Before you get excited seeing these photos, they are borrowed from various internet sources because when I tried to go out and take photos of my darling herbs, they were not photogenic. Could have been the lighting but they were also making faces at the camera. And that cannot be tolerated.

My mom has a beautiful herb garden. She would spice up our meal by frequent visits to her garden, right out her kitchen door. Many of the herbs that I cut fresh from my garden are offshoots of her plants. Which is appropriate as my habits tend to be offshoots of hers. (And that is a very good thing.)

I’ve included these photos borrowed, as previously mentioned, so that if you are unfamiliar with the way some herbs look, you will have an idea.

Chives are a herb we use all the time. They die back in the Winter and then rise again in the summer, like I’m certain we should. (I am a strong advocate for hibernation.) My chives are already coming back up green and fluffy. It’s an amazing testament to how mild our Winter has been. Usually I don’t see this resurrection until late February, or March. We also love eating the chive flowers, but we have to fight the bees for them. They look so lovely in salads, like purple pom-poms.

This is a curry plant. I just got this from my mom late Autumn, so I haven’t had a chance to trim it’s culinary delights yet. It smells amazing and I look forward to the kitchen potential that it will unleash. To me, it looks a lot like tarragon.

To prove my point, Tarragon. We use this when we cook salmon. It has a lovely nearly licorice taste. If you do not use this herb very often, I encourage you to try it. It imparts a beautifully sweet flavour.

Marjoram is a plant I haven’t used a lot of prior to this year. I think I just didn’t think of it and it wasn’t called for in a lot of recipes. But this plant has taken off in our garden. I designated such a tiny rock circle for her, and she has surpassed my expectations. Marc sneaks this in as often as possible. And the best thing is that the bees are just as in love with her. We often see bees crawling on her tight purple flowers.

Oregano goes so nicely with the tomatoes we grew all summer long. The bees love her flowers too. Her leaves seem so delicate but she’s survived very well over the winter. This is definitely a staple in our kitchen.

We are very lucky to have inherited a booming rosemary bush when we moved into the cottage. It flowers early and we use this plant with lamb, chicken and pasta among other delicious dishes. Rosemary is a necessity for tomato sauce and often goes really nicely with mushrooms.

This one is my favourite for mushrooms though. Thyme adds such depth to our oyster mushrooms that Marc has been growing. We use thyme with spaghetti, fish, and we throw the flowers into salads as often as possible. (As you can guess, I am very fond of eating flowers.)

Just so I don’t gloss over my terrible photo-taking skills of last night, this blurry photo is my sage bush. I had to show this girly off because of her busty hips. I’ve had this plant when we first got married and she has gone through some hard times. Yes, the transition from her sunny place at my mom’s (and the first couple years of our transient marriage) was hard on this one. But she is one of the reasons why I am so happy to be where I am. One of the first things I did when we moved into the cottage was to take my cramped herbs out of their pots and put their toes into real ground. And look how Sagey-pants has flourished! She had beautiful fragrant flowers this year that the bees were all over. And she has provided many a good flavouring to our dinners. I hear rumour that she makes a killer pesto too but I have yet to try that one.

Beside her is some lavendar. We have lots of lavendar and in the fall, I snipped off all the flowers to dry them. We use lavendar in our humidifier on the stove, I have a little sachel of it in my underwear box. And I’ve been known to slip a pouch of it in my pillow case to help me sleep.

Tugwell Creak Meadery has a beautiful recipe for Lavendar Honey cheesecake which I’d highly recommend. Especially if you can use honey from a local beekeeper. This dessert is one you’ll want to encore. I also add lavendar to my peppermint tea.

There are many herbs we use often: peppermint, basil, chamomile, parsley etc, but I am still collecting for my little herb garden. Do you have any recommendations? Any must have herbs? Have I forgotten any important uses for herbs that you depend on?