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Call me crazy, but if you do not have thyme growing in your garden you can’t call the place an herb garden.  It’s one of the most necessary and useful herbs around.  It can’t hurt that thyme has more than a hundred varieties, each one has its own unique taste and aroma.

All of the varieties of thyme have similar characteristics such as leaves shaped like ovals and a twig like, woody stem.  In early summer or late spring, based on where you live, your herb will bloom with small pink, purple or white colored blooms.

It’s a good idea to be familiar with the following 3 varieties of thyme:

• Common Thyme: When you purchase thyme at the grocery store, this is the type that you’ll generally be getting.  This variety is bigger than the others and is great to bake with because of the strong smell and flavor.  Among the common thymes there are at a minimum 3 kinds, which you can determine by examining at the leaves.  You will find that the French kind has narrow leaves as opposed to the German which has wide leaves, and then there is the English variety which has variegated leaves.

• Lemon Thyme: You’ll have a hard thyme guessing what lemon thyme smells like.  If you guessed roses, you’d better go back to flower gardening.  Yes, lemon thyme has a strong lemon scent that you can’t miss.  You can even find some varieties of lemon thyme that have little yellow blossoms.

• Wild Thyme: People mistakenly believe that all varieties of thyme are identical, but you will not often see wild thyme being used in the kitchen.  If you are seeking an unusual ground cover, this is a good starting point.

Using thyme is not hard, just clip off some leaves, dice them if necessary and add them in with your recipe.  In order to assist your thyme thrive; make sure you prune it often which will give you plenty of chance to use the leaves in making delicious dinners.  If your talents are not found in the kitchen, you can still use your thyme to make cosmestic products.  This herb can be used in anything from soaps and shampoos to potpourri or you can simply throw some in your bathwater.

Those same folks will tell you to use it to help with many different ailments such as sleeplessness, gas, asthmatic breathing, headaches, poor digestion and coughing.  It seems like thyme does everything but dust the furniture.

Thyme is one of the best herbs to raise.  It will succeed indoors or outdoors and thrives in well-drained, rich soil and full-sun.  This plant takes a long time to germinate, so you might find it easier making a trip to your local home improvement store and starting with mature herbs rather than seeds.  This herb has a pretty ornamental quality and looks nice in an outdoor rock garden, on a patio or along a rock fence.

If you don’t want to mess with taking your thyme indoors for the winter, you can dry it by snipping off each branch at the stem and hanging it upside down.

It’s generally a good thought to keep the seeds from your thyme herb.  Thyme seeds will still germinate for 3 years.

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.

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