You have planted the herbs and watched them grow and flourish. Now you want to use fresh from your garden. Here are a few tips for preparing fresh herbs.

Fresh herbs definitely give food a better flavor. It is the leaves that are used for flavoring most often. However some herbs are harvested for their seeds. Cilantro, also known as coriander, provides both leaves and seeds.

When you cut fresh herbs on a young herb plant, do not take too much of the plant to start with. If you do it will take longer until the plant is big enough to give you more than you can use. I start off by harvesting the leaves and not the stalks, this way the stalks are encouraged to grow new leaves. Another trick is to “top” the plant. Cut off the leaves at the top of the branch and this will encourage the stem to generate side shoots and far more leaves. As the plant grows bigger I will take not more than one third of the plant at a time. This encourages new growth which is a good gardening thing to do. Once the plant is grown, you will be able to take what you need as often as you need it and the plant will continue to grow in size.

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