I plant herbs everywhere, lol! I have lots of mints, one whole bed with nothing but applemint, and a container garden with lemon balm, lemon verbena, sage, basil, rosemary, dill and lovage. I keep another bed just for bergamot and borage, I dearly love those plants, they are lovely all summer long. I am hoping to plant another bed with just peppermint and start another spot for lemon balm (it makes wonderful tea and jelly). Now, if I can just get my chamomile to do well this year, I'd be happy.

I grew chives last year. I just keep them watered and they do just fine.

I also found a mystery onion. It starts as a bulb, but after if flowers, baby onions grow on top of the stem! They even grow their own leaves after a while. Is this a shallot?

I found that mint takes over everything so I spent all last year trying to kill it. Die Die! Evil mint!

I have something else, I think basil. Though it does not smell strong at all so I am not sure.

Oh yeah, I water many of my flowers with water from my fish tanks. That seems to provide all the nutrients the plants need.

I've had chives for years - never considered them a herb, lol.  I have lavender too and I don't think of it as an herb so the seed catalogs had me confused.  It's just barely hardy here so I start new ones every so often.

I grow several thymes and I guess you could eat some of them but I never bother.  Parsley is very, very pretty.  I threatened to put it at the cemetery because it had the look I wanted but I thought people would find it strange.  Of course, I'm already growing a thyme there, but I bet most people don't know what that one is.

I should grow borage again - very pretty blue flowers.  I grow catmints which are not catnip.  I tried catnip last year but I guess our cats are not druggies.

Update:

My basil is really starting to shoot out.  The dill is slowly pulling up the rear in that container, but it is coming along.

In the other container the oregano is showing it's tiny beginnings, but the rosemary has not come out at all.  I love rosemary, especially on my popcorn.  I hope I can coach it along.

My botanist hubby had a beautiful herb garden started in starter pots on the basement workbench (he's got a grow-light), all laid out, about 100 little seedlings of various types, was beautiful.  Then our chubby-and-not-too-bright Siamese, Kanga, got on the workbench and literally went through the lot like Godzilla and crushed everything.  He came downstairs and she was happily sprawled out on a bunch of crushed pots, purring away.  As he said, if ya can't laugh, you'll cry :-)

And, no, none of the seedlings were catnip, catmint or anything else he thought would attract the furballs.

The fish water isn't a joke; early Native Americans used to plant their crops with fish, to fertilize them.

<<I also found a mystery onion. It starts as a bulb, but after if flowers, baby onions grow on top of the stem! They even grow their own leaves after a while. Is this a shallot?>>

Hubby said if the baby onions are small (less than 1-1.5"), it is probably field garlic (Allium vineale), which is generally considered a weed, since the flavor is pretty strong, though you can eat it.  If the baby onions are bigger, he's not sure what it is, but he'd be happy to look at a picture and figure it out, Chuck.

Cheers,

Catt

i love herbs & grow them & pass them on. Always have parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme! I love mints to but I also know how they take over everywhere so I grow mine in pots on cement!  I love lavenders, & planted two at my friends house so I could enjoy as no place for them here! Quick trick I learned from a gardener: if you plant garlic chives near your roses (roses love garlic) you will not have aphid problems! i love having basil as well cuz they smell so great not to mention the pesto! i also love ivy but it can only be over cement as well; do not & I repeat do NOT set in pot on any earth anywhere any time or it will break the pot & you will have ivy everywhere; hanging pots with them in it are fine as long as over cement; do not give it or mint a millioneth of an inch or you will live to regret it. i love bee balm for the beauty of the colors & it attracts hummingbirds; once the blooms are gone just cut down & new shoots will start up again. if you have a chainlink fence you can get inexpensive hanging pots & plant things in them & hang on the fence like nasturgems; & make small herb pots & plant some sweet allysom to curl over the tops of the pots; but I like to have the pots handy for visitors to run their fingers thru & smell the herbs! Kids especially like the touch & smell you get from all kinds of herbs & we always throw in flowers just like in our flower beds we always plant onions like walla walla sweets! Herbs & flowers go together beautifully! and yes there are all kinds of ways to dry herbs as well as flowers; find out which works best for you!

YOu can contain the mints to where you want them by planting them in containers. Otherwise, they will invade everything else.

The odd onion you talked about is a special kind.  I just read about it and how to propagate it a couple days ago.  Will pass on more info asap- not sure which book it was in. It's not a shallot, tho.

YOu can dry some herbs in the microwave.  A good reference is ISBN 0-8069-0281-7 Herb Drying Handbook by Nora Bose & Dawn Cusick.

I've had chives for years, they go great in salads and with fish. Easy to grow, but do multiply rapidly. I just planted  Spearmint from a trade we did here on PBS. I also just started parsley and cilantro a few days ago. I plan on keeping the herbs in the metal wash tubs that I have sprinkled around the farm.

I have been growing herbs outside in containers for years during the summer.  For the last several years I have also had my favorites in the windowsill all winter.  The problem I have is that chives, parsley, oregano do great but my basil only grows about five inches tall then the stems turn brown and eventually the whole thing dies, I plant more and the same thing.  I have had problems with the basil getting white flies  and have tried treating them and spraying them off with water but even when there are no pests, the basil always dies inside during the winter.  Is there some trick to growing basil in the winter or is it just one of those plants that will have to wait until summer?

{I also found a mystery onion. It starts as a bulb, but after if flowers, baby onions grow on top of the stem! They even grow their own leaves after a while. Is this a shallot?}

What you have is Egyptian onion. You pick and eat the little ones, which also serve as seeds. Very prolific plant, once it finds a place it likes.

I love my herbs (most in containers) and make spirit medicine from them... I have rosemary, lemon balm, motherwort, st john's, well alot:)

Anyone making tinctures and oils from their fresh herbs?  I always like to trade with other Herbalists as we all have different zones and sometimes need what we cannot grow!

Chuck you may also have garlic going to seed. That's about what mine looks like.

I have a huge herb garden. We make our own spagetti sauce every year and other than sugar nothing goes into it that we don't grow ourselves. I have a raised bed where I grow all my "edible" herbs, one bed for scented herbs, one for butterflies, one for the more "floral" herbs, and a Shakespeare-themed garden.

We live near Cornell Plantations which has a large formal herb garden with many different themes - its been something of an inspiration to me.

I'm brand new to trying to grow herbs. I only have lemon balm and chocolate mint right now. I have no idea what to do with them but I love the smell when you brush up against them or rub the leaves. I had some silver lemon thyme last fall but it died about 3 weeks after I planted it. I need to try to find some more of it and try it again.

So do you guys have any recipes or uses for these 2 that I could try?

Thanks

I have a big herb garden.  I've been adding a few plants every year for 12 years now!

They are wonderful!  Get some rooting harmone after your plants get established, and propogate!  I do that with my Sage, as it gets too woody here after about 3 years.  That way I can keep it going all the time wihtout buying new plants. 
 
Don't forget to pinch tips so your plants bush out!

It is too cold for basil here in the winter - it is tender.  I have to start new from seeds every year but it grows well from seeds.  Hope this helps.  You could move it inside if you have good light.  I sow mine in the ground every year.