With herbs, you’re pretty much guaranteed two things: the plant is an heirloom (as herbs, for the most part, have not been crossed, selected or hybridized) and they’re “going to pay the rent.” In other words, they’ll give you something back for the space they’re taking up in your garden.

If you’d like to know more about herbs, you can discover almost everything from one source—master herb grower, herb columnist, author, and creator of all-things-herbal, Jim Long of Blue Eye, Missouri.

A back injury and a series of serendipitous events helped transform this former landscape architect into Mister Herb, a walking-Wikipedia of herb lore, herb growing and gardening tips, herb recipes, and herbal remedies, which include everything from an herbal dream pillow that encourages sweet dreams to an herbal nail fungus soak that’s recommended by medical professionals.

Jim grows 250 to 350 culinary and native medicinal herbs in his herb garden located between Branson, Missouri and Eureka Springs, Arkansas in the heart of the Ozarks.He has been a columnist for The Herb Companion magazine since 1990, has a regular column in The Heirloom Gardener(http://rareseeds.com/magazine) and The Ozarks Mountaineer magazines. His syndicated “Ozarks Gardening” column runs in newspapers across the Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks, and he’s authored 25 books on herbs, gardening and cooking. He also travels extensively throughout the year lecturing to groups and at national conferences and travels abroad in search of new culinary plants to grow, photograph, and write about. Jim will be a featured speaker at the National Heirloom Exposition (http://www.theheirloomexpo.com/) coming up Sept. 11-13, 2012 in Sonoma County, California.

In a recent phone interview on a 75-degree February day in Missouri with roosters sounding off in the background, Jim shared all kinds of interesting and inspiring tidbits about herbs.

Eight Important Herbs You Should Grow

If you’re new to herb gardening—and even it you’re not—Jim recommends growing this staple garden of culinary herbs: basil, chives, mint, thyme, parsley, marjoram/oregano, fennel, and cilantro. There’s nothing like fresh herbs for cooking.

Conducting nationwide surveys of retail nurseries, wholesale plant and seed companies, Jim found that the most popular and most used herb today is basil. The secret to keeping this popular culinary herb sweet, he shares, is to keep the plant clipped. If you don’t keep basil harvested, the leaf flavor changes from sweet to somewhat bitter, he stresses. And don’t be shy, he adds. Think of the plant as you would a hedge, don’t just pick a leaf here and there. The more you harvest basil, the faster it puts out new leaves with the best flavor. Harvest sprigs, even limbs, he says, it won’t hurt the plant.

There are, of course, all kinds of basils to enjoy. In his garden blog: http://www.jimlongsgarden.blogspot.com, Jim mentions growing Genovese, sweet, Thai, lemon, lime, boxwood, spicy globe, clove (also known as Indian sacred), green pepper, and Greek columnar. Imagine a slightly different flavor for your homemade pesto sauce this year.

Meet the ‘Hardies’: The Most Adaptable Herbs
Wherever you live in the country, these herbs, for the most part, will adapt fairly easily: basil, parsley, chives, sage, rosemary, thyme and oregano. They don’t require much pampering, according to Jim, and can stand moderate drought.

Do visit Jim’s Website (http://www.longcreekherbs.com/virtual-tour.php) for a virtual tour of his herb garden—you’ll be inspired to try growing some less common varieties, too. (In-person visits are by appointment only.)

The “Herb of the Year”

To celebrate “The Herb of the Year” as designated by the International Herb Association, Jim’s Website currently features recipes for this year’s lucky winner—the rose. Yes, the rose is an herb and a very tasty one at that.

All roses are edible, says Jim. They are a relative of the apple. You want to be careful, however, he warns, and stay away from roses from floral shops and grocery stores, as they have often been treated with chemicals to aid in maintaining their perfect, bite-free appearance and to extend their longevity. It’s best to dine only on roses you know have been grown organically. The most fragrant, usually the older heritage roses, which are bred for their fragrance, are the most flavorful, he adds.

