Gardeners who love to cook will want a ready supply of culinary herbs growing in a sunny location near the kitchen. Here are 14 basic herbs that will provide a “starter kit” for tasty, savory dishes and soothing aromatic teas, all summer long. If you have the room, grow your herbs in raised beds. That way, you can amend the soil to cater to their individual needs – lean and mean for Mediterranean natives like oregano and thyme, and a little richer for plants like basil. Or, grow the smaller ones in pots and planters and the taller ones in a sunny kitchen garden, along with vegetables and berry bushes.

Anise Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) A fabulous bee plant and good for honey production. Makes an anise-scented tea. Dense spikes of blue flowers with violet bracts appear in midsummer. There is also a white-flowered variety. (See photo at right). Plants reach 3-5 feet (90-150 cm).

Balm, Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis) Leaves are strongly lemon-scented when crushed. Good dried as a tea, in potpourri, or fresh in salads, soups. Small white flowers; grows 3-4 feet tall (90-120 cm).

Basil (Ocimum basilicum) A tender annual, fond of sun and rich, moist soil. Essential to Italian cooking, especially for tomato sauces, pesto sauce and a superb garnish for sun-warmed fresh tomatoes. There are all kinds of basil, some with tiny leaves, others with big crinkled ones that are much less work to harvest and use. There are also basils with colored leaves and that used as ornamentals, often in herbal “knot gardens”. Read more about basil.

Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) Easy “must-have” bulbous herb. Use the mildly onion-flavored leaves in salads, soups, omelettes, and use the purple flowers to decorate salads or garnish plates.

Cilantro, Coriander (Coriandrum sativum) An annual from the carrot family whose ferny, pungent leaves are a mainstay of Mexican and Thai cooking, especially in salsas. Grows about 20 inches (50 cm) tall. The pretty little white flowers go to seed quickly, forming edible coriander seeds which are widely used in Indian cuisine.

Dill (Anethum graveolens) Another annual plant from the parsley family with distinctive-tasting ferny leaves that are great with smoked salmon or in potato salad, and airy yellow flowers that are not out-of-place in a summer border. When dried, dill leaves are called “dill weed”. Seeds are used in pickling and have a taste similar to the leaves. Grows up to 4-feet (120 cm) tall in sun and rich soil. There are dwarf cultivars too.

Sweet Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare dulce): Tall, to 6 feet (1.8 m) with yellow, dill-like flowers and ferny, anise-scented leaves that are a larval food for the anise swallowtail butterfly caterpillar. Borderline-hardy in cold regions but self-seeds. Bronze fennel (F. vulgare dulce ‘Purpureum’) a decorative form of sweet fennel with brown foliage. It is striking as an unusual contrast plant in a flower border, and can be used in the same way as green sweet fennel. (Note: Fennel bulbs come from annual Florence fennel).

Lovage (Levisticum officinale): Celery-like flavor of the leaves is nice in meat and fish dishes, stews and casseroles. Likes moist soil; takes some shade. Grows 3-6 feet (90-180 cm) tall with umbels of green-yellow summer flowers.

Mint (Menta spp.) All types and flavours: spearmint, peppermint, apple, chocolate, grapefruit, lemon, lime, ginger, pineapple, orange. Try confining root-invasive mints to their own raised bed in full sun, and letting them duke it out.

Greek Oregano (Origanum vulgare ssp. hirtum): Pungent fresh or dried leaves are a necessity in spaghetti, pizza and Greek cooking. About 12 inches tall; good for rockeries, containers. Make sure you get the real thing, since the straight species is not flavorful.

Parsley (Petroselinum crispum) Parsley is a biennial treated as an annual and sold in its first year during vegetative growth. It might come back in the second (flowering) year, but will not be a good-quality culinary herb. Parsley is divided into two types: curly parsley (the basic species) or Italian (flat-leaf) parsley (P. crispum var. neapolitanum). Both have their fans, but the flat-leaf type is reputed to be better for cooking since its flavor withstands heat better than curly parsley. Unlike some of the more aromatic herbs such as thyme and oregano, parsley does not retain its flavor when dried. Grows 18—30 inches (45-75 cm) and prefers full sun or light shade and moist, rich soil.

Sage (Salvia officinalis): A strong-tasting herb used in poultry stuffings; dried is much more potent than fresh. A shrubby perennial 1-2 feet (30-60 cm) tall with small, lilac-blue flowers on slender spikes.

French Tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus): A shrubby 2-foot (60 cm) perennial best treated as an annual in colder regions. Likes poor, well-drained soil in full sun. Do not overwater. Tarragon has a mild anise- or licorice-flavor and is an essential in béarnaise sauce and classic French chicken dishes. Harvest the stem tips regularly to keep plants well-branched and the herb cupboard well-stocked.

Lemon Thyme (Thymus x citriodorus) This is my favorite thyme, best with pork, lamb, fish and in vinaigrettes. Grows in dry, sunny soil as a mounding sub-shrub to about 10 inches (50 cm) in height.

Adapted from a column that appeared originally in the Toronto Sun

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