Growing Thyme in Your Garden

Call me crazy, but if you do not have thyme growing in your garden you cannot call the place an herb garden.  It is one of the most necessary and beneficial plants around.  It does not hurt that thyme has more than 100 varieties, each of which has its own unique taste and smell.

Regardless of which variety of thyme you choose, all of them have a woody, twig like stem and little oval-shaped leaves.  In early summer or late spring, depending on your climate, your plant will bloom with tiny pink, lavender or pale white colored blooms.

Among the many varieties, here are 3 you will probably want to know:

• Common Thyme: When you purchase thyme at the grocery, this is the type that you’ll generally be getting.  It’s a little taller type that also has a bold flavor and aroma, which makes it great for your dishes.  Among the common thymes there are at least 3 kinds, which you can determine by check out out at the leaves.  While the English kind has variegated leaves, the leaves on the German variety are wide and the French are thin.

• Lemon Thyme: The scent of lemon thyme is obvious in the name.  If you thought it was scented with licorice, you should better go back to something else.  You can’t mistake the smell of lemon that emanates from lemon thyme.  Some varieties of lemon thyme even have tiny yellow blossoms.

• Wild Thyme: People wrongly believe that all varieties of thyme are identical, but you will not often find wild thyme being used in the kitchen.  If you are looking for an unusual ground cover, this is a good place to start.

Cooking with thyme is as easy as clipping off a few leaves and tossing them to your other ingredients.  In order to assist your thyme thrive; make sure to trim it often which will give you lots of opportunities to use the leaves in making wonderful dinners.  If your abilities aren’t found in cooking, you can still use your thyme to make cosmestic products.  Thyme can be used in all kinds of products from soaps and shampoos to potpourri or you can simply toss some in your bathwater.

Those same folks will tell you to use it to help with many different ailments such as sleeplessness, gas, asthmatic breathing, headaches, poor digestion and coughing.  It seems like this herb does everything but windows.

Raising thyme is not difficult.  It will succeed inside or outdoors and succeeds in well-drained, rich dirt and full-sun.  Thyme takes a long time to germinate, so you might find it easier making a trip to the home improvement store and beginning with mature herbs instead of seeds.  For your outside thyme, try it in your rock garden or along a stone wall or over a rustic patio.

If you’d rather dry your thyme for use over the winter than bring your herb inside, just cut off each branch at the stem and hang it upside down to dry.

Don’t neglect to harvest the seeds on your thyme herb.  Believe it or not, your herbs can still be used in germination up to three years later.

Good luck with your herb gardening. Be sure to let me know how your herb garden grows.

Here is more information on Herb Garden Plants. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Herb Gardens.

Technorati Tags: Gardening, growing herbs thyme, herb garden plants, herbs, thyme