Growing Thyme in Your Garden

Call me weird, but if you do not have thyme growing in your garden you cannot call the place an herb garden.  It’s one of the most essential and helpful herbs around.  It does not hurt that it has more than a hundred varieties, each one has its own unique taste and smell.

All of the varieties of thyme share similar characteristics including leaves shaped like ovals and a twig like, woody stem.  In early summer or late spring, depending on your climate, your thyme will blossom with tiny pink, purple or white colored blooms.

It is a good idea to be knowledgeable about the following three varieties of thyme:

• Common Thyme: When you buy thyme at the grocery, this is the type that you will generally be getting.  This variety is bigger than the others and is awesome to bake with because of the strong smell and flavor.  You can check out the leaves of this vaiety of thyme to determine which of the following 3 kinds it is.  While the English variety has variegated leaves, the leaves on the German variety are broad and the French are thin.

• Lemon Thyme: You’ll have a hard thyme guessing what lemon thyme smells like.  If you cannot tell that that one out you might want to choose another hobby.  Yes, lemon thyme has a bold lemon aroma that you can’t miss.  Some kinds of lemon thyme even have tiny 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 exactly the same.  If you are seeking an unusual ground cover, this is a great place to start.

Cooking with thyme is as simple as clipping off a few leaves and adding them to your other ingredients.  Thyme does well with pruning and there’s no other way to prune your plant than to cut some leaves for a delicious entree.  This herb is also found in health and beauty products that you can make at home.  You can use it in soaps and lotions, add a little bit in your bathwater or use it to make an excellent potpourri.

Those same folks will tell you to use thyme to cure several different ailments such as sleeplessness, gas, asthmatic breathing, headaches, poor digestion and coughing.  I guess it pretty much can do just about anything except bring in the mail.

It is one of the best herbs to grow.  This herb loves full-sun and well-drained, rich soil and can be raised inside too.  This herb takes a while to germinate, so you might find it easier making a trip to your local nursery and starting with mature herbs instead of seeds.  This herb has a nice ornamental quality and looks great in an outdoor rock garden, on a patio or along a stone fence.

If you would rather dry your thyme for use over the winter than bring your thyme inside, just snip off each branch at the stem and hang it upside down to dry.

It’s generally a sensible thought to keep the seeds from your thyme herb.  Believe it or not, they 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.