REFRESHING MINT
And other edible perennials
In the gardening world, we toss the word perennial around like a green salad.
The perennials that we grow are meant to come back year after year, “like old friends,” I would opine. Experience has taught me that some are like old friends that will never leave and just simply take the place over while others disappear without a trace or a word.
There are perennial herbs that fit neatly into this category. I urge you to give your favourites a try as all of the plants on my recommended list can be planted now. My advice is to choose the plants that you wish to grow based on your palate: If you like eating them, plant them.
My five favourite perennial herbs: Mint: In a drink, rubbed on the skin to distract mosquitoes, used in a homemade sauce to put on your lamb, you just have to love mint. There are many varieties available, including ginger mint, peppermint, spearmint, and even Tashkent mint.
The beauty of mint plants is that they grow anywhere that it is sunny. They even tolerate more shade than most herbs. They are mostly insect- and disease-free, easy to grow and prolific. Someone just used a swear word when they read that because mint could be described as invasive. And they would be right. Plant mint now and you will live with it as long as you reside where you do.
There is an answer to this dilemma though: Containers. I grow my mint in a window box where it survives our long winters very nicely and one thing that it can’t do is jump the fence into the garden, located a metre away. Try it. Use a quality container mix. Great for the balcony and patio gardener. Chives: Another great choice for the balcony/patio gardener. Nothing easier to grow (except Jerusalem artichoke) and it is so useful in the kitchen. A sprinkling of chives works with so many dishes. Buy a small pot and they will clump in your garden nicely the first year.
Allow them to flower, set seed, and mature and you will be weeding them out of the corners of your garden next year. Unlike mint, which is tenacious in its spreading habit, chives will behave if you cut the flower off before they go to seed. No insects or diseases to note. They do need sunshine to thrive. Very winter hardy. Chive on. Sage: Sometimes my sage comes back after a winter and sometimes it does not. This depends on snow cover (the deeper the better) and, of course, winter temperatures. They expire when temperatures reach about -20C or below without snow cover as insulation, so they are not so good as a winter hardy container perennial. A member of the salvia family, sage produces a great looking flower that attracts hummingbirds, the leaves are attractive (the purple varieties are often grown for their ornamental qualities) and they are generally free of insects and disease.
The sagest advice I can give you is to cut the plant back after it flowers (and use the cuttings in your cooking or dry for future use). The short, stocky plant that results will produce lots of new growth for late summer use. Oregano/marjoram: Plant in an open, sandy soil in the sunshine. I grew a couple of nice little oregano plants 10 years ago and frankly, they became an experiment gone bad. I let them grow without digging the roots out and as a result, I dug out the works this spring.
I would encourage you to grow it in containers for the same reason that you should grow mint in pots and window boxes. It can be aggressive. Common and Greek oregano, wild marjoram and sweet marjoram all love the sun: They are Mediterranean natives. Dill: Grow one plant and you can go into the business in a year or so. Dill self-sows its seeds everywhere. The garden just off our back deck is overrun with the stuff, which is just what my wife likes. In the interests of marital harmony, I allow the dill to persist. When they are not being cut and enjoyed at the table, the black swallowtail butterflies are laying eggs on them and the hatching larvae are everywhere. I am doing my part for ecology, biodiversity, my health, and enjoying the benefits of a balanced relationship. A multipurpose plant.