Hello, friends.

I am doing research on herbs. I am interested in herbs for the following purposes

* cooking, including flavoring, tisanes, and leafy greens for salads

* dyeing

* fragrance

I am somewhat interested in legitimate medicinal uses--meaning actually treating symptoms; not a euphemism for recreational psychotropic drugs.

One thing I have been disappointed to find is that because the subject of herbs is so popular, a lot of books written on the subject are written by pop authors without much personal experience. They will often copy information straight out of old herbals, despite changes in what moderns would consider palatable, modern attitudes regarding taking small doses of known poisons as medicine, or what we now know about certain plants like Sassifras being mildly poisonous and possibly carcinogenic.

For that matter, details are also missing. They might state that such and such a plant makes a refreshing tisane, without explaining when to harvest it or how to brew it.

I bought one of Jim Long's books, not about herbs but about bentwood structures (which I plan to use for supporting vegetables), and discovered that he has a number of other books including one called "Great herb mixes you can make". Given his business it sounds like it might be geared towards real uses of herbs that are actually useful.

I think the herb garden was originally my daughter's project but I seem to have inherited it.

She's grown some odd things like Chenopodium ambrosia. It actually smelled pretty good for a while but then turned kinda bitter. No idea if it is hardy here but as it has produced vast amounts of seed that shouldn't be a problem. I always thought Mignonette was ugly but we've got that too.

I'm going to be observing and collecting information for my website, which will eventually have a section on USEFUL herbs. I'll post a link later when I actually have a section on it, and an easy way to find it. It's done wiki style and stuff gets buried, but I'll index it (and it has a search facility).