Slugs and Salal: Herbs - Intermed.

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HERBS

Intermediate Group

There is another group of herbs that enjoy similar conditions of warmth and sun but appreciate a more fertile, humusy soil. French tarragon, sweet marjoram, and basil will welcome compost or composted manure mixed with their soil.

Sweet Marjoram is a spicy, warm-scented, 25-cm (10-inch) annual herb with small, velvety leaves and spikes of small white to pink flowers in knot-like clusters. Start the plants from seed or buy transplants to set out when the soil has warmed. Allow each plant about 20 cm (eight inches) to spread.

Dried and mixed with lavender, sweet marjoram is a principal ingredient of potpourris. Use the pungent leaves sparingly, fresh or dried, in egg and cheese dishes, with string beans and baked beans, in soups, sauces, stews and salads. Rub fresh leaves on meat before roasting. Dig a plant and pot it for the house in winter.

French Tarragon is a perennial with upright stems and narrow, glossy leaves that exude a distinctive warm and aromatic, anise-like flavor. True French tarragon is not grown from seed. Buy started plants, which will grow to about 60 cm (24 inches) and take a 30-cm (12-inch) space. Replace French tarragon plants about every three years with rooted shoots taken from the side of the parent plant. Pot a rooted side shoot for the house in winter. But leave the main plant outdoors, as it needs a cold dormant period.

Use young French tarragon leaves and stems to make tarragon vinegar, to perk up salads and soups, omelettes, mushroom, steaks, chicken and seafood. Mix chopped leaves into butter to put on steamed vegetables. The fresh flavor of French tarragon is best preserved by freezing. Though there will be some flavor loss, the leaves can be dried on stems gathered in late summer.

An indispensable tomato herb, sweet basil is a warmth-loving annual with a rich, clove-like flavor and perfume. The standard type of large-leaved sweet basil gives the greatest volume of foliage. Purple-leaved kinds lend a unique ornamental value, pretty pink flowers and a delicious flavour. Small-leaved basils form attractive domes of pungent foliage.

Start basil from seed indoors in April for planting out when the weather and soil have thoroughly warmed in the spring, at tomato transplanting time. Or buy started plants. For really bushy plants pinch out the growing tips at transplanting to induce branching. Leaf production will be prolonged if the flowers are cut off as they appear. To dry basil, gather the leaves just before the flowers open.

Basil's spicy flavor and perfume greatly enhance the pleasures of fresh tomatoes and tomato dishes, pasta, fish and chicken. It's the principal ingredient in pesto. Use basil to flavour butter, oil, and vinegar. Purple basil makes a gorgeous rosy vinegar. To perfectly preserve the freshness of summer basil, whirl washed leaves with water in the blender and freeze the mixture into cubes. Package and label the cubes and store them in the freezer.

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