Oneka Floral & Design

I don’t know, but I don’t think you can officially call yourself an herb gardener unless you’ve got some thyme growing there.  It’s one of the most essential and helpful plants around.  It doesn’t hurt that it has more than a hundred varieties, each of which has its own unique flavor and aroma.

Regardless of which variety of thyme you grow, they all have a woody, twig like stem and small oval-shaped leaves.  Thyme will have small purple, pink or white blooms that bud in early summer or late spring depending on the growing season.

It is helpful to be knowledgeable about the following 3 types of thyme:

• Common Thyme: When you buy thyme at the grocery, this is the variety that you will generally be getting.  It’s a little taller type that also has a strong taste and smell, which makes it fantastic for your recipes.  Among the common thymes there are at least three kinds, which you can tell by examining at the leaves.  While the English type has variegated leaves, the leaves on the German kind are broad and the French are narrow.

• Lemon Thyme: The aroma of lemon thyme is obvious in the name.  If you thought it was scented with maple syrup, you should better go back to flower gardening.  You cannot miss the aroma of lemon that emanates from lemon thyme.  Some kinds of lemon thyme even have small pale yellow flowers.

• Wild Thyme: This kind of thyme isn’t usually grown for use in the kitchen, so do not believe that every thyme plant is the same.  If you are looking for an unusual ground cover, this is a great place to start.

Using thyme is not hard, just snip off a few leaves, chop them if necessary and toss them in with your other ingredients.  Thyme does well with trimming back and there is no better way to prune your herb than to harvest some leaves for a yummy meal.  If your talents aren’t found in the kitchen, you can still use your thyme to make cosmestic products.  You can use it in soaps and lotions, add a small bit in your bathwater or use it to make an excellent potpourri.

Those same folks will tell you to use it to help with several different ailments including sleeplessness, gas, asthmatic breathing, headaches, poor digestion and coughing.  It basically can do just about anything except bring in the mail.

Cultivating thyme is not difficult.  It will succeed indoors or outside and succeeds in well-drained, rich dirt and full-sun.  Because it takes forever and a day to germinate your plant (a long thyme), I suggest that you drive over to the discount store and buy a few herbs for your garden.  For your outside thyme, try it in your rock garden or along a wall or over a rustic patio.

If you do not want to bother with taking your thyme indoors for the winter, you can dry it by cutting off each branch at the stem and hanging it upside down.

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.