I just bought a Lovage herb seedling from the garden store. I've been looking for herbs that grow tall and big and the label said that this will grow 40" in height. After reading about it on the web it seems what I'm looking for but it also looks a lot like Cilantro. Last year when I grew Cilantro, that plant petered out around July. I need something that will have nice foliage into autumn. Does anyone have experience with growing this herb?
Mark Anderson expounded:
Lovage is a perennial, cilantro is a fast growing annual. I've grown lovage for years. It frequently gets higher than 40". It's great in potato salad, tastes like celery.
Nothing like Cilantro in habit or flaver.[thank goodness-- like weird stuff, but have never acquired a taste for cilantro]
I love my Lovage plant. Mine is 10-12 years old & except for sharing the occasional shovelful with an admirer I haven't done a thing to it. If I remember right it came in a 4" pot-- for the past several years it has been holding at about a 2foot in diameter clump.
It emerges before my Rhubarb does as a nice, round green mound. By mid-summer it is 3-4' tall. In late summer it gets some seed heads which I should probably snip, but look attractive, so I leave them. The hollow stalks stand through most of my New York winters & seem to disintigrate just in time so they don't ruin the appearance of the spring plant.
I wish I used it more often in the kitchen, but as it is I mostly just use it as a celery *leaf* substitute. It is much stronger flavored than celery so it adds no texture to a meal.
A few snips in a potato salad. A bit in a seafood salad. A little in soups.. . . a leaf or two to chew on as I walk into the garden. . . .
We've used the hollow stalks as straws to drink Virgin Mary's.
Jim
Hi...I grow Loveage (Levisticum officinale)as a screen plant to obscure my daffodils (Narcissus) when they are dying back. It reaches
60 to 70 inches by early summer. It is a good plant for giving height and structure thereby creating an interesting backdrop which requires very little maintenance beyond disposal of the dead growth in late autumn each year.As a herb it has a strong flavour and I am not fond of it but it can be added to a vegetable stock and be used as a substitute for additional salt in soup.
I believe it helps to reduce pest problems organically by giving shade and promoting an environment suitable for ground beetles.
My garden is at 55 degrees north, gets full sun but a Scots climate can be quite wet. The plant copes with the garden micro-climate without any special measures. I regard it as a good, vigorous and hardy screening plant
Years ago when I had a passion for making homemade wine, I experimented with lovage wine. I used a mix of seeds saved from the previous years crop and green leaves and shoots. After aging, I thought it was excellent, somewhat similar to dandelion wine, but with its own unique lovage taste. Others in the household did not share my enthusiasm, and still remark upon it occasionally...
At any rate, for me it is an easy, reliable plant, not flashy but very nice to have around.
Cheers, Sue
I've got a recipe for a Lovage cordial. Though I love my Lovage & enjoy an occasional cordial, I haven't been curious enough to ever make this one. It just seems weird. [like garlic ice cream]
Jim
I found that after cutting up Lovage roots that my hands had a curry like smell for several days despite frequent washing.
Looks like everyone already said what I wanted to say about lovage. The only other thing I have to add is that my brother mowed it off last year by accident and it came back in a matter of days.
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