Showing posts with label Herbs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Herbs. Show all posts

Tuesday 16 May 2017

French Tarragon and the Russian Impostor.

French Tarragon and the Russian Impostor – Laidback Gardener:
There are, in fact, two tarragons on the market: French tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus sativa) and Russian tarragon (A. dracunculus dracunculoides, sometimes simply written A. dracunculoides).
The two were derived from the same wild plant, but are definitely not equivalent, especially when it comes to cooking.
French tarragon is the aromatic herb made famous by French cuisine.
It is one of the four official “fines herbes” recommended by French chef Auguste Escoffier in the early 20th century for use in egg, fish, and chicken dishes, the other three being parsley (Petroselinum crispum), chives (Allium schoenoprasum) and chervil (Anthriscus cerfefolium), a quartet still promoted by chefs of the French persuasion worldwide.

French tarragon has a distinctive taste: a very intense mixture of anise and camphor with its own special touch.
It’s strong enough that you only need a pinch when cooking.
Its lanceolate leaves are medium green and borne on a shrubby-looking plant about 24 to 30 inches (60 to 80 cm) high.
You have to propagate French tarragon vegetatively, by stem cuttings, layering or division.
Over all, it’s a fairly short-lived plant: even under ideal conditions, you need to take cuttings every few years to keep it going.

Russian tarragon is an impostor.
It has little taste and is not considered of much use in cooking.

You’ll find seed packets of tarragon, for example, but they necessarily contain seeds of Russian tarragon, since French tarragon doesn’t produce viable seed.
Nursery shelves are sometimes filled with pots of Russian tarragon, because they can grow it inexpensively from seed, which makes it much more profitable than cutting-grown French tarragon.
Abundant flowers usually indicate Russian tarragon.
Pull off two or three small leaves and munch on them. If the taste is intense, in fact, out and out bitter, it’s French tarragon.
If they have little to no taste, it’s Russian tarragon.
And be forewarned: Russian tarragon can become invasive.
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Saturday 22 April 2017

This Weekend…

Radish seed can be sown outdoors into finely crumbed soil.
Only takes 4 weeks to harvest or they get woody

Start half hardy herbs like Basil in pots on windowsill, by the time it’s germinated you can move it outside.

Monday 17 April 2017

Myrrhis odorata (Sweet Cicely)

Myrrhis odorata (Sweet Cicely):
A wonderful spring and early summer herb for planting with tulips and harvesting – the flowers, young leaves and seedpods – to add aniseedy flavours to salads.
It also makes a delicious herb tea.
Leaves can be picked in late winter and again in late summer.
Dig up roots for drying in the autumn when the plant has died down.
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Friday 11 November 2016

Herbs!

Monty Don: Herbs are the easiest and best thing to grow in your garden, partly because a small amount can improve a whole range of other ingredients
Herbs are the easiest and best thing to grow in your garden, partly because a small amount can improve a whole range of other ingredients

Mediterranean herbs
This group includes culinary herbs such as rosemary, thyme, sage, coriander, tarragon, bay and oregano.
Decorative and medicinal herbs such as lavender, santolina, artemisia and hyssop share the same growing conditions.
You must be cruel to be kind to these plants.
Always add drainage to your soil and never, ever add compost or manure.
If you grow them in pots, mix ordinary peat-free potting compost with the same volume of sharp sand or grit.
Do not feed these plants as the harder they are grown the better they will be able to resist problems of weather, pests or disease.
However, do not forget to water them in summer, though they can dry out in winter, and as long as they are not too wet are very hardy.
But the combination of wet and cold is often fatal.

Annual herbs
Like any other annual plant, annual herbs do all their growing, flowering — and critically — seed production within one growing season.
Many promptly die, although some can live on for a few more years.
But the gardener can harness this speed of production through managing seeds.
Sow them in spring and you will have a crop.
But sow some every few months and you will have a daily supply.
My favourite annual herbs are basil and coriander.
Basil (Ocimum basilicum) is tender so needs protection from frost, but the others are very robust.
Basil is a very strong-growing plant that needs plenty of space to develop properly and which can be picked all summer long to provide fresh leaves.
I grow mine alongside tomatoes in the greenhouse from May onwards and outside in the garden once the nights get reliably warm in July, allowing at least 15cm (6in) space between each seedling.
Another favourite herb is parsley, which is a biennial, meaning it sets seed in its second year.
Like coriander, it’s a robust plant that will grow in some shade.
I grow both all year round, inside and out, making a sowing every few months.

