Do you love a well-braised Boeuf Bourguignon? Do you like to cook with the typical “herbs of Provence”, and do you think a delicious coq au vin or a self-cut and seasoned gyros should not be despised? Thyme is the defining spice in all of these delicacies, and it is often the freshness of this thyme that gives the dish that special touch. This is how you get your own, highly aromatic thyme from the garden.
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What kind of plant is thyme?
The thyme belong to the mint family, a very interesting plant family that has developed its species in every climatic zone around the world. The mint family are divided into seven subfamilies with 230 genera and over 7,000 species. This species-rich family of plants is of interest to us humans because many of the associated species contain essential oils and can therefore be used as aromatic herbs or medicinal plants.
Like thyme, which is its own genus of plants within the mint family, which is also divided into eight sections with a total of around 215 species. You could come across a wide variety of species on holiday around the Mediterranean, but only a few species are grown commercially across the various sections. Numerous hybrids of these species, especially Thymus vulgaris (real thyme), Thymus zygis (yoke thyme) and Thymus serpyllum (sand thyme, Quendel), are still produced by crossbreeding. With these, the flavoring properties can be in the foreground, perhaps by adding a lemon note, or the decorative suitability as an ornamental plant, only for medicinal purposes certain types of thyme are used exclusively single-variety.
Buy thyme plants.
If you would like to purchase a specimen of a very species-rich group of plants that are briskly crossed with each other and with other aromatic herbs, you can definitely purchase such plants at the nearest discounter when they have “Mediterranean weeks”. You should then only be aware of the fact that you are purchasing a surprise package: the botanical name given on the pot may be correct, but it may also not be correct – if plants are cultivated en masse, not only are the pots often used several times, but also the rearing often takes place in a different language area, and then the plant names also have to be translated, which rarely works that well.
So if you want to buy thyme for seasoning and want to gradually try your way through different types of thyme, it is better to contact a specialist dealer who cultivates different varieties on a permanent basis and guarantees you a correct name and a consistently similar taste of a variety can.
Such a specialist dealer is z. B. the company Rühlemann’s Herbs & Fragrance Plants from 27367 Horstedt, can be reached on the Internet at www.kraeuter-und-duftpflanze.de. At Rühlemann’s you can also view and collect your plants in the nursery in Horstedt in the Rotenburg (Wümme) district, in any case from the beginning of April to the end of September, there is even a 10% discount for those who collect them themselves.
The best location for a thyme
Most thyme species have their natural home in the Mediterranean area, where they grow in sunny places in typically rather poor soil. Therefore, you should look for a thyme in your garden in a light to sunny and dry location that can have nutrient-poor and sandy soil. A place where the thyme is in the sun for at least half the day and where it gets a lot of heat because the sun hits a wall or stones next door would be perfect, which give off the heat later. In addition, the thyme is well protected from the wind in such an outdoor location, which also benefits it.
Thyme also feels at home in the upper zones of a herbal spiral, in which the earth becomes increasingly nutrient-poor, there is thyme for the zone with normal soil and those that develop the most aroma at the top of the Mediterranean zone. Like many other aromatic plants, thyme is also suitable as a border for a sunny bed, you can even create a real small thyme hedge. Or as a container plant for the aroma garden on the sunny terrace, or you can transform a sun-drenched side path with the thyme into a sensual scent path that unfolds its scents while walking (an idea that is often found in England, but still here with us is far too seldom part of the garden design).
Caring for the thyme in the garden
The thyme young plant that is bought or, in the case of very rare varieties, grown from seed may be planted in the garden soil in regions with normal temperatures at the end of April, if you fear late frosts, you should wait until after the ice saints (mid-May). Pour on and make sure that it does not dry out completely in the beginning so that it is not inhibited in the formation of roots. Once the thyme is well rooted, you won’t have much to do with it. Rather, you have to be careful not to do too much. B. Thyme does not like too much water (waterlogging) at all. Thyme also doesn’t need excessive fertilization, if you mix in some compost and lime once a year, that’s enough.
