I was  raised on parsley... lots of parsley. My mother was a firm believer in its health properties and we had chopped parsley on our food and in our food. Perhaps I should credit my mother's passion for parsley with my own burgeoning interest in  herbs.

I hardly noticed when it began. I was young and beginning to read cookbooks and to tear recipes
from my ladies magazines.  I had moved away from home and was living in the West Indies.

After a period of interest in Indian food which included growing ginger and turmeric, I wanted to enhance our salads. Thyme is a mainstay of Barbadian cooking and easily available, both English thyme and broadleaf thyme with its succulent leaf, tasting of thyme and oregano together. I bought a few plants, found some basil seeds at a horticultural show and was given some oregano seedlings. I planted my new herb garden under the kitchen window. When I opened the window to the hot morning sun, the smell of the herbs filled the house. I rejoiced in my success.

I went home to visit my parents and had to leave my then six year old son in school. When I got back, I saw the extent of his displeasure. He had covered the herb bed with newspaper and tried to light a fire, with moderate success. He was a good boy so I had the pleasure of forgiving him and managed to hide my amusement and chagrin. I remembered my own pyrotechnics at his age, which, of course, I kept to myself.  
                                                   
When I moved back to Quebec, I began reading French and Italian cookbooks and became throughly frustrated. Recipes called  for several branches of thyme, or tarragon, rosemary, or a large handful of basil, chervil, or Italian parsley. I needed a herb garden.

Not one to do things by halves, I threw myself into finding out everything about growing herbs in a cold climate. And since I was a purist, they had to be organically grown. By the late 1970, I had everyone eating the flowers that decorated my plates. More than one person was highly suspicious and needed encouragement, which they got. I grew rocket (now also known as arugula) and I was the only person who ate it. I made pesto and everyone found it strange and said no thanks. I grew nasturtiums, added both the blossoms and the leaves in salads and pickled the buds. The tall lovage plant with leaves tasting like Maggi flavouring and  made a handsome addition to the herb bed. 

Early spring yielded chervil, parsley and chives. Then came borage, with leaves tasting like cucumber, before they became hairy, followed by blue flowers, which were added to salads and  candied for decorating desserts.

My brother and his family moved nearby to a house with a double lot and  planted a huge garden. Anything I asked for, my dear brother planted.  I ordered the seeds, he sowed them under lights, transplanted them and eventually moved them into the garden, watered and weeded them.  It was a labour of love.

I read, cooked, and harvested the produce. At one time, I counted 75 different herbs including nine kinds of basil. I learned which basil dried bright green (lettuce leaf), and which  were best used fresh. I used deep red opal basil (first discovered in Turkey by someone from Cornell University) for colour in salads, bouquets and flavoured vinegar. Using red wine vinegar, I pushed the basil stems and leaves down into the bottles; lots of stems. I saved perfect leaves in a separate bottle to be used as decoration after the flavoured vinegar had been decanted. Oh how beautiful it was in its brilliant deep red colour. I read recipes which said to heat the vinegar but I found this was unnecessary. The infusion was strong and flavourful without it.  Other flavoured vinegars followed. Chive blossoms made  white wine vinegar pale mauve with a delicate flavour. Tarragon, nasturtium, dill each made delicious vinegars. A mixture of vinegars went into salad dressings and various dishes.

As the years rolled by, we all began to make pesto for our long winters. Stripping the basil was a family endeavor. Neighbours who asked, were given basil for their tomato sauces.  We grew flavoured basils for Thai and Vietnamese food, lemon basil for zucchini.

I had no particular interest in the restorative properties of herbs. I just loved  the flavours for cooking, eating and drinking. I experimented with herb teas. After picking the herbs, I dried them, stripped them from their stems. Each year I weighed the various quantities although I always changed the amounts according to what was on hand. The staples were various mints, bee balm leaves and blossoms, especially the crimson variety, lemon balm, and anise hyssop for its purple flowers and delicate flavour. Soon my herb tea had devotees. A friend credited with curing her daughters aliment, another with her own.  Pot pourri followed.

One year I gave my brother a mustard subscription for Christmas, promising a new one each month for the year. I grew the mustard and harvested  the small seeds. I combed the fields for wild mustard with the even smaller seeds, for their a strong flavour. At night when everyone in the neighbourhood was sleeping, I was out on the verandah, winnowing my mustard, blowing away the chaff in the breeze. I knew I was obsessed but that didnt stop me. A friend dropped in and I offered lunch. While he watched, I went to the garden, saw the mustard leaves, picked them, ran into the house, and made a wonderful soup from them. Now I wonder how I did it.

Tarragon was a favourite. I learned to harvest the best in June ( in zone 5). Drying it produced mediocre results. I dried it in the microwave on a pyrex plate, between two paper towels. That was better. Best of all was to wrap the leafy stems in waxed paper in small bundles, put them into jars and freeze them.

One year I tried grinding French thyme on the stem in the food processor and gouged a ring around the bowl where the stems touched. I switched to drying on the stem and pulling off the leaves. It worked but it was hard on the hands. I also froze the whole stems for winter cooking.

Every August, we had a harvest celebration for friends. John grew tomatoes in various sizes and colours and I dressed them with vinaigrettes made from my flavoured vinegars. By then everyone was adding flowers to salads and I had a kaleidoscope of colour. 

Life has changed and now I am teaching my neighbour everything I know about gardening. It's such fun. I still have my own garden, as I've always had. Now I grow marjoram, Greek oregano, savory and twice as much thyme, all of which I dry, grind in a coffee grinder and mix together. When I want herbes de provence, I add half as much lavender, rosemary sage and fennel. 

The first herbs of spring are still added  to salads along with French and wild sorrels, chervil, parsley, and mustard leaves. When the regular and garlic chives begin to bloom, the buds, now called scapes, are added to stir fries. The blossoms are torn apart and the mauve flowers, tasting of onion and the white, of garlic, are added to salads. And of course, I grow tomatoes, from start to finish.

 For nearly half a century, herbs have given me pleasure, I still thrill to the sight of the new catalogues arriving in the mail, with seed houses boasting of new varieties which just have to be tried. I get seduced and once again, I send off my order.     

31/3/07