Which herb is this????

hi, I'm sure it is really easy, but can you say which herb this is, if it is infact a herb - sage rings a bell - but not sure. Whilst your there, do I need to chop it down or any other maintenance.

Steve MRM

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Common Sage.

 

Yep.. sage.

Leave it be at the mo. they are hardy, but, in the spring, if it's taken a bit of a battering over the winter, or if it's looking a bit stragley, chop it back, to where you can see some fresh buds. It looks nice and chunky and healthy to me.

 

I'd be harvesting it throughout winter, as and when I needed some. Sage is a great winter herb when the annual herbs are all finished. It's not just for sage and onion stuffing, it adds flavour to all sorts, especially soups and stews.

Sage is also supposedly good at helping the digestion, especially at helping you to digest fatty foods. In fact this is (according to one account I read of) the very reason why sage and onion stuffing became so popular. The poor would stuff chickens in order to catch the fat as it roasts, to avoiding wasting the calories. The fat would be hard to digest and sage aids in that respect.

Sage also makes a surprisingly nice drink. I occassionally put 3 or 4 leaves in a cup and add hot water, allowing it to mash for a few minutes, then drink it. I find it helps to reduce heartburn and bloating after pigging out (not that I pig out very often).

There is a fair bit of folklore about sage, and the herbalists frequently sing its praises for its medicinal value too. I'm not so sure about all that, but I know it is a fantastic plant for so many reasons. Even if you never use it as a culinary or medicinal herb, just the fact that it looks great and smells lovely, and flowers profusely for a long period throughout summer makes it a good choice in any garden in my mind.

All its praises now sung, I have to say that mine frequently gets struck down with some sort of mould on the leaves which can make it unsightly if its left to get out of control. Regular removal of older leaves seems to combat the problem though.