Aroma gardening

I do enjoy sitting outside at this time of year surrounded by my garden flowers and herbs. If I hadn't started making jewellery, I may well have started a business with herbs instead, I can't imagine a garden without any. Every year I discover new varieties which I can't resist buying to be planted along side my old favourites.
The herbs are just starting to dominate the garden now and over the next few weeks many more will burst into flower, so to keep you up to date with the herb progression, I will show you a small handful at a time.

The first herb to flower in my garden was the Comfrey, this is great for the compost a good handful is put into the compost every time anything else is added, it also attracts so many bees. Freshly picked leaves can be placed on cuts, bruises and open wounds to promote healing and apparently the leaves can apparently be cooked as a green vegetable and served with a cheese sauce, I will have to try that some time.

The next one to start flowering was my chives, I really like the chive flowers, so I have several groups of chives planted around my garden, in pots and directly in the soil. Apparently you can add some flowers to salads for a delicate flavour or add to vegetable oil after a week the oil will take on a lilac colour and is great on salads or for cooking, personally I like to add cut stems to potato salad.

More herbs to follow later !