Freezing

To freeze herbs, gather as for drying, wash if dusty, pat off excess water, place into plastic bags and put into the freezer immediately. When it's time to use them, snip or chop the herbs without thawing as they mince easily while frozen. Mint, tarragon, lovage, parsley, chives, sorrel, and sweet marjoram take kindly to this method.

Another good way to freeze is to put the chopped herbs into an ice cube tray, fill with water, and freeze. Then put the cubes into plastic bags and store in the freezer. The cubes can easily be popped into soups or stews when needed.

Herb flavors can be enjoyed in vinegars, jellies, and pickles.

Fresh herbs are probably the most desired as the flavor is at its best. Herbs can be kept in the vegetable bin of a refrigerator for a while, at least through the winter holidays. Or they may be planted in pots and kept in a sunny place or in a greenhouse.

Parsley, chives, sweet marjoram, thyme and basil are some of the easiest to grow in pots. Many herbs have deep or large root systems that require more space than is usually available in pots.

Herbs that are easy to grow and delightful to use are listed below. Do try to grow some of them in your home garden. Advanced herbalists will know many more.

BASIL Ocimum basilicum (pronounced like dazzle). A tender annual. Plant seeds when all danger of frost is past, and cut the last harvest before cold winds turn the leaves black. Of the many varieties, lettuce leaf, dwarf bush, lemon, and the purple or opal basils are the ones used for flavoring food.

Harvest basil when the flower heads appear. If the leaves are to be kept growing, keep the flower heads pinched out. Use fresh in salads, salad dressing, soups, and vegetables. Basil's clove-like flavor has a special affinity for tomatoes, cottage cheese,

and egg dishes. The leaves can be dried quickly in the oven, or made into a vinegar to which the red or opal gives a lovely ruby color.

CHIVES Allium schoenoprasum is the most delicate tasting member of the onion family (see onion chapter for production details). The tender, hollow spears are cut and chopped finely to flavor a great variety of dishes.

The lavender flower heads of chives may be cut close to the ground and dried to go in winter arrangements, or chopped fresh and added to salad. A beautiful perennial, chives often are grown as garden borders.

Chives are best used fresh, and a fresh supply can be kept for winter by potting a few plants and bringing them indoors in fall. Or the snipped foliage may be frozen in ice cubes as described before.

Chives are good in herb butters, green salads, in sour cream for dressing potatoes, in fact in any dish where a mild onion flavor is desired.

Fresh-picked dill grown indoors makes sandwich garnish.

DILL Anethum graveolens is a hardy annual. Plant the seeds where they are to grow in the early spring, or in the autumn to get an early start. Make successive plantings from April to July. Dill reseeds very easily if a few plants are allowed to mature.

Both fresh foliage and seeds of dill are used in pickling, in vinegar, minced over salads, cottage cheese and potatoes, blended into sauces for veal and fish, or baked into dilly bread. Dill foliage is the dill weed found in the grocery store.

Dill has such a refreshing flavor that it should be much more widely used. Green dill umbels are distinctive in flower arrangements.

EGYPTIAN ONION Allium cepa var. vivaparum is a hardy perennial, a curious member of the onion family that forms its bulbs on the tips of its long green shoots rather than in the ground, as most of its relatives do. (See onion chapter for production details.)

Egyptian onion is a very ornamental plant in a garden border. The bulbs may be used in any way an ordinary onion is used. The fresh stalks may be chopped and used too.