Thyme for Tea!
I love my herb garden – originally a square plot of ground in the vegetable patch, and now moved to pots and tubs in a sunny corner of the garden to make space for courgettes and lettuce – it gives me great pleasure watching the bees go daft for the scented rosemary and thyme ... Read review
Advantages: A wonderfully adaptable herb that's easy to grow and looks lovely (to humans and bees!) Disadvantages: None at all!!!
Thyme for Tea!
I love my herb garden – originally a square plot of ground in the vegetable patch, and now moved to pots and tubs in a sunny corner of the garden to make space for courgettes and lettuce – it gives me great pleasure watching the bees go daft for the scented rosemary and thyme flowers, and it makes the taste of my culinary delights so much better! My herb collection at the moment consists of about 3 small potted rosemary ... ...full of flat leaved thyme. Thyme is one of my favourite herbs to cook with, and also to smell – if makes me think of sunny Sundays and when I see it in bloom, with bees hovering round the lilac coloured flowers, it makes me feel like I’m doing something really positive for the local bee population – they just love it!
Thyme comes in many different variations, from the low growing, tiny leaved varieties which fill cracks in paving stones ... more
Thyme for Tea!
I love my herb garden – originally a square plot of ground in the vegetable patch, and now moved to pots and tubs in a sunny corner of the garden to make space for courgettes and lettuce – it gives me great pleasure watching the bees go daft for the scented rosemary and thyme flowers, and it makes the taste of my culinary delights so much better! My herb collection at the moment consists of about 3 small potted rosemary plants which I grew from cuttings (I have a monster Rosemary by the sitting room window which just gets bigger and bushier every year!), a pineapple mint, a pot of St John’s Wort, a pot of chives, a tub of lemon balm, a small red clay pot overflowing with lemon scented, tiny leaved, variegated thyme, and a tall ceramic tomato pot full of flat leaved thyme. Thyme is one of my favourite herbs to cook with, and also to smell – if makes me think of sunny Sundays and when I see it in bloom, with bees hovering round the lilac coloured flowers, it makes me feel like I’m doing something really positive for the local bee population – they just love it!
Thyme comes in many different variations, from the low growing, tiny leaved varieties which fill cracks in paving stones beautifully, to the bigger, bolder, larger leaved varieties which are easier, in my opinion, to harvest and use.
I have a brick circle made from reclaimed bricks (my next door neighbour didn’t want them and passed them over the fence to me!) which is interspersed with a variegated spreading thyme – I hope that by next summer all the spaces between the bricks will be filled with cushions of green and yellow and purple flowers loveliness! A lovely place to sit in the evening sunshine, with the smell of crushed thyme underfoot and the late working bees humming over the flowers.
When it comes to cooking, it’s the larger leafed variety I use. Added to soups and stews, it imparts a wonderful aroma, and flavours the food really well – I particularly like to use it with chicken, whether roasted for Sunday lunch or in a casserole or even just sprinkled over chicken breasts before adding them to the pan. When I make butternut squash soup I always add a good pinch of dried thyme, or a handful of finely chopped fresh thyme, and it just brings the sweet warm flavour out of the squash like nothing else I know!
Growing Thyme is exceptionally easy in my opinion, as long as you don’t overwhelm the plant with too much attention. Thyme likes to be in well drained soil, and doesn’t like to have it’s feet in water, so add sand or small stones to the area where you’re planting to keep the drainage good. It loves sunshine, and will thrive in a sunny position, but make sure it’s not placed in a frost pocket, or you may loose it over winter. One good tip for growing thyme is to keep trimming it regularly, making sure, like with rosemary and lavender, that you don’t cut into woody stems, as the plant finds it hard to produce new green shoots from these. I find that it you have a house wall that gets a lot of sunshine, this is a good place to plant, or, as I have done, use the plant in cracks in your paving for prettiness, and for keeping weeds at bay. When the sun falls on the bricks or the wall, the heat stays there a lot longer than it does in the soil, and so the plant steals warmth from this source, and is more productive because of it.
Thyme is easy to propagate, and from one shop bought plant you can actually get many more – I bought a pot of low growing thyme from B&Q, took it home and divided the roots up. I ended up with 15 small plants, which I planted out in the brick circle and which are now, 2 months later, very well established. Next year I’ll dig them up and divide them a bit more! Plants for free is what I like! I have never grown thyme from seed, but it is very easy to do, again as long as you keep the conditions right. I’m not great at growing things from seed as I loose patience and end up killing the lot, but there are plenty of great websites and garden centres where you can buy seeds to grow at home. It’s not a plant that self seeds readily, but likewise won’t take over your garden in the way that mint, for example will.
Whether you grow Thyme for cooking, for looking at, for groundcover or for adding to your bath to soothe tired and aching muscles, it’s certainly a herb worth growing that will earn it’s keep in your garden and keep on doing so long after you’ve forgotten where you got it from in the first place!
Advantages: easy to grow , many choices of variety Disadvantages: none
Thyme is another great addition to the herb garden. Thymus vulgaris can in fact be grown just about anywhere that is not waterlogged ,and has full sun.
Light , well drained soil is best though , slighly on the alkaline side .
Thyme is a perennial and there are an absolute multitude of types and varieties to choose from.
Here a few of my personal favourites. T - citriodorous " Archers Gold " has lovely pale green leaves which are attractive in ... ...like insects in your garden Thyme will be a great friend in helping you achieve this . They are great for attracting bees and butterflies too. In the kitchen thyme can be used in a number of different ways . Common thyme is best for stuffings , sauces and soups . But lemon thyme which smells great anyway can be used if you want a more fruitier , zestier kinda flavour.
Thyme is popular for mediterranean dishes as well.
It can be collected fresh ...
