Pot Herb is a term coming down from primitive cooking when everything was put into a pot. Vitamins and mineral salts  from herbs boost our immune system and help balance today’s diet. Many old, edible vegetable substances have been lost to the modern diet but the remaining ones are worthy of cultivation.

Top Pot Herbs

Basil has many varieties and is easily grown from seed on the window ledge or in the summer garden. Sweet or common basil has a clove-like scent when bruised and is great with tomatoes. There are other varieties that are lemon scented or smell like tarragon or Fennel. Grow a red leaved variety in the garden border like Red Rubin or Purple Ruffles.

Corn Salad (Valerianella olitoria) was cultivated in monastaries as a salad crop. It is also know as Lamb’s Lettuce or White pot herb and is reputed to go particularly well with game.

Fennel is one of the nine herb charms with Camomile, Thyme, Wormwood, Watercress, Betony, Plantain, nettle and wild apple. The warf ‘dulce’ has white stalks about one foot high like celery with a huge ball at the base. The stalks bulb and even the seeds can be eaten.

Onion needs no introduction as a vegetable and addition to all forms of pot cooking.

Thyme is the 5th in my list and is known as the herb for courage. Grow it in dry rockeries or in paved walks where it can be trodden to release the scent.

Runners up

Parsley, Chives, Chervil, Marjoram, and Bay – all potential ingredients in French Pot-Herb Soup