A quick and easy way to embark on this perhaps new-to-you culinary experience is to pluck some rose petals from a bush in your garden after the morning dew has gone and the heat of the day has not yet come and toss them into a green salad, Jim recommends. Or, chop up some rose petals, mix into cream cheese and spread on toast. Jim’s blog also includes information and videos on how to create rose petal syrups and butters as well as a delicious-looking rose petal cake. Munching on rose petals also provides you with a little Vitamin C.

Medicinal Herbs from Civil War Days

Medicinal herbs from this era had a big impact in providing improved healing remedies, Jim shares, for everything from quickly stopping a soldier’s bleeding to hormonal balancing in women.

One quick and easy Civil War era remedy is thyme tea, good for gargling with to soothe a sore throat and rinsing your mouth with to help heal bleeding gums. Thyme is actually the primary active ingredient in Listerine, Jim reveals. The recipe for an herbal mouthwash: Simply pour 3 cups of boiling water over 2 heaping tablespoons of dry or 4 tablespoons of fresh thyme; cover with a plate or plastic wrap and let steep for about ten minutes. Strain and let cool to your comfort level before using to gargle with.

From Early Newsletter to Perpetual Blog to Books
When Jim was healing from the back injury he sustained working on an architectural landscape job so many years ago, he entered contests to pass the time. He won a few, including a ski trip to Colorado, which, of course he couldn’t use. But he flew to Colorado anyway and visited a friend who he discovered had a new MAC computer. Jim had already toyed with the idea of writing a newsletter featuring information about herbs, but a “test drive” of the new computer cinched the idea for him and is what launched his decades-long herb and garden writing career. You won’t find his newsletter any longer, but you can find scads of information on growing herbs, cooking with herbs—everything herb—on his blog, which he updates frequently, as well as in his over two-dozen herb growing and cooking books.

If you’ve always wanted to learn more about growing and cooking with herbs—and even if you haven’t—Jim’s writings will inspire you. I can’t wait to pluck some rose petals from my backyard bush and toss them in a salad!

Susan Audrey is a Northern California writer, editor and photographer. She can be reached at tosusanaudrey@gmail.com

The United States Department of Agriculture has recently released an updated version of the Plant Hardiness Zone Map. The color-coded maps can often be found printed on the backs of many seed packets, in many garden magazines and catalogs, as well as on the internet. Gardeners use the maps to determine appropriate growing zones for plants.

See a detailed map of your area at: http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/

The new version of the map came out of a joint effort of the USDA and Oregon State University, and has much greater detail than the previously used 1990 version.

Press releases by the USDA and other sources indicate that the several zone changes reflect warming temperatures, based on a 30-year study of cumulative weather data (1976-2005). It is important to note that the zone designations represent the average annual extreme low temperatures at a given location during a particular time period. They do not reflect the record coldest it has ever been or ever will be at a specific location, but simply the average lowest winter temperature for the location over a specified time. Low temperature during the winters is usually considered a crucial factor in the survival of plants at a given location.

Compared to the 1990 map, zone boundaries on the new map have shifted by about 5 degrees F throughout much of the nation. The new map includes two new zones in hotter climates: zone 12 (50-60 degrees F) and zone 13 (60-70 degrees F). The higher the zone number, the warmer is the average low temperature during wintertime. Each zone is a 10-degree Fahrenheit band, further divided into A and B 5-degree Fahrenheit zones. The new map also takes into account changes in elevations and closeness to large bodies of water that can influence temperature, something the old map did not address. As a result, there is a slight northward warming trend indicated on the map, but also a few colder areas in mountainous regions. It is significant to note that no geographic location experienced a change of more than one-half zone designation.

The design of the new Plant Hardiness Zone Map is particularly useful on the internet. An interactive version can be found at http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb and allows the user to enter a zip code to obtain the plant hardiness zone for a particular area, or use a drop-down menu to highlight a particular state and its plant hardiness zones. The zones offer important guidelines for all growers, whether they garden small plots, farm large acreages, or grow orchards or forests.