Hi everybody, and welcome to the Fresh Focus Podcast, I’m Loran, one of your Marion VA healthcare Dietitian Nutritionists. Today I want to jump in the topic of herbs and how to grow herbs on your own at home. Herbs, especially the fresh variety, are sometimes an afterthought when it comes to meal planning and preparation. I know I’m guilty of leaving out fresh herbs from some of my recipes because I didn’t have them on hand, or I thought they were too expensive to buy, or I assumed I could easily substitute out their dried counterpart without losing flavor (which in case you are interested, 1 Tbsp fresh herbs is equivalent to 1 tsp dry). Even as a dietitian, I don’t tend to give herbs the credit they are due, given their wonderful health benefits and huge flavor profiles.
Herbs have been used for thousands of years for their medicinal properties. Common examples today may include using lavender for relaxation and stress reduction or using aloe vera for cuts, scraps, or sunburns. Compelling research has been done about the health benefits of some of these herbs for example using mint for people with gastrointestinal disorders or St. John’s Wort to help with depression. What make these plants so powerful are something they contain called polyphenols. Polyphenols are a type of micronutrient that we get from plants that are protective against non-communicable chronic diseases such as heart disease or cancer and help reduce inflammation. So not only are you adding great flavor to your plate and your meals, but you are adding a wide array of health benefit as well.

Because herbs add so much flavor to any dish, you won’t need to use as much salt and sugar. For example, I might have chamomile or peppermint tea in the evenings which I typically don’t add sugar to the tea as their flavor profile is strong enough on their own. This reduces the overall amount of sugar I have in my diet without compromising flavor. The same can be done with salt. If you’re trying to cut down on your salt intake, you might try adding extra herbs to your meal such as cooking with dill or basil. You might find that the flavor is strong enough that you don’t need salt at all.

Now that you know there are some great benefits to herbs, let discuss how to go about getting and keeping fresh ingredients. As I mentioned before, I used to be inconsistent with using fresh herbs because I would forget to buy them, or worry about their cost. Some herbs such as parsley and cilantro are very affordable to buy fresh, usually about $0.99 a bunch. The important thing to remember when buying fresh is to make sure to store them appropriately. Herbs that use the leaves and stem of the plant such as the rosemary or thyme, need to be rinsed and patted dry or spun dry using a salad spinner. Wrap the herb in a damp paper towel and keep in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use. Some herbs will only last a few days like this while others can last for weeks. Because herbs do not always keep for long periods of time, it’s always important to purchase herbs close to the time you are going to use them. Or, the best thing you can do, is grow your own at home.

You do not need to be an expert gardener to start your own herb garden. You also do not need a large yard or a ton of outdoor space. Although herbs thrive in the ground, they can be grown in containers, both indoors and outdoors. If you are just starting out and you’re a beginner gardener, a good place to begin is to purchase a few clay or plastic pots with well drained holes in the bottom. These can be found for $1-2 dollars at your local supermarket. Try to choose a pot with at least an 8 inch diameter. Please don’t be afraid to use containers you may have around the house. For instance, a 5-gallon bucket can make a great container if a few holes are added to the bottom. In my backyard right now, I am using an old cooking pot, a barrel and a wash basin for planters as I had them around the house, and I wasn’t using them for anything else.

After you have your pots, you will need some potting soil. This can also be purchased in bags at the store, but if you have access to bulk compost, it may be more cost effective depending on how many pots you plan on starting. Something I do to help save money is asking my friends if they are going to be purchasing any bulk compost. Usually someone I know does. I will take a bucket over to their house, fill it up, and then pay them for the soil that way to save money from buying potting soil at the store. Once you have your potting soil, it’s time to plant your plants. Make sure not to crowd the plants when potting. Herbs with similar sunlight and watering requirements can be planted together in the same pot or planter, but you must make sure the pot is large enough to hold multiple plants. When I first started growing my herbs, I placed dill, parsley, basil and sage in one large whiskey barrel planter. The dill and parsley quickly started to take over the barrel which required me to transplant the basil and the sage to their own pots. Now all of them are doing well. The thing to remember is that all four of those herbs needed full sun so it worked well to have them in the same planter. Another example is a planter with cilantro and mint that are part shade plants that need about 3-6 hours of sunlight. They are doing very well in the same planter at the moment and I’m keeping them pruned back so they don’t take over one another.
Once the herbs are planted and in their spot, it is vital to make sure they have good sun exposure. If you have a very sunny window spot indoors, this can work as well. Some herbs need full sun of 6+ hours such as dill, parsley, sage, and basil that I mentioned before, while other may need part sun (3-6 hours) such as mint and cilantro. Given our midwestern climate, when it gets to be summer and days are consistently above 90 degrees, these pots may need to be moved to where they get full morning sun and are partly shaded in the afternoon to avoid getting too hot or scorched. Keep this in mind if you’re planting your herbs in the ground; where you are going to be planting and how much sun exposure they are going to get throughout the summer.

