A few years ago my neighbor arrived at my door wearing rubber gloves and carrying a bundle of stinging nettle she’d pulled from the edge of her garden. She was grinning. We blanched it, made soup, and spent two hours talking about every herb either of us had ever grown, cooked with, or steeped into … Read more
My aunt Karen has kept a pot of chives on her kitchen windowsill for as long as I can remember. She didn’t plan a herb garden. She bought one pot, put it near the sink where she’d remember to water it, and it never stopped producing. She snips from it most days — into eggs, … Read more
My neighbor Rob spent two summers losing a battle with a patch of bare clay beside his driveway. Grass died. Mulch slid down the slope. A ground cover sedum lasted one winter and gave up. A garden centre employee eventually handed him a tray of red creeping thyme and told him to plant it twelve … Read more
My friend Priya grew up in a household where cilantro went into almost everything — dal, chutneys, scrambled eggs, rice dishes finished with a fistful of leaves. When she moved in with her partner, who describes cilantro as tasting like soap, she assumed she’d have to give it up at home. She didn’t. She learned … Read more
My colleague Dan had a sleep problem and a GP who suggested he try improving his sleep hygiene before going straight to prescription aids. Dan had tried chamomile and found it completely useless. He was not optimistic about lemon balm tea. He tried it for a month anyway, mostly because he was tired of being … Read more
My mother bought one pot of calendula from a garden centre about twenty years ago on a whim. She never bought another. They’ve been self-seeding in the same beds every spring since, requiring nothing from her except harvesting. Each summer she dries the petals and infuses them in olive oil. That oil goes on her … Read more
The first time my sister-in-law Elena encountered a stinging nettle plant, she was scrambling up a bank in rural Scotland and grabbed one bare-handed for support. She described the next twenty minutes as “a burning situation nobody warned her about.” That evening, the farmhouse they were staying in served nettle soup for dinner. Elena, still … Read more
My uncle Tom spent thirty years as a long-haul truck driver and arrived at his sixties with the kind of persistent morning cough that follows a twenty-year smoking habit even after you’ve stopped. His doctor handled the quitting. A herbalist friend suggested mullein tea for the cough. Tom, a man who considers anything without caffeine … Read more
My neighbor Petra is Polish, and dill herb shows up in everything she cooks — soups, salads, fish, the sour cream she puts on more things than seems reasonable. There’s always a handful of fresh fronds somewhere in the process. When I asked her once why she uses so much of it, she looked at … Read more
A friend of mine dealt for years with the kind of anxiety that doesn’t qualify as a diagnosis but shows up anyway — 3am wake-ups, a brain that won’t stop cataloguing, a baseline tension that’s hard to explain to anyone who doesn’t have it. A naturopath eventually suggested she try skullcap herb as part of … Read more