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Seasons for garden, kitchen; Herbs add zest to food, are easy to grow and harvest.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Christian Toto, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

An array of homegrown herbs at the ready can help even a neophyte chef whip up a delicious homemade meal. A herb is any seed plant that will grow flowers and seeds but not a woody,

treelike stem. They can be used to create a certain scent or help decorate a room or garden. Some proponents insist herbs can have medicinal value.

Many gardeners, however, see herbs as a way to flavor their favorite dishes. Doing so isn't complicated, since only a sprinkle of savory, thyme or basil can produce big results in the kitchen.

Herbs blossom at various times of the year. Annual herbs such as dill bloom for only one season, then die. Parsley is a biennial, an herb that grows green the first year, then goes to seed and flowers the second. Perennials, by comparison, should live to bloom for many seasons. Common perennial herbs include chives, mint, thyme and tarragon.

Jim Adams, curator of the National Arboretum's National Herb Garden, says basic cooking herbs such as sage, rosemary, chives and basil can be found in many amateur gardeners' homes.

"They're fairly common, fairly easy to grow and easy to harvest and use,"...

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