Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs

• Now is also the time to divide mint, chive, tarragon, and creeping thyme.

• Plant chervil, coriander, dill, rosemary, and summer savory outside after the last spring frost date for your area. Your Extension agent should be able to give you the date.

• All-America Selections Winner for 1992, the Dwarf Dill Fernleaf, is half the height of regular dill and more wind tolerant. It is slower to bolt to seed, and the flavor is excellent.

• If you harvest mint frequently, growth will be more vigorous. Be sure to grow it in a container to keep it from taking over your garden.

• Plant second early and maincrop potatoes (as in March). Sow French beans for early cropping and outdoor tomatoes under glass. Continue sowing celery and celeriac indoors as in March.

• At the end of the month, sow runner beans, sweetcorn, marrows, courgettes, squashes, pumpkins and outdoor cucumbers under glass and Florence fennel outdoors.

• Plant out peppers, cucumbers, aubergines and tomatoes in pots and growing bags in the heated greenhouse.

• Bronze-leaved fennel Foeniculum vulgare 'Atropurpureum', an anise-scented herb that grows to 4 feet tall, looks great in the perennial border with tall, red- or white-flowered phlox or tall, silver-leaved perennials, including artemisia.

• For a handsome addition to your herb collection, try lovage Levisticum officinale, a hardy perennial with a sharp, but sweet, celery flavor. Leaves can be used sparingly in soups and salads stems can be blanched or eaten raw and seeds can be added to candies, bread and cakes.

• Start herb seeds indoors in moist medium. Place in bright, indirect light and move to a sunny window when germination begins. When the seedlings are 2 to 3 inches tall, transplant into peat pots for the garden or into clay pots for use on your terrace or balcony. Some herbs easily grown for transplanting include chives, sage, sweet marjoram, basil, summer savory and parsley.

Gardening is an exercise in optimism. Sometimes, it is a triumph of hope over experience. - Marina Schinz

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