NAME THAT HERB WINNER

Calendula - The edible healing herb.

Congratulations to Wendy- send your address and claim your prize. I will mail you one of my little herb handbooks or the Summer Recipes book, your choice.

Cheery and bright, these prolific annual flowers jump around the herb garden in colors ranging from orange to yellow and every shade in between. Their seeds look like something out of the dinosaur age.

When you pluck the flowers for a salad or to make calendula butter, they give off a very delicate and pleasant floral aroma and taste. This lovely aroma strengthens on drying the flowerheads. Jane Hawley-Stevens, who uses calendula in creams and other cosmetic products dries calendula that she grows organically. Here we see the drying cabinet she uses:

The nice thing about drying the flowerheads is that we get tons of seeds to plant for next year. Actually, unless you are vigilant in deadheading the flowers, you will get a good crop next year anyway. In fact, I have heard of gardeners ripping the plants out (along with their hair!) after a few years of calendula going to seed. But that won't happen to you because you will be drying and using all those beautiful petals in soups, stews, butters and using them fresh in salads.

Here they are growing wild on a tiny Atlantic island off the coast of Brittany France:

...and planted out in an Arizona garden in the middle of a Pecan Farm:

One summer day in 2007 I think it was, I visited Four Elements Herbals in Wisconsin about an hour drive from Milwaukee. It was one of the most enchanted places I have ever seen. Owner, Jane Hawley-Stevens took me on a tour of the Chakra Garden and then delighted me with a lunch (pictured below) of homemade bread, Wisconsin cheese, cauliflower and pickled beet salad and a beautiful summer salad made with cabbage and other greens and flowers she grows on her beautiful land. The large flowers are nasturtium and the petals are calendula.

Feast your eyes and enjoy.

Riversong Garden

The 'P' Garden

Since moving to the country in 1987, I have always had a herb garden. BIG herb garden. We went from downtown Toronto to Riversong cabin: 18 acres on the Saugeen River in Grey county. There we planted the first of several 'teaching gardens' from which we gave our famous Herb Walk and Gourmet Lunch programs. 

The Herb Walks were an all-day affair, starting with a light herbal breakfast and introduction to the herbs of the season, and moving on to a tour of the roadside, meadow and riverbank wild herbs surrounding the cabin. The climax to the day came with a 6 or 7-course meal that featured all of the wild herbs we had gathered along our walk.

In fact, my first cookbook was a compilation of the three-season recipes I had developed over the 6 years of leading the Riversong Herb Walks. With subsequent moves, the herb walks became a memory only, and I moved on as well..

Which brings me to my newest herb garden. We call it the 'P' garden because TheBigGuy–landscape designer and head gardener poobah–decided that the center of the raised garden should be in the shape of a P (for my name, in case, like me, you didn't get it the first time).

First we tracked the sun as it came around the mill, which looms higher on the south side than even our building, because as everyone knows, herbs need 8 hours of sunlight to thrive. Then we designed the raised beds and TBG built them. Living in a small village with its own brewery has some definite advantages, and we were offered 21 25-kg bags of spent grain from the beer-making process, which we mixed with 3-way soil. [The soil was actually hot when we started planting out the herbs.]

While TBG was hauling around soil and grain mash, I was up on the second floor pouring over Richter's catalogue. About 200 plants were ordered, and last weekend, they went in. Here in southwestern Ontario, the golden rule of planting is "not before the 24th of May weekend" due to rogue frosts that are prone to devastate new seedlings.

A whole week later and two days of obliging gentle rain, and the plants are looking exceptionally healthy...enough so, that we have already enjoyed the first of many fine green salads...

Name That Herb Winner

Congratulations to Jamie

Thank you Jamie for correctly identifying this week's Mystery Herb. A copy of my oregano handbook is winging its way to you.

Because I love the unique flavor of anise, I love this herb. This week's mystery herb is Sweet Cicely (Myrrhis odorata). A perennial herb, it pops up in the garden very early in the spring.

This picture was taken last week in Simon's garden and already it is well on its way to full growth. In his garden it grows at least a couple of feet tall- it must be very happy in his garden, I never could get it to raise that high.

I use the fresh leaves in spring salads and cooked with other greens like Swiss chard, beet tops and kale, to add a note of  sweetness to balance their bitterness. It can be chopped and added to both sweet and savory breads and cakes and cookies. 

I dry and team it with other herbs for a rich tea blend. In fact, I almost always include Sweet Cicely with all my tea blends because it adds just a note of vanilla, anise and sweetness..

In the fall, this herb will be featured again because there are some wonderful things you can do with the seeds.

 Tune in Friday for next week's NAME that HERB- Friday May 1