Planting Edmonds: Grow your own herbs

National Herb Garden (Photo courtesy Herb Society of America)

Planting Edmonds is a monthly column written by and for local gardeners.

The old English ballad Scarborough Fair famously romanticizes the herbs parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, common plants that people in the 14th century used as a remedy against the Black Death sweeping Europe.

Scarborough Fair was a real country fair held each summer from the 13th to the 17th centuries, and herbs in that era were valued as medicines to protect from infection, cleanse the air, facilitate conception and act as an anesthetic. Beyond medicine, they could ward off evil and improve your love life.

The charming Herbal Handbook from the New York Botanical Garden explains that parsley can elevate your mood, ward off bad smells and be chewed for fresh breath. Sage aids healing and makes a good tooth cleaner. Rosemary stimulates the scalp and repels moths, and thyme is antimicrobial and a good expectorant. It also promotes good sleep and supposedly gives you courage.

In the Victorian era, finding thyme growing in the woods meant the fairies had been partying at that spot.

Famous herb gardens in this country include the National Herb Garden at the U.S. National Arboretum and the herb collection at the New York Botanical Garden.

One of the oldest herb gardens in the western hemisphere is the Chelsea Physic Garden, where they grow some 4,500 medicinal and edible plants. It was founded in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London. Of course, Asian and African herb gardeners grow a whole different world of herbs and spices.

Locally, plenty of herbs will thrive in our region. Herbs can promote good health, but to me they are less about warding off evil and more about enhancing the fragrant sauce bubbling on the stove.

Herbs for cooking

Because we only use herbs in small amounts, buying them in the grocery store is maddening. They are expensive, and after you use a few sprigs for a recipe, the rest go moldy. It is easy and cost-effective to grow your own and cut just what you need.

To state the obvious, you should only grow the herbs you intend to use. Lemon balm, for instance, is fragrant, but it is a fast-growing monster of the mint family. If you don’t drink gallons of lemon balm tea, maybe skip this one, although herbalists say it makes a good wood polish.

Even more importantly, plant your herbs in a convenient spot. You can mix them into your flower bed or border, but who wants to go out in the dark and rain to cut a spring of thyme? It’s easier to reach for a bottle of dried herbs. Fresh herbs are like kids; they want their own room, preferably near the kitchen!

My parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme grow just outside the kitchen door, along with oregano, peppermint and chives. All are fairly cold-hardy in our climate. I took these photos on Jan. 27; we’ll see what the plants do in the next hard freeze.

Last summer, a huge, hairy plant with blue flowers popped up among the tomatoes at the Floretum Garden Club P-Patch. We identified it as borage, but at the time didn’t know what to do with it. Apparently, it is good for curing hiccups. You can sauté the leaves like spinach, eat the stems like celery, and make tea and blue dye from the flowers.

Comfrey is another fast-growing herb in the same borage family, but my neighbor curses regularly at a comfrey plant that popped up uninvited in her yard. Like the proverbial cat, every time she cut it down she thought it was a goner, but the comfrey came back cuz it wouldn’t stay away.

Is it an herb or a spice?

The word “herb” is short for herbaceous, meaning the green part (mostly the leaves) of a plant. Most of the plants we grow in Washington are herbs, whereas spices come from the roots, flowers, fruits, seeds or bark of plants, and most need a warmer climate. The spice family includes cinnamon, ginger, cloves, saffron, nutmeg and vanilla. I’m sad to say we can’t grow those here.

Some plants, like cilantro and dill, are both: The leaves (cilantro and dill weed) are herbs, and the seeds (coriander and dill seed) are spices. Both grow beautifully in Edmonds.

At the UW Medicinal Herb Garden (MHG), longtime gardener Keith Possee says, “herb … means different things to different people. Often it is synonymous in people’s imaginations with aromatic culinary herbs from the Mediterranean, but our native cascara tree’s bark, roots of Oregon grape or lomatium are herbs you would find at your local herbalist shop. And sweetgrass or white sage, copal resin or palo santo sticks all are ceremonial plant products that I consider herbs.”

In pots or in the ground?

Where and how you plant your herbs is partly about water. This giant, unruly old rosemary bush is planted in the ground and needs no extra water, but if you grow your herbs in pots, you’ll have to water them religiously.

Rosemary rarely needs water. (Photo by Linda Murray)

A good way to plant annual herbs efficiently is to cram several in a planter together according to their water needs. Dill, parsley, cilantro, chives and basil can all go into a container together. They like a lot of water.

Rosemary, oregano, marjoram, sage, and thyme are woody perennials that prefer dry soil. So does lavender, but it can get huge, so it probably needs to go in the ground. All types of mint can spread wildly, so it’s best to keep them contained in a pot.