The pruning also begins with the young plant, which should be trimmed all around quite early so that it grows more bushy. The thyme is one of the (semi) shrubs that tend to lignify at the base, further pruning can be done with such plants at harvest: You can delay lignifying if you pay attention to the thyme branches every time you harvest Cut off so that one to two centimeters of plant green from this shoot is retained. You should cut off shoots evenly all around, so you ensure that new shoots also grow all around. Whenever old shoots stay there for a long time, they will eventually become lignified from the base to the top.
Such regular pruning during harvest helps a lot, but you can also concentrate on the thyme in spring or after flowering and cut away all older parts of the plant. If you like this type of harvest or the annual maintenance pruning z. B. makes too much effort because of the inaccessible location, but you can also simply wait until the thyme has less and less leafy green after a few years. If at some point the thyme mainly consists of external shoots and perhaps its seasoning power has decreased somewhat, it should get new strength when you move it to another location (in spring). You could of course just replace it with a young thyme,
Harvest thyme
You can do this pruning care just described throughout the year, because the thyme can be harvested as an evergreen plant all year round, even during flowering. You can harvest the thyme you need fresh from the bush, as described above as a whole branch except for a remnant of green, which should be cut off in the morning. Because then the dew has just evaporated and the thyme now has the strongest aroma.
However, if you don’t want to run into the garden all the time in winter, you can also stock up in summer. Then harvest many branches shortly after flowering begins, tie them in bunches and hang upside down to dry in a dark and airy room. The thyme reaches its maximum ripeness during flowering; it now has the highest content of valuable ingredients and is at the same time the most aromatic. In this case, you could clean the thyme bush early in the morning with a fine shower from the garden hose and then harvest it in the morning after this water has dried off, so that no aroma is lost through washing in the kitchen.
Thyme – a lot of interesting varieties
If you buy your thyme plants from a nursery that specializes in herbal plants, you could get into trouble – selection trouble. Here is a little foretaste of which varieties you can all invite into your garden:
- Medicinal quendel or wild thyme (Thymus pulegioides): To be used like the normal thymus vulgare, but medically valuable.
- Bergamot-thyme (Thymus chamaedrys): Tart, fruity aroma, good for fragrant lawns and herbal teas, robust and vigorous and somewhat creeping.
- German thyme (Thymus vulgaris): It is really called that internationally, but of course it also comes from the Mediterranean area, it is the famous “sausage cabbage”.
- English thyme (Thymus vulgaris “Broadleaf English”): Mild variety with a very clear thyme aroma, resinous note of the German variety is missing, large dark green leaves, very vigorous in normal soil.
- French thyme (Thymus vulgaris from France): Smaller and more silvery leaves than the German variety with a lovely aroma, upright growth, poor soil and full sun.
- Green Lemon Thyme (Thymus citriodorus): Dark leaves and pink flowers, better than other varieties for a location in the shade.
- Italian oregano thyme (thymus hybrid): Great flavoring variety with a strong aroma that can bring the flavor to a spaghetti sauce all by itself.
- Cascade thyme (Thymus longicaulis ssp. Odoratus): Robust creeper that grows vigorously and has a very special aroma (porcini thyme).
- Caraway thyme (Thymus herba-barona): Flowering and creeping variety with an aroma that mixes thyme, caraway and cumin, traditional English meat spice.
- Ball thyme, white flowering (Thymus vulgaris var.): Grows on its own into a round bush, little tendency to balding, can even close winter gaps itself, good hedge thyme.
- Lavender thyme (Thymus thracicus): Piquant aroma with a little lavender and rosemary and the scent of pine needles in winter, interesting variety for kitchen experiments.
- Mastic thyme (Thymus mastichina): Interesting variety with the aroma of the wild pistachio, a well-known incense plant, is used as a spice in Spain.
That was only the dozen from A to M, this list goes on to the letter Z like lemon thyme.
Conclusion
Thyme in the garden is a must for every gourmet – if the varieties are not enough to satisfy your willingness to experiment, there are many other ideas for using thyme: from pesticides against groundworms to aromatic bath additives to cosmetic masks or the Use in mosquito repellants.