The Kew Gardener's Guide to Growing Herbs

An exquisite mix of practical and giftable gardening reference for beginners and enthusiasts who want to grow herbs beautifully.

The herbs in this book provide flavours and scents unlike any other: culinary herbs are a living trove of fresh flavours for any cook, with an almost alchemical power to transform the simplest dish. Herbs can be used as seeds, flowers, or leaves; cooked and eaten themselves or used to infuse a dish or drink. They are popping up in artisan gin, ice cubes and cocktail syrups; in foraged dishes and kitchen gardens of the best restaurants as chefs realise that often the only way to capture that elusive flavour is to have home-grown, freshly harvested herbs on their doorstep. With this book these intense flavours can now be a reality for gardeners and food enthusiasts with any size of garden, from an acre to a window box.

Underpinned by the authority of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the expertise of Holly Farrell this book combines practical elements with inspiration and beauty. Find out how to grow herbs in all situations, how to plant, propagate and harvest, then the 80 most exciting herbs are identified, illustrated and their uses explained. This is accompanied by Jason Ingrams specially commissioned photography for 12 projects which show how to develop a herb garden at the next level and use herbs in the most interesting ways from planting a herb roof to making herbal oils.

About the Authors

Holly Farrell is the author of Planting Plans for your Kitchen Garden and RHS Plants from Pips. She contributes to gardening magazines such as The Garden and Kitchen Garden, and has a blog. Holly trained at RHS Gardens Wisley where she gained the Wisley Diploma in Practical Horticulture and the RHS Certificate and Diploma, both with Commendation. After working as Head Gardener on a private estate she now combines her career as a garden writer with freelance work as a consultant on (kitchen) gardens for private clients and Tom Stuart-Smith Ltd.

Holly has been growing her own fruit and vegetables for many years, in a variety of settings from allotments to container gardens. Holly is also a keen and experienced baker, and while she's happy to produce wedding cakes for friends or hundreds of biscuits for a Christmas market stall, she doesn't need a reason to bake!

Kew Royal Botanic Gardens has built a global resource for medicinal plant names that enables health professionals and researchers to access information about plants and plant products relevant to pharmacological research, health regulation, traditional medicine and functional foods.