Perennial herbs
Some herbs are herbaceous perennials that survive the winter by the top growth all dying back in autumn and growing fresh foliage and flowers in spring and summer.
My own favourites from this group are mint, chives, lovage, marjoram, fennel, sorrel and horseradish.
There are many different mints but the three to grow for the kitchen are spearmint (Mentha spicata), peppermint (Mentha x piperita) and apple mint (Mentha suaveolens).
Mint grows in most soils and conditions, though it prefers a rather damp, sunny site.
However, it will spread invasively if given the chance, so I recommend growing it in a container.
Chives are an allium, like garlic, and are very easy to grow from seed and become long-lived perennials that can be chopped into sections with a spade to create new plants, and each will regrow with fresh vigour.
The flowers are beautiful and edible but cut them back to the ground as soon as the blooms start to fade and they will quickly grow new shoots.
This can be repeated every four weeks or so throughout the growing season.
Lovage (Levisticum officinale) has very deep, fleshy roots and does best in fairly moist soil.
The leaves have a subtle and delicious celery flavour that’s excellent in soups and stews.
It grows very large with a giant flower head that should be cut back along with the older leaves at least once in summer to encourage fresh growth.
Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) is another shade and damp-loving herb with a distinct lemony astringency, that’s especially good with egg dishes.
Common sorrel is spinach-like and best cooked, but buckler leaf sorrel (Rumex scutatus) has smaller, less bitter leaves and is better used in salads.
Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) will seed itself freely and bronze fennel is a welcome self-seeder all over my garden.
The seedlings have a deep tap root so must be transplanted when very young if they are to survive the move.
The leaves and seeds of green fennel are delicious with any fish or pork.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/gardening/article-3505311/Happiness-vegetable-patch-Follow-sun-pick-plot-six-essentials-need-grow-added-ingredient-transform-meals.html#ixzz4PhFr03hs

Saturday 16 July 2016

Artemisia absinthium, wormwood .

Artemisia absinthium, wormwood - THE POISON GARDEN website

Common Names and Synonyms:
- wormwood, common wormwood, wermuth, wermud.

This beautiful foliage plant has golden variegated leaves with serrated edges.
It makes a superb filler plant for bedding and patio displays, setting off brightly coloured flowers to perfection.
For the best results, grow in a sunny position in well-drained soil or compost.
To overwinter, lift plants and bring indoors to a light, frost-free place.

декоративная полынь | Дачное царство:
"Декоративная полынь (Artemisia)"
Экстракт полыни горькой используется для приготовления абсента (дистиллят спиртовой настойки из полыни горькой и других трав). Именно этот ингредиент придаёт абсенту специфический, неповторимый вкус. Полынь — один из основных компонентов в вермуте, а также в некоторых спиртовых настойках.

Полынь иногда используется в кулинарии в качестве приправы, в том числе к жирным блюдам. Многие любят её горький запах и вкус, используют как приправу к жареным мясным блюдам, особенно к жареному гусю.
Полынь используется, в частности, как фитонцидное и инсектицидное средство для борьбы с гусеницами и плодожоркой. Отсюда и английское название полыни англ. wormwood (worm — червь, wood — древесина, лес). Запах растения отпугивает платяную моль, муравьёв, блох, тараканов.
Надземной частью можно окрашивать ткани в различные тона зелёного цвета.

Полынь, оказывается, относится к вполне благородному и благозвучному семейству Астровые, то есть астры, которые мы любим и выращиваем в садах за их осеннюю красоту – родственницы полыни.
В роду полыни более 400 видов.
В основном это многолетние травянистые растения, но есть и однолетние, и двулетние, и полукустарники.
Среди этого многообразия есть декоративная полынь, применяемая в озеленении, есть сорняки, но есть и кормовые травы, и лекарственные, есть виды используемые в парфюмерной промышленности.
Полынь горькая (A.absinthium) – лекарственное растение, известное с древних времен.
Ее же используют и в винном деле при изготовлении вермута.
В абсенте одним из основных компонентов является настойка горькой полыни (достаточно прочитать латинское название вида).
А еще эстрагон или тархун – приправа к мясу, пряность для соления и консервации, ни что иное, как полынь эстрагоновая (A. dracunculus).
Веточки полыни лекарственной (A. abrotanum), пахнущие лимоном, будучи положенными в одежный шкаф отпугивают моль.
И это все полынь.