If you’re planting your herbs in pots, it’s important to remember to keep them watered regularly. You also need to water your herbs in the ground as well, but they’re going to hold their moisture a little bit better. Check to make sure that your soil is moist. You also do not want to overwater if there is standing water in the top or bottom of the pot or on the ground. A good rule of thumb is if the leaves are turning yellow, you are watering too much. If the leaves are turning brown and shriveling or falling off, you are watering too little and need to increase your frequency.

The last important thing to remember is that herbs will need pruned regularly. If some herbs are not pruned, they will start to flower and then go to seed which basically means they will be reseeding themselves for next season and therefore stop producing this season. When an herb goes to seed, it will also change the flavor of the herb, which is not ideal. Each herb has different recommendations on how to cut and prune so it may be beneficial to find a tutorial video online or a gardening book from the library to show examples if this is your first time pruning an herb. I did this with Cilantro as I wasn’t having good luck in years past with pruning it effectively and it keep wanting to go to seed. I was able to find a video online and learned how to trim the plant effectively to keep it growing during the summer. Always remember that herbs are hardy and their difficult to kill. There have been many times I thought I killed my basil plant, only for me to cut it back and it was rejuvenated and looked great a few days later. The more care and attention you give your plants, the better they do. And remember, many are perennials and once they go to seed, they will reseed themselves and come back next year.

I have not always had a green thumb, and I still have a lot to learn, but I would like to leave you with a few tips of my own to increase your intake of herbs and your chances of growing your own at your house. And then for the remainder of this episode we will be talking with the three people in my life I’ve always looked up to in regards to their gardening skills: my grandparents.

First, remember that you do not have to be an expert gardener to start growing herbs. Second, choose one or two that you use frequently. Basil or parsley is a great place to start. Just give it a shot. You’re not going to learn unless you try. As I mentioned before, there are many herbs I have failed with, but I‘m getting better year after year and learning as I go.
As far as cooking with fresh herbs, here’s a few tips you might find helpful:
A spoonful of parsley with your scrambled eggs in the morning adds some nice color and flavor.

You might try some cilantro on your next burger. Talk about taking that burger to the next level. It’s absolutely delicious.

Adding mint, cilantro, basil or parsley to your next salad to gives it a boost of flavor and you’re not going to need nearly as much dressing if you do this.

A traditional go-to is to add dill and parsley to your next batch of mashed potatoes or any potato dish for that matter. Trust me it will impress your friends and family and they’ll ask you what you did differently because it’s that good.

And my favorite is adding basil leaves to your next pasta sauce. Basil leaves is so versatile and can be used in many different recipes, which is why I recommend this herb as a starter herb to begin with.

Without further adieu, let’s get to the most exciting part of this podcast: the interview I had with my grandmothers. You’re first going to hear the chat I had with my grandma Janis followed by my talk with my Grandma carol. Both had great advice on which herbs to grow, how to dry and store them, and even some good cooking ideas for the growing season. Enjoy.

