Monty’s new herb plot gives him the taste of summer
Monty is turning the loss of his blighted box plants into an opportunity to create a dedicated herb garden. Photos by Marsha Arnold
ne of the very British aspects of edible gardening is that we put the majority of our focus on growing veg. In most gardens and every one of around 250,000 allotment plots across the land, veg is proudly – and usually superbly – grown. Yet I bet that more people grow herbs than vegetables. Those that cook regularly will always have some fresh herbs growing, even if it is a pot of straggly parsley or basil on a kitchen windowsill. And a lot of gardens have a few herbs almost by default – a woody old rosemary bush, some sprawling lavender, or some sage and chives bravely coping in an unlikely corner. The truth is that herbs do not need the ritualistic attentions that most vegetables demand. Many are happiest left to their own devices in soil and circumstances that the humblest vegetable would disdain.
But herb gardening – and herb gardens – have a long and central role in the long story of British gardens. The Saxons had a wide and detailed knowledge of herbs for both culinary and medical use (and, rather like the Chinese, would not have differentiated those two roles as we tend to do today). Medieval gardens were based around herbs, again as much for medical purposes as for flavouring food, and it is significant that right up to the 18th century many of the vegetables that we now think of as being quite distinct from herbs would have been grouped together as having a rightful place in a well-stocked herb garden. Perhaps the greatest surviving remnant of the importance of the herb garden in Britain is the Chelsea Physic Garden, which was started – just like the world’s first botanic gardens in 16th-century Italy – as a way of
giving physicians insight into how their medicinal plants grew and interrelated. So three cheers for herb gardens – it is definitely time we restored the rightful space and attention due to them. Which is what I am doing at Longmeadow now.
Trial and error
We have had a few attempts at herb gardens and borders over the years, but none has quite worked. The first area we developed – the walled garden – was planted with herbs and roses, which grew well for a few years, before I took them all up and replaced them with a lawn for the children to play on. Then I made herb beds just beyond the back of the house, next to where the box balls used to be, which worked well for a decade. But lack of light, our rich Herefordshire loam and growing box hedges that added to the shade meant only the strongest herbs thrived, such as fennel, large rosemary bushes and mint sprawling rampantly at their feet.
“I want a herb garden that will look good, do good and, most importantly, taste very good ”
For the past five years I have grown our herbs in raised beds just outside the ‘new’ greenhouse (how long can something stay ‘new’? I suspect that this one will be designated new for decades, or until the next one comes along). Raised beds make growing Mediterranean herbs – which like very good drainage and poorer soil, as well as full sun – much easier in our heavy, wet clay. Herbs such as thyme and rosemary are more likely to be killed by kindness than neglect. Their natural home is a sun baked, stony hillside and while winter cold doesn’t bother them too much, summer wet makes them soft and sappy, and winter wet destroys them. But exciting changes are afoot. Over winter, I removed and burned all the blight-ravaged box plants in my box ball yard, along with the box hedges around the old herb beds. So I now have a large new area to fill, nearer the kitchen. I want to celebrate this with a herb garden that will look good, do good and, most importantly, taste very good. I am much
less interested in collecting unusual herbs than in growing really first-class herbs that I know we want and will use in the kitchen. I originally chose to grow box balls in the yard because when I began to dig it, I found it was filled with stone and rubble, and the soil was thin and poor. So I dug out a pit for each box plant – and I suspect that one of the reasons why blight took such intractable hold was because the poor box plants had, after 20-odd years, exhausted all the available nutrition, with their roots in nothing but stone and rubble. But these adverse conditions are an ideal basis for a herb garden. I am using the square planting pits, divided by cobbles, as ideal positions for the Mediterranean hardcore herbs: thyme, rosemary, sage, bay and oregano. But instead of backfilling them with good soil, enriched with the best Longmeadow compost, I am adding rubble, grit and subsoil, in an effort to make these tough plants feel truly at home. In all, there are 16 of these beds, each about 1m square. As well as being effectively sunken containers for sun-guzzl ing Mediterranean herbs, one or two in the shadier half are ideal for mint, which will be given the full Longmeadow coddling treatment, but be contained from rampant expansion by the cobbles. My favourites for cooking are peppermint, spearmint, apple mint and Moroccan mint.
Richer pickings
I have a larger rectangular bed that is southwest facing, for dill, fennel (one of the key plants at Longmeadow, which I allow to run where it pleases), tarragon (only French: much nicer than Russian, and also more tender, so it has to be lifted and kept in the greenhouse all winter), parsley, Welsh onions, a bay tree and perhaps – perhaps – basil. Every year I grow some basil outdoors and almost every year I regret it. Basil needs the trinity of heat, moisture and good soil to thrive. The last two elements I can guarantee, but outdoor heat is beyond my control, whereas a greenhouse pretty much secures it. This large border is backed by pleached limes, beyond which is my new Apothecary Garden – four beds of medicinal rather than culinary herbs. More of that another day, but think lavender, rosemary, salvias and flowering chamomile. There will also be plants that we now hardly think of as being herbal at all, such as elecampane ( Inula helenium), sea holly ( Eryngium), peonies, irises and foxgloves, as well as roses including Rosa × alba ‘Alba Semiplena’ and the apothecary’s rose, R. gallica officinalis. Along the bottom of the east-facing wall (planted with Clematis macropetala, C. alpina, the rose ‘Albéric Barbier’ and a honeysuckle) is a bed about 2m deep. This is more tricky for many herbs but there is a good, if smaller, selection that can be successfully grown in a border or pots that are largely in shade. However, they will all do very much better
if given at least three hours of sunshine a day. Sorrel is somewhere between a vegetable and a herb, but is happy in shade as long as it does not get too dry. It has a very metallic, sharp taste that is excellent with eggs. Mint will grow almost anywhere, but I would never let it have the free run of a border as it is an inveterate spreader and once escaped you will never get it back again. Parsley will tolerate quite a lot of shade if the soil is good and rich. But take care not to plant it too closely – allow 15cm between plants for best results. Coriander will take some shade, as will chives. Lovage, with its celery-tasting leaves, is a vigorous herbaceous herb that will grow in almost any conditions. Angelica is another big herb that is well adapted to a shady spot, as long as there is enough moisture to sustain it. Sweet cicely grows happily in the shade of the coppice, which means it too can join this east-facing bed. So, rather than being a few raised beds, little more than a herby adjunct to the vegetable patch, the new herb garden will become a place, in the way that all the best bits of gardens have their own identity, feeling, scents and atmosphere.