Growing seeds from your kitchen herb & spice rack Soil Association Food For Life & Pukka Herbs Getting ready to grow seeds Kitchen herbs can be the easiest What you will need of all crops to grow, even for a Pots with drainage holes (a Pukka tea box also beginner. You don’t need any works well, on a plate). special kit or even a trip to the Seeds from your spice rack- garden centre, as a range of ideally these will be under both every day and unusual herb two years old to increase the chance they will grow! seeds can be found in your very Multipurpose compost own kitchen herb & spice rack. Growing some fresh herbs helps bring some nature inside and add different flavours to food. How to grow your seeds Take any of the seeds listed on the following page Fresh herbs, such as fennel, coriander and dill, offer from jars in your kitchen cupboard, sprinkle them in an easy way to add variety to meals, such as salads, pots of compost and cover with a fine layer of more pasta or risotto. Not only do herbs and spices add lots compost. Make sure you label them so you know what of flavour to foods and are a great alternative to using has germinated. seasoning such as salt and pepper too! Keep your pots on the kitchen windowsill so you can keep an eye on them and water when the top of the compost feels dry. Once your plants are big enough, you can plant them out in their own pots or in a sunny window box, to attract wildlife such as bees and butterflies. Hopefully some of the seeds you plant will grow into beautiful herbs which produce the spices. We’ve had good results with mustard seeds and fenugreek so include these if you can. Here are some herbs and spices you might find to try growing Caraway seeds are similar in appearance fridges! Some of you will not like the to cumin, but with a completely different taste of its leaves as around 15% of the flavour. They smell amazing and pack population carry an allele of the OR6A2 a lot of punch for such tiny little seeds. gene which causes it to taste like soap. They are often used in bread making. Cumin is in the parsley family of herbs, Caraway’s flowers look like umbrellas has a long history of use as a digestive and will attract lots of insects if you plant spice, and helps us to break down out in your garden or window box. heavy food such as wheat and bread. It Coriander is from the same plant family only grows well in locations with long, as fennel and cumin. It has long been hot summers but you can start seeds used as a digestive spice to help cool indoors. Like caraway, it has beautiful and calm the stomach.It was also used umbrella shaped flowers that insects to help preserve foods before we had love. Coriander Here are some herbs and spices you might find to try growing Fennel is a flowering plant from the Fenugreek seeds are used in curries. It carrot family and is grown for its edible smells like caramelized sugar and maple bulbs, shoots, leaves, and seeds. Its syrup but actually tastes very bitter. Do seeds taste slightly sweet and are you agree? The leaves are also edible as licorice flavoured. It has a long history a leafy green. Stashes of fenugreek were of use as a spice to help digestion found in tombs of many pharaohs (especially wind!) and to help keep (including Tutankhamun). It was also one the breath fresh. It was also chewed of the most important sources of animal in long church services to help keep feed in the time of ancient Greece and hunger at bay. In Chinese and Hindu Rome. The seeds will spout as fenugreek cultures fennel was eaten to speed the ‘micro- greens’ and can be eaten as they elimination of poisons from the system, are in salads when they’re 2 cm long. particularly after snakebite and Delicious! scorpion stings. Fennel Here are some herbs and spices you might find to try growing Dill belongs to the celery family and was used as a condiment as early as the first grown to use in the kitchen in ancient century A.D. The tiny seeds have a nutty Egypt, Greece and Rome. All parts of aroma and almond-like taste and can plant are edible, but people usually be used in both curries and cakes. The consume leaves, flowers and seeds. botanical name for the poppy flower During the medieval period, people means ‘sleep bearing.’ Poppies were were using dill hung on the doorway to even used in the Wizard of Oz to put keep witches a safe distance from their Dorothy to sleep. The red poppy flower homes. Dill was also a popular and often has been the symbol of fallen soldiers used ingredient of magic potions in the throughout history and was adopted as past. These seeds taste of aniseed and the emblem to commemorate World are used in soda bread and potato salad. War Two. Your seeds can grow into Poppy seeds have been cultivated for beautiful flowers and be planted out over 3,000 years and poppy seed was when they are big enough. Poppy Here are some herbs and spices you might find to try growing Nigella is a member of the buttercup Mustard seeds can be white, creamy, family. The seeds were said to have light brown or black (depending on been found in King Tut’s tomb and have the variety). The plant belongs to the been used for thousands of years as a cabbage family. Besides being one preservative. The Prophet Muhammad of the most popular condiments in also said they had healing powers. The the world, the mustard plant is widely seeds are also very tasty in savoury used in traditional medicine. Ancient pastries, curries, vegetable dishes and Greeks used a paste made of mustard pickles. Nigella seeds also add great in treatment of toothache, poor blood texture when sprinkled whole over bread circulation and lack of appetite. The little or when added to dough. It’s like a seeds will sprout to produce lush, leafy ‘Middle Eastern poppy seed’ - Nigella greens that can be harvested as baby seeds will grow into beautiful flowers salads or sautéed up as a tasty side dish. that bees will love! Nigella.