Виды декоративной полыни многолетние и обычно делятся на две группы: низкорослые и высокорослые.
Из низкорослых видов чаще всего используются полынь Шмидта (A. schmidtiana), ее сорт Nana – высота растения около 25 см, полынь Стеллера (A. stelleriana), сорт Mori и другие - высота растения около 20 см, полынь горная (A. vallesiaca) высотой около 40 см.
К высокорослым видам, имеющим декоративное значение, относится полынь молочноцветковая (A. lactiflora) высотой до 150 см с серо-зелеными листьями, цветет белыми пахучими цветками, собранными в метелки, в течение августа – сентября.
К этой же группе относится полынь Людовика (A. ludoviciana).
Наиболее интересный сорт этого вида – Silver Queen высотой до 70 см, имеет способность быстро разрастаться.

Размножают декоративную полынь делением куста, отрезками корневища и черенками.
Кусты легко делятся в начале осени.
Деленки следует сразу посадить на новые места.
Черенками размножать надо в конце мая – начале июня.
Для этой цели лучше всего подойдут верхушечные черенки длиной около 10 см.
Обрезать веточку для черенка надо под узлом, нижние листья оборвать.
Высаживать черенки надо в ящики или на специально отведенном месте с рыхлой песчаной почвой.
Увлекаться поливом не следует.
На постоянное место саженцы высаживаются на следующий год.

Очень красиво смотрятся полынь Людовика, сорт Silver Queen и барбарис Тунберга, посаженные рядом.
Полынь Стеллера хорошо сочетается с гвоздикой – травянкой, очитком, шалфеем, овсяницей сизой , низкими колокольчиками.
Для полыни молочноцветковой хорошими соседями будут астры кустарниковая, новоанглийская или новобельгийская.

Friday 10 June 2016

Herb Garden.

Welcome to My Herb Garden

Here are the contents of the raised beds (pictured above, in clockwise movement):
#1 Bok Choy, a stir-fry indispensable; Lemon Verbena, a must for white wine; and Lovage, a celery-flavored perennial.
#2 Flat-leaf parsley for flavor and garnish; lavender ‘Munstead’ for icing cupcakes; common sage, which I fry as an appetizer, and cilantro for salsa verde.
#3 Green leaf lettuce, purple sage for who-knows-what; French tarragon for sauteed mushrooms and herbal mayonnaise; pelargonium ‘True Rose’ for vodka drinks, and rosemary for shirred eggs.
#4 Red oak-leaf lettuce; oregano and thyme for pizza and pasta sauces; winter savory for winter stews.

Monday 30 May 2016

Caraway.


The young spring shoots of Caraway are ready for harvesting in early spring (late April/early May).
They have a mild parsley-like taste not at all like the seeds.

Alys Fowler: Caraway, plus harvesting rocket seed | Life and style | The Guardian
"I declare caraway the new parsnip.
Actually it's the old parsnip because the roots were eaten in Roman times, but as few have done this since, I think it deserves a raise.
It's found in the same family as parsnips and carrots, apiaceae (the umbel family), and behaves in much the same manner.
It's a biennial and spends its first year as a low-growing rosette of fern-like leaves; in the second year it shoots up to flower.
It grows to 45-60cm high.

A little like cow parsley but prettier and less brutish, the flowers are white, tinged pink.
It's easy to work into a border; I have mine growing among Astrantia major 'Roma' and Centaurea montana.
When all three are in flower, it gives a lovely appearance of meadow.

You could just grow it for the seeds, which is what I've been doing.
You get a huge supply – two plants keeps me in caraway seeds for a year.
But it has other edible parts, which I found out about in Norway, where it grows wild, dancing along the shoreline of fjords and racing into the mountains.
In poor soils along the shores, it's a small thing with seeds that taste so powerfully of that soapy, clean flavour, they are almost too much.
On the fertile edges of meadows, it develops a milder flavour and has bigger roots.

