How to Grow Culinary Thyme

By mimicking its native habitat and by learning how to prune it correctly, you can grow thyme

Back in the other 1960s , a acquaintance of mine gave me a shoebox turn back three thyme plant . I was living in Houston then , working on NASA ’s man space programme . The challenge of raise these Mediterranean herbs in Houston ’s everlasting Turkish-bath clime was just the sort of respite I needed after a 24-hour interval of try out intricate ballistic capsule scheme . But I was a neophyte nurseryman . Two of the plants die gracefully within the first calendar month . The third resisted my efforts to wipe out it for over a year . But in spite of the 100 % mortality pace I ’d achieved , I was hooked on thyme .

Since then , I ’ve drop my free hours in the pursuit of grow , studying , and key out thyme . I find their dynamic fragrancy , their diminutive bloom , and their varying increment habits compelling . I ’m intrigued by their flavors , in particular by how certain thymes copy the taste of unrelated thing like lemon or caraway . I ’m proud of to say that over the days , I ’ve had much better luck growing thyme , in the first place by mime their native habitat as closely as possible , and by learning how to prune the works correctly .

To find the best thymes, pinch and sniff

The world of thymes is Brobdingnagian : Species , race , cultivar , and loan-blend burst . But when it comes to the kitchen , the players are few . There are only about half a twelve weigh desirable for cooking . Out of this radical , I discover four to be most utile : Gallic thyme , lemon thyme , oregano - odoriferous thyme , and caraway thyme .

French thyme(Thymus vulgaris)is the one that most masses know . The plant grow into an upright bush 12 in . to 18 in . eminent , and has belittled , baseball field - shaped leaves with gross profit margin that curl back onto themselves . Have you ever stroke a industrial plant of Gallic thyme and then smelled your manpower and thought of Vicks VapoRub ? That ’s because thymol , the dominant essence in Gallic thyme , is the element that enter the Vicks ointment its characteristic pungent odor . Do n’t let that deter you from using French thyme in the kitchen , though . Its strong nip complement fish , meat , cheeses , and many veg .

lemon tree thyme ( T.×citriodorus ) has dark light-green leaves that are relatively large . It too has an vertical drug abuse , although it commonly does n’t get as large as Gallic thyme . Two inwardness components , neral and geranial , together put the citrus tree in lemon thyme , which is probably the most utile of the culinary thymes . I find that lemon thyme break well with vegetables and meats that are n’t too strong in flavor , like chicken and pork , and is especially good with Pisces .

marjoram - perfumed thyme(T. pulegioides)grows to about 10 in . high , with burnished , grim green leaves . Carvacrol , the flavor we know as oregano , is dominant in oregano - perfumed thyme . It can be used in the same mode as Gallic thyme , but I particularly like it in Italian and Middle Eastern dishes , where both mouthful are appropriate .

Caraway thyme ’s botanic name , T. herba - barona , stem from its use during the Middle Ages to flavor the Brobdingnagian roast call a baron of beef . Carvone is the dominant essence part in Carum carvi thyme , as well as in caraway and Anethum graveolens seeds . I use caraway thyme in the same foods in which I practice caraway seed — sauerkraut , breads , and to flavour a vinegar to season cooking greens . Unlike the first three , Carum carvi thyme forms a full , low mound of dark green foliage only about 4 in . tall . All four varieties have leave that persist through the year , and summer blossoms ranging from wan lavender or pink to white .

Thymes vary industrial plant to institute in how much flavor and fragrance they have . I always pinch and snuff and even taste a sprig before deciding which specimen of Gallic thyme or Citrus limon thyme to put in my garden . For the same reason , I do n’t consider semen to be a reliable source of new plants . When I bribe a plant , I sleep together what I ’m getting ; when I sow seed , I do n’t . Taking cuttings from a friend ’s plant is also a practiced way to get yourself a sapid specimen — read on to see how to do this . If you ca n’t line up a local source of plant , you ’ll need to buy them by mail .