INTERVIEW:
Loran: What herbs are you currently growing?
G1: I have some herb sage that is growing in a planter out here with other green and white plants. I have a mimosa tree out here with a pot and I got this idea from peon smith. He has suggested putting the herbs in with the flowers, so I have some lavender and some oregano that’s mixed in a big pot out here with petunias and some oregano and lavender. The lavender is starting to bloom and it’s just very fragrant out there. I have this big, I guess it’s called a wine barrel, that they use for plants and I’ve had herbs before that we planted in the garden, but I was never very good at taking care of them. When the weeds took over, I just thought “oh the heck with it”. So, I decided that I would just do my herbs in pots. So, in the barrel there are flowers but around the barrel there are smaller pots that have rosemary, basil (that’s my absolute favorite), and parsley, chives, thyme, and oregano in those barrels.
Loran: Alright, and so from what I hear, you do a lot of them in containers instead of the ground.
G1: Right and mainly that was because of the weeds.
Loran: What would you recommend for beginner gardeners as far as herbs go?
G1: Well, first of all, once you go shopping for herbs, and you take some of those leave and you rub them in your hands, your fingers, and you get a whiff of that, it’ll just win you over. My favorite has to be basil, hands down, there’s nothing like fresh basil. Another of my favorite that is very easy to grow is rosemary. Even in the winter you can bring it in the house and have a little starter from your summer plant. Put it in some soil, start it up in water until it roots. Same with basil, you can start it with water and put it on your kitchen counter just so it gets some light and you can keep that really fresh all winter. But that’s very easy. I don’t know a lot about cilantro, but people tell me cilantro is really easy. Most herbs really, as long as you have them in good soil, and they’re getting enough sunlight and you keep them watered.
Loran: What are your best tips for pruning or drying your herbs?
G1: Okay, sometimes your herbs will get so big that you’ll want to keep them smaller, so what I could do is if I want to prune that, cut off those stems, bring it into the house, wash it and keep the leaves on the stem. Dry them, put them on a drying mat or paper towel and let them thoroughly dry. Then take that and just lay it on a cookie sheet, put that cookie sheet into the freezer for at least an hour – hour and a half so it’s nice and frozen. Then you take it out and you put those frozen stems into a baggy, label and keep it frozen. That way, it’s just like if you freeze strawberries like that too. Same with blueberries, just make sure they’re dry. Put them on a cookie sheet, freeze them until they’re solid, take them out, and put them in a baggy. They don’t stick together and same with the rosemary, they don’t stick together. You can take out a stem or two, let them thaw, and then you just strip off those leaves. You don’t cut them the stems on rosemary, but it can easily just strip right off, same with thyme. The thyme leaves will just come right off. Don’t cut up the stem and put that in there. Sage should get a pretty good-sized leaf on it. If you buy it at the grocery store, you’ll notice that they have a good-sized leaf. So one way you can preserve that is to just at the end of the season or if the sage is getting too big, you can cut it, put the stems together, just bind those stems with a string or rubber band and just hang them somewhere. It can be a warm place but just make sure not in bright light, just hang them upside down and let them dry on their own. And if you’re not familiar with thyme, it has just a tiny little leaf. What’s recommended is that you just wash it thoroughly, same with all of these you just wash it before doing that, strip off those little leaves and just put them on a newspaper or if you have some kind of rack that has more like a screen on it, the little leaves will fall through. And just let it thoroughly dry. Once you out them on a rack or newspaper to dry, let them dry for at least about three days. Then take those thyme leaves and put them in an airtight jar, make sure you label it, and then that can go in your pantry or cabinet. And use them all the way up until next summer. You know they’re really good for at least a year. There are a couple ways that you could store basil. The first one is microwave drying, so you can wash the leaves and on basil you can remove the leaves, lay leaves on paper towel or plate, don’t lay them on top of each other, they should just be a single layer. The cover and layer those with another paper towel and put it in your microwave for about 3 minutes but after 20 seconds stop the microwave if they are shrinking up and you need to kind of reposition the leaves so there is lots of room and then after 3 minutes take it out and cool completely and they are ready to store whenever the leaves are just a little crunchy but don’t crunch them up leave them whole leaf and put those in an air tight jar or air tight baggie and put those in pantry and leave the leaves whole that helps retain all that good flavor, be sure to label it and then you’ll have it for any of your cooking like Italian cooking if it says to use fresh you want to probably use a little less of the dried that will be trial and error. Cilantro and dill it says I imagine you can do this with basil too take your stems with the cilantro leaves your dill the parsley says to blanch them and blanching means using boiling water and with your hands kind of swish them around hold the stems and swish the leaves around in boiling water just for a couple seconds then dip those right away in ice water that stops the cooking right away you can let them dry and you don’t even have to let them dry put them right away in freezer bags label them and just freeze them that way of course freeze them in what you think would be a serving, you should label them because you never know after months you think you will remember but you wont remember heres another way with basil and herbs chop it up very fine and start sticking it in ice cube trays half way up take a measuring cup with some water and fill up the rest of your ice cube tray put it in the freezer after its frozen solid put those little ice cubes filled with basil into a freezer bag label it and then you can take it out and use it however you want. This was a good idea I never thought about take that basil and put in blender or food processor and add some olive oil and when you blend that it turns into like a pesto and again put that into ice cube tray freeze that and once frozen solid you can take that out and put it in a freezer bag. You can also take fresh herb chop it up nice and fine and add it to some soft butter you can pay a pretty good price for herb butter. You can make your own herb butter. But the only thing about herb butter is that you have to use it within 2 weeks and always keep it refrigerated.
Do you currently grow your herbs in containers or in the ground?
I like to do containers. Very easy to grow plants tomato plants all your herbs in the containers instead of having to dig up the ground
What herbs do you recommend for someone who is beginning with gardening?
Anything you would buy in the store you can buy a pack of seeds keep your seeds in the refrigerator they will stay good for years instead of spending all that money they are quite expensive in those little containers like your rosemary and that its just stay with your basics.
Is there one that grows more than others?
If you are going with your teas then you always want to do your teas in containers because they can take over your garden your mint and spearmint teas and all that those have to be in containers.
And what herbs do you feel are most versatile for cooking and canning?
Probably Parsley I use a lot of parsley and your onions your chives a lot of Italian seasonings like your thyme and your sage
What are your best tips for pruning your herbs?
Always leave a third you cant just go and cut off everything you have to leave a third of all the leaves and stems to keep the plant growing and reproducing
And any good stories to share with the listeners regarding growing herbs?
No, nope nope just grow them and have fun growing them it makes you feel good to grow something and then actually use it.
One good tip when you are done for the year let them go to seed and save your seeds for next year.
I hope you enjoyed hearing some of those tips from my grandparents. In closing I want to challenge each and every one of you to try a new herb this week and maybe even start up your own herb garden at home. Happy planting and happy cooking.