As planting season gets under way in the Pee Dee, a subculture of gardeners and farmers are growing herbs, often in addition to their usual crops.
Myles Gladding, owner of The Herb Garden at the Pee Dee State Farmer’s Market in Florence, said he sees a definite increase in the number of people planning to plant herb gardens, whether they want the herbs for fragrance or for more culinary pursuits, this time of year.
“People have really gotten into herbs in the last four or five years,” he said.
Gladding and his wife, Jo-Ann, have run the stand since they moved to Lamar from New Hampshire 14 years earlier.
He said the most popular herbs are the ones commonly found in a wide variety of dishes, such as sage, basil, thyme and oregano.
Gladding said an herb that has gotten a great deal of press lately is stevia. The stevia plant is the basis for many of the latest sugar substitutes on the market.
“You can put a couple leaves in your tea,” he said. “Some people grind it up and use it as a powder, like you buy in the store, but herbs are a lot better when they are fresh. You don’t have to use near as much of it as what you would buy in the store.”
Gladding said cooking with fresh herbs can bring a whole new experience to a kitchen.
“When you’re roasting a chicken, you can just prick the skin and put a piece of rosemary in there and it just tastes delicious,” he said.
Gladding said some herbs have more than one use, such as lemon balm.
“Anything lemon-y is a mosquito repellent,” he said.
Pat Showalter, owner of Harvest Moon Soapworks, said he grows many of the herb he uses to create the special, homemade soaps he sells at his shop in the farmer’s market.
“I use peppermint, marjoram, poppy seeds, comfrey root,” he said.
Showalter said he adds the herbal supplements to such items as oatmeal and corn meal to create his unique varieties of soaps, lotions, body butters and sugar scrubs.
For people looking to learn more about how to start, maintain and get the most use out of an herb garden, there are plenty of Web sites offering suggestions and tips.
The Herb Spiral, a site that talks about the different uses of herbs, suggests using a spiral shape to get the highest yield from a small planting area.
“It is extremely efficient in terms of the amount of product you get for a given area and, because the soil is built up and contained in the way described, drainage is effective, which is essential for growing herbs,” according to the site.
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