Gardenex 19.05.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Thyme
Advantages: tastes yummy in food, easyish to grow Disadvantages: tastes horrible in tea
Thyme used to be grown in monastery gardens in the south of France, Spain and Italy around the Middle ages for the use as a digestive aid, cough remedy and a treatment for intestinal parasites (no, not Alien3!). But poor old thyme, it’s sometimes seen as the ugly duckling of the herb world. It doesn’t have the extravagant display of blossoms that sage does, nor does it have a distinctive taste like tarragon. But it IS an invaluable element ... ...parsley, leaves of bay and thyme for those who didn’t). It can be added to give depth to soups, sauces and my favourite – stews. There are over 100 varieties of thyme, but three are used more often in the kitchen. Lemon thyme is an upright shrub that can grow to a foot in height, the leaves are tiny and heart shaped ringed with a little yellow and has a bit of a citrus tang. Caraway thyme is a low growing variety which forms a dense, ...
loulou6 26.05.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Thyme
Advantages: A beautiful and versatile plant with both culinary and medicinal uses. Disadvantages: none
Thyme is, in my opinion, one of the most useful of herbs and a very versatile garden plant as well. I would argue in fact that this herb is, if not itself the king of herbs, certainly a member of the royal family.
Common thyme, thymus vulgaris, is a perennial herb with a woody stem which grows quickly into a small shrub about 45cm. While there is nothing wrong at all with the common thyme there are over 300 other species many of which are more decorative.
... ...that Mediterranean herbs so love thyme will grow quickly and spread easily. They are also very easy to propagate. So unless you want an instant garden buying the smallest plants will be the most economical choice. Most garden centres stock common thyme but it is worth seeking out other varieties or finding your nearest specialist garden centre to see what other varieties are available. My personal favourites include T. vulgaris ‘Silver Posy’ ...
Freespirit 04.02.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Thyme
Advantages: good for cooking, medicinal properties and nice in the garden Disadvantages: none it's good gfor you
Thyme is one of the best known herbs there is, but not only is it a pretty flowering herb to have in your garden, it is also good for lots of ailments.
Thyme is a perrenial plant which means it grows all the year round and doubles in size every year. There are lots of different types of thyme you can grow and buy from the health shops.
I prefer to grow my own then I can nip outside and cut a bit off the plant for medicine or cooking with.
There ... ...When you rub a thyme plant you can instantly smell the strong aroma of the plant, it's a sort of earthy antisceptic smell.
This makes it great for cooking with as it adds flavour to lots of dishes.
It can be used for Stews, Casseroles Soups and Scattered over roasted vegetables.
My favorite recipe is Creole Jambalaya
30g (1oz) butter or marg
1 large chicken breast, cubed.
200g (7oz) shopped ham
1 onion chopped
2 sticks of celery sliced small
...
Sunnysmiles 03.01.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Thyme
thyme is a herb that is used quite often in cooking of different meals, usually to add extra taste to something or to marinate meat before or during cooking.
thyme will grow pritty much anywhere so is a realy easy plant to grow, it is found in the wild usually growing in dry grass lands, heaths and dunes, Thyme produces a beautiful pink flower from april to september so will look good aswell, it is a ground hugging plant which when crushed releases ... ...there nutrients, water and sunlight.
If you dont have a very big garden you can also plant thyme in container tubs, it makes a great flowering plant during the summer and looks beautiful in your garden.
The flowers are small but in little clusters all over the plant. ...
billy1970 18.07.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of Thyme
is shaped to make it comfortable to hold.
There I have put the pansies into the holes can you use the trowel to get some soil and fill the holes in around the roots thanks.
While we are here lets just dig up this dandelion that has grown here Oh thank you for digging around the thyme there.
As you can see this trowel is easy to use and does a good job of digging into the surface soil. I also use it in the greenhouse when I am potting plants. It's a useful little trowel. I expect I shall be putting it away soon for winters rest and use it again in the spring
Mine is a standard hand trowel but they also make a smaller transplanting towel. I like Wilkinson sword gardening tools all those I have, I have owned for several years they are easy to use. I would certainly recommend them. This trowel would make a good Christmas present ...
Advantages: Allows you to eat in style Disadvantages: Rather lightweight for outdoor picnics on windy days
assured that I will be filled with a positive attitude for the rest of the day. As I head out into the world each day I am confident that I can face all that life throws at me because I know I've got my special little pink one waiting for me when I get home.
As it says on the packet, this little table is ideal for watching your favourite TV programmes whilst eating. Many's the time I've sat at my pink table to comfortably enjoy my M&S takeaway meals whilst watching such cultural delights as Location, Location, Location, Golden balls or Rosemary and Thyme. But it's really more than just a TV dinner table. It's also great for picnics. It's so easy to pack into the boot of even the most smallest of hatchbacks. It really makes you stand out from the crowd (as I like to do on occasion). Although there are times when other picnic goers look over ...
Advantages: Taste, versatile, easy to grow Disadvantages: Smell, TOO easy to grow
My kitchen has been taken over by basil plants. I don?t just mean a couple; this is a true infestation. They seem to grow indefinitely and, despite my completely un-green-fingered tendering, they refuse to die.
This is war and in order to win the war, you must know your enemy.
KNOW YOUR ENEMY
Basil comes from a group of plants with a rather rude name (labiatae), which includes sage, rosemary, thyme, mint and lavender.
It originates from India (so who brought it over here ? they have a lot to answer for; I can?t even do washing up without the damned things getting in the way).
For Hindus it is a sacred herb and the Greeks use it ward off the evil eye and to repel flies.
The fragrance (aka stench) of basil is used in perfumery (not the ones I wear I hasten to add; I don?t want to smell like a pesto dish ...
Ophelia 18.02.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Basil
