A few steps from the kitchen door is a low wooden table creaking with pots of herbs. Knocked together from a packing crate and an old door, now weathered and green with moss, it is home to almost all of my kitchen herbs including thyme and tarragon, several varieties of mints and a lemon verbena. There are two or three clumps of chives, green and golden marjoram (beautiful, but tasting pretty much identical), others of basil and rosemary, and several rose- and lemon-scented pelargoniums.The herb table came about simply because I ran out of space on the kitchen steps. What started as the odd homegrown thyme bush soon became quite a collection, though I will admit to losing as many as I have safely nurtured, probably more.I grow herbs in pots because the soil in the garden is too heavy and rich for most varieties to thrive. Most herbs prefer a thin, well-drained soil – where mine is as rich and claggy as sachertorte. Pots, mostly terracotta – a few made from coir – have turned out to be...