Herbs as medicine

At UW’s Medicinal Herb Garden, “everything growing in the garden is either a medicinal, food, fiber, dye or ceremonial plant and sometimes all of the above,” says Keith Possee. The garden was created in 1911 by the Pharmacy Department, but in the modern era, UW cautions that their herb garden “is not… a source of medical advice or a guide to self-medication.”

Possee adds, “herbs for medicinal or culinary uses is a personal thing. My only advice is to let due diligence guide your journey with herbs.”

Comfrey is a case in point. Herbalists use comfrey to treat arthritis, wounds, inflammation and sprains, but according to Webmd, the U.S. FDA, and mountsinai.org, it contains poisonous chemicals that can cause liver damage, even through the skin.

UW’s Medicinal Herb Garden (Photo courtesy University of Washington)

Tucked behind trees along UW’s Stevens Way, the Medicinal Herb Garden is home to about 1,000 plants, laid out in a long skinny garden of roughly 2 acres with deep shade, full sun and everything between. It is free and open to the public at all times, though May through September are the best months to visit.

“The herbs are for display only,” Possee says. “I allow them to complete their life cycles and go to seed each year. With the previous year’s growth, I usually chop it and drop it in place each spring as a natural compost. The dried stalks provide good habitat for overwintering insects, so I leave the garden looking tangled and natural all winter.”

Possee also “participates in a seed exchange with dozens of botanic gardens around the world; these are registered botanic gardens with whom we trade through the Index Seminum program. All of these gardens abide by the rules of the Convention on Biological Diversity.”

His blog on the UW website is a phenomenal resource for serious gardeners. Possee writes it on his own time – not as part of his job — but it is a huge enhancement to the garden regardless. Fun fact: Did you know that that devil shotweed (hairy bittercress) overrunning your garden is edible?!

Shotweed

Keith writes: “Late winter and early spring is a good time to harvest wild greens around here. This is hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta), a garden weed that makes a fine addition to salads and stir-fried dishes. After flowering, the plants produce cylindrical seed pods called siliques. When they mature they eject their seeds. If you’ve ever weeded these in May or June, you’ve experienced the exploding siliques and probably caught a few seeds in the eyes. So weed them early…and eat hearty.”

In Edmonds, the Native Plant Demonstration Garden showcases medicinal herb beds along with explanatory labels and signage.

Native Plant Demonstration Garden. (Photos by Chris Walton)

At Bastyr University in St. Edwards State Park in Kenmore, the gardeners grow more than 350 types of herbs, and students can earn two-year degrees in herbal sciences. In addition to plant I.D. and good horticultural practices, they learn about quality control and safety parameters of medicinal plants.

Bastyr Herb Garden in summer. (Photo courtesy Bastyr)
Bastyr in the winter.
Bastyr gardener Nicole Telkes. (Photo courtesy Bastyr)

Bastyr offers public tours of their herb gardens and a spring plant sale. Most impressive is how the plants are organized and labeled.

Dr. Jenn Dazey has taught organic gardening at Bastyr for 24 years and is an herbalist at North Seattle Natural Medicine in Edmonds. When she speaks at garden clubs, she likes to focus on plants that have beautiful flowers and attract pollinators. Besides mint and oregano, she recommends a few specific plants as medicine:

Calendula – make a tea using the whole flower. She says it is better even than echinacea as a gastrointestinal anti-inflammatory, will stimulate your immune response and works on the lymph system to clear congestion. You can also soak it in olive oil and use as a salve for its anti-microbial and anti-fungal qualities.

Calendula

Oregon grapeberberis aquifolium and berberis nervosa are native to the Pacific Northwest. The bitter yellow inner bark helps balance blood sugar (supposedly as well as Metformin). It tastes bitter so spice it up to drink as tea or use it topically for wounds; gargle it for a sore throat.

Vitex – a beautiful shrub with lavender flowers. Wait until the berries are completely ripe and use in chai as a hormone-balancing tonic.

Hyssop — an absolute favorite, a perennial in the mint family has spikes of indigo flowers. Chop up the whole branch and steep as tea or make a tincture by submerging it in vodka for two weeks. One of the best anti-viral herbs for respiratory infections.

Whether as food or as medicine, fresh herbs will make your life better. Happy herb-growing!

— Article and photos by Marty Ronish unless otherwise noted. Thanks to Keith Possee at UW, Jenn Dazey at Bastyr and Nicole Francois of Market Well Now for their assistance.

  1. Thank you, Marty! A wealth of information and references. What do you know of purslane? I have it growing in gardens and in the cracks of the sidewalks?

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