Miles Collins

New additions for my herb garden in 2007

Most of my summer was taken up growing and photographing both new and existing herbs for a forthcoming book project in America. There were a number of herbs on the portfolio that I had never grown before, some required a bit of effort in getting hold of whilst others were quite hostile to our English climate.

Salad burnet (above) has been a good find this year, I have and continue to use it with fish and as a flavouring for salads. Because it lasts throughout the winter months I have used it as a border plant.

Growing Black cumin (above) was a first for me, it started off very well but seemed to struggle once planted out. The only plant to do any good was the one in the polytunnel, the rest didn’t care for the summer downpours.

I was really pleased with how well my lemon verbena (above) fared this year, it thrived under cover and I am still harvesting the leaves with their intoxicating aroma.

Bladder Campion (above) made for an interesting focal point in the garden, I didn’t really do a lot with the leaves other than to flavour some venison and the odd soup.

Anise (below) was probably the hardest herb to grow this year, very fragile it required more TLC than I had time to give it, very pretty but hard work.

I cover most of these herbs in more detail on my food website, click on Gourmet Food Source on the right under blog roll or click on the langoustine photo on the homepage.