You can eat the leaves, too.
They are used in spring salads and soups, imparting a slightly bitter but pleasant flavour, but I don't think they've got a pinch on the roots.
These are sweet like a parsnip, but offer something different.
Their one fault is that these roots are much smaller than parsnip.
They should be eaten towards the end of their first year, in autumn.
Once they've flowered, the root becomes woody, although still edible.
The seeds are collected in the second year.

Home-grown seed has a powerful taste, so use sparingly.
I like to dry and then toast the seed for using in sauerkraut or baking.
Harvest seed just before it goes nut brown, and let it continue to dry indoors.
Collect the seed heads in a paper bag and hang them upside down.
After a week or two, and with a little vigorous shaking, the seeds will fall off.
They need to be perfectly dry before storing in an airtight container.

Save some seed for sowing again.
Like all umbels, the seeds germinate best if fresh, so sow from late summer to early autumn.
It's best to sow in the soil as it doesn't like to be disturbed, but if you don't have space now, sow in 9cm pots or toilet roll tubes (ideal as you can plant the whole thing out).
If allowed, caraway will happily self-seed.
A happy place for it is in full sun in well-drained, fairly fertile soil – especially important if you want to grow for roots."

Wednesday 10 April 2013

Five flavoursome herbs

Fennel and Fern » Five flavoursome herbs:

Sweet Cicely (Myrrhis odorata) - dds sweetness to dishes. Try it with rhubarb crumble.
Stévia -Медовая трава - to make your tea and puddings taste sweet without all the problems associated with too much sugar.
Fennel.
Lovage - in soups, stews and salads, and the stalk as an alternative to celery.
Winter savory  - Чабер горный - like rosemary, but with a saltier, peppery flavour. It is great for bean dishes as it helps reduce some of the, er, side effects.


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Monday 16 April 2012

Herbs.






Тысячелистник агератум - Achillea ageratum, Mace.

Тысячелистник агератум - Achillea ageratum
- на кухне. Веточки т. обыкновенного используем при засолке и мариновании огурцов, грибов, кабачков.
Горьковатые и терпкие на вкус листья и цветки добавим как приправу к жирным блюдам (гусиному жаркому, свинине, колбасе), в салаты в качестве специи - они приятно пахнут, и способствуют перевариванию пищи, и даже, говорят, помогают бороться с ожирением.

Кто-то, как Пульхерия Ивановна из гоголевских «Старосветских помещиков», высушенные веточки добавит в водку, которая мало того что приятна на вкус, но «если у кого болят лопатки или поясница, то очень помогает».
Когда-то пивовары заменяли тысячелистником хмель. И пиво, сделанное таким образом, по мнению Линнея, пьется легче.
Чай из тысячелистника, как считалось, помогал от меланхолии и вылечивал простуды и лихорадки.

Для лекарственных целей используют в основном т. обыкновенный, который собирают в момент цветения, в солнечные дни, когда он обладает наибольшей целительной силой. Отметился тысячелистник и в магии, использовался для гаданий, ворожбы и даже для наведения порчи (потому еще и дьявольская трава, игрушка дьявола). Эфирные масла, которые придают тысячелистнику специфический аромат, входят в состав отдушек для травяных ванн. Тысячелистник - прекрасный медонос.
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Mace, English Achillea ageratum (decolorans)
English Mace forms clumps of narrow, aromatic leaves with white flowers in summer. A good culinary herb; use in soups, stews and potato salads, it is also great in chicken dishes and complements other herbs well. Height 5ins (14cm), 18ins (45cm) when flowering.

Achillea ageratum.
Also known as English mace, this aromatic perennial will grow almost anywhere, in any type of soil and looks statuesque in a large terracotta pot. Young tender leaves are best used in soups and for flavoring rice and pasta.
Height: 24–28 inches
Spread: 24–28 inches
Hardiness: Fully hardy plants
Soil Preference: Well-drained soil, moist soil
Sun or Shade: Full sun

Tuesday 27 March 2012

Coriander.

Sow coriander every three to four weeks, in situ, for a continual supply. Sprinkle seedsover compost and cover with 1cm of compost before watering well. thin out seedlings to around 5cm between plants.
Coriander - Lazy Allotment:

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