take cuttings from. (I think it's been so heavily hybridized that it does not grow from seed anymore.)

Jeff, yesterday at a garden shop I found this:

Mexican tarragon, also known as Tagetes lucida or Mexican mint marigold, is a perennial herb native to Mexico with a distinctive anise-like flavor used in cooking, medicine, and gardening.

Mexican tarragon is a herbaceous perennial plant belonging to the marigold family (Asteraceae) and is native to Mexico. It has narrow, lance-shaped leaves and produces small, marigold-like yellow flowers in early to mid-fall. The plant is hardy, tolerates heat and drought, and thrives in well-drained soil with full sun. It can also be grown in containers, making it suitable for small gardens or balconies.

My patio is probably too cool for it, but I bought one anyway. And the flavor's good--very close to the French, with leaves a bit firmer and rounder. Also, tiny yellow flowers.

This morning, one of my gardening friends gave us all a tour of her garden. She has lots of room so she has planted just about every herb: sage, thyme, mint, basil, chives, rosemary, tarragon, oregano. The thyme and mint are fabulous good, I did not taste the sage or chives, the rosemary suffered over the winter (5 out of 6 plants died), the basil and oregano are still seedlings... and then there's the tarragon. It's up, looks green, lots of leaves, and has nearly no scent.

She lives in Zone 7b, I think, so some things are underway but many are just leafing out... eggplants, tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, winter squashes, hazelnut saplings, a good-sized cherry tree, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, shell peas, snow peas, snap peas, many lettuces, radishes. We did eat a horseradish sauce made from her horseradish roots. The rhubarb is near to ready. The asparagus is about exhausted. Jerusalem artichokes look pretty sturdy above-ground, anyway.

My mother was fond of May wine so we used to grow sweet woodruff in our garden. I was fond of mint iced tea so I planted a patch of mint, which of course tried to take over the lawn. My freshman year in college my dad decided he was fed up with the mint invading the lawn and took advantage of my absence in the spring. Each spring he had a contractor come in to rototill the main part of the garden and this year he did not block off the mint as he had in the past. This plan to get rid of the mint backfired badly. All it did was spread the mint across the whole garden. My dad was pulling up mint all summer. We learned that mint can compete with zucchini for aggressive and invasive growth.

-Paul W.