In the garden, a rock mulch and a lean diet

One of the individual most helpful thing I discover about develop thyme is to mulch it with low-cal - colored crushed rock , rather one of limestone composition . Clues to thyme ’s natural phylogenetic relation for limestone careen and calcareous territory are spell out in the name of some of the decorative species — graniticus , gypsicola , anddolomiticus . The stone - potato chip mulch has a therapeutic issue , chew over ultraviolet irradiation onto the branches , helping the thyme to reject fungal disease in my humid Virginia climate . Using rock also lends a horse sense of authenticity , of peach and grace to the planting . If you do n’t have crushed rock , sand also works well , but it does n’t depend quite as picturesque .

All thymes take full sun , well - drained , gritty grease , and good air circulation . Because the grease condition requirement is n’t what best suit vegetables , thymes are better off planted with sun - love ornamentals or other herbs , rather than with the tomato and lettuces .

A diet that is n’t too high in atomic number 7 , which promotes leaves instead of prime , also will yield more tone for your kitchen . That ’s because the glands that grow the essential oil colour are more concentrated in the blossom function near the stem terminal than in the larger and older leaf farther down the stem . For that reason , I fertilize only at planting clip with a time - release , balanced recipe that contains trace element .

A good time to limit out plant is in the bound , after all risk of frost is over . Many gardener can also plant thyme in the early surrender , as long as the plant life have three or four calendar week before the first Robert Lee Frost to become established . winter sweet - scented and caraway thymes are the hardiest of the four , thriving in area where winter lows strike down to the single digits . French thyme is the least stout . If your winter temperatures stay below freezing for extensive period , you should number on either protect French thyme or replacing it come bounce . thyme are shallow root , so keep watch for frost - billow plants in winter , press them back into the solid ground with your foot .

Thymes accommodate readily to being rise in containers . The only deviation in culture is that container - planted thymes need to be watered more often than in - ground thymes . In this case , though , I ’ve found that by adding some clay soil to the potting mix , I could extend the time between waterings , with no ill effect .

Pruning twice a year makes a better plant

Plenty of multitude grow thyme and never prune it except to glean stems for the kitchen . But correct pruning can make the remainder between a roaring works and a languishing one . I prune thyme twice during the growing season . First , right after the plant has finished blooming , I cut off the numb bloom head and generally forge up the plant . I prune for the second clip about a month before the first require fall frost . The purpose of this second pruning is to advance new growth , which is hardy than mature stem , and better able to hold the wintertime .

When prune , it ’s important not to shorten back into the sometime , woody part of the plant . The easygoing , dark-green bow put on more and sturdy growth than do older , brown stems . A woody thyme plant , while attractive in a bonsai form of fashion , is a weak structural specimen and has a much - reduced area of active maturation . Of course , every time you harvest stems for the kitchen , essentially you ’re pruning the flora , so it ’s unspoiled to apply the same principles .

You can’t have too much of a good thyme

When I want to increase a plant , like my caraway thyme which has a especially well sapidity , I take stem clipping . Propagating thyme vegetatively , rather than by semen , ensures me that all the issue will be identical . I ’ve found that the cuttings root well in unscented , the Great Compromiser - based Caterpillar bedding material . The cat-o'-nine-tails bedding absorbs about eight times its weightiness in moisture , and the distance between the granule further airwave circulation and help prevent guff .

To take theme cutting , I clip non - flowering stems 4 in . to 5 in . long , making the cut just above where the bow becomes woody . Flowering stems can also forge , but they ’ll be more loath to shape origin , because their endocrine are target them to make efflorescence instead of beginning .

I foray the leaves off the lower two - thirds of the cutting , and then hold fast the stem deep into a pot of sporty , unscented , clay - base computerized axial tomography bedding material . If the container is shallow , like the one in the photograph above , I die hard the cuttings in at an angle to give the root word plenty of distance for post out roots . When the green goddess is full of cuttings , I exhaustively moisten the litter and then place the potbelly in a shaded orbit and keep it moist . In a few weeks the cuttings have rooted enough to be transferred to small pots or a cold frame . The next year they ’re ready to mark out in the garden .

Thyme in the garden

This article originally appeared in Kitchen Gardener # 6 ( December 1996 ) .

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A mulch of light-colored stone chips imitates thyme’s native habitat.Photo: Roger Foley

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