![]() ![]() Thyme is a key component of the bouquet garni, a combination of thyme, bay, and parsley commonly used to flavor French dishes. Its flavor is fairly strong and very distinctive. Thyme makes an excellent addition to meats, soups, and stews. You can crush it prior to storage to remove the woody stems, or store the dried stems whole and remove the leaves prior to use. You can also dry thyme in a dehydrator to speed the drying process.ĭried thyme stores well in a sealed glass jar, as long as it's kept out of direct sunlight. To dry thyme, gather several stems into a bunch and hang the bunch upside down in a warm, dry room until the leaves easily crumble when crushed, about 3 weeks. You can also finely chop thyme, leaves and stems included, to use in recipes, but if the stems are woody, you'll want to use only the leaves.įresh thyme can be stored unwashed in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. The small leaves will drop from the stems easily and can be used in recipes. If you're using fresh thyme, run the stems from their top to their bottom between your thumb and forefinger. You can cut stems from the plant anytime from mid-spring through the autumn, but the plants offer the best flavor prior to the arrival of their summertime bloom. Thyme can be used fresh in recipes, but it also dries very well. Thyme is fairly drought tolerant and will suffer in wet or water-logged sites. It's perennial, which means as long as a particular variety is hardy in your area, it will return to the garden year after year. Thyme prefers a location with full sun and well-drained soil. Thyme has been cultivated since the time of the ancient Egyptians and has been used for culinary, medicinal, and spiritual purposes for thousands of years. It's both edible and ornamental, and the flowers are more purple than some other varieties. Woolly thyme makes a great ground cover or you can use it as a "crack stuffer," growing it between stepping stones or patio pavers.įoxley: This unique time is variegated cream and white and has fairly broad leaves for a thyme. The foliage is covered in tiny hairs, giving the plant its common name. Woolly: A terrific thyme for adding unique texture to the garden, woolly thyme stays very low to the grown and spreads out into a nice carpet. The leaves are solid green, and it's among the easiest thymes to grow. The small, green leaves are edged in white, making it a real beauty in the garden.įrench: With true classic thyme taste, French thyme has long, easy-to-harvest stems that are intensely aromatic. Silver Edge: A beautiful variety, this thyme selection is primarily ornamental, though it's certainly edible. It creeps around along the ground and has prolific spring growth. Transparent Yellow: This variety of thyme has chartreuse foliage and is excellent for both culinary and ornamental uses. It has small green leaves but isn't as hardy as some other types of thyme. German Winter: German winter thyme offers an excellent, classic culinary thyme flavor. We love adding all three of these citrus thyme to our herbal tea blends. Orange thyme has small, green leaves and smells like a freshly-peeled orange. When the foliage is crushed, the scent of lemon is unmistakable. Lemon thyme has green foliage edged in white. Lime thyme is a light chartreuse green with a distinct scent and flavor of lime. Each has a subtly different flavor and appearance. The Citrus-scented thymes: We grow three different citrus thymes - lime, lemon, and orange. We tend to add too many to our seed list and then have to pare our selections down to the varieties we think will best suit our customers' gardens. Leafing through the seed catalogs each winter, we always get excited about all the possibilities when it comes to the offered selections of thyme. Today, we'd like to introduce you to some of the amazing thymes we grow here at the farm and fill you in on how you can grow and harvest them in your own garden. A few types of thyme even create a beautiful, low-growing ground cover. Some thyme varieties are better for culinary purposes, while others make better ornamentals. There are dozens of different varieties of thyme, each with their own unique appearance and flavor. While you might think that there's only one type of thyme, that isn't the case. Here at Cherry Valley, we grow dozens of different types of herbs, but one of our favorites is thyme. ![]()
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