Master herbalist reaps tasty rewards

EDWARDSBURG -- Start out with a couple of your favorite herbs planted in an urn, and before you know it, you're addicted.

That's what happened to Karen Nelson, owner of Nelson's Herbs at 65391 Dailey Road.

"At first, it was just an interest I had, then it became a passion and now (25 years later), it's just a sickness," she says about growing herbs.

Walking along the wood-chipped paths at Nelson's Herbs, the sun shining warm and bright on the beds, many of the herbs are already quite large and laden with blooms. Nelson makes her way down the path -- winding around several small, medium and large gardens and even a fish pond -- and says, "I love herbs, and I don't know what else I would do. When you're weeding (an herb garden), you're surrounded with scents and textures, flavors and colors. You can weed and eat at the same time."

A certified master herbalist, Nelson says that she's constantly learning and always seeing amazing things in her gardens, which contain more than 100 varieties of herbs.

"I carry 12 different varieties of basil alone," she says. "The one most used is the basic Italian-sweet. But I have cinnamon, lemon, lime, even ararat. Ararat's flavor is multi-spice-like. It tastes like a combination of cloves, cinnamon and licorice all in one."

But what would you do with such an aromatic basil?

"It's good in rice and mid-Eastern dishes," Nelson says. "I carried the anise basil for years, then I learned something from one of my mid-Eastern customers, that it's also called Persian basil. I learn a lot from my customers."

Nelson is happy to pass on her herb-growing knowledge to her customers. She stocks a large collection of gardening, herb gardening and herb cookbooks in her gift shop. She even sells books by mystery writer Susan Wittig Albert, who weaves a particular herb into each of her murder stories.

But Nelson wants to take the mystery out of herb gardening. She recommends the first-time herb gardener start out small: A container garden makes perfect sense and can be moved around or brought indoors.

"This month is a great month to start planting," she says. "It's really better to wait until the first of June. There's still plenty of time for the herbs to get large. Basil actually needs the warm nights."

If you've never tried gardening herbs, Nelson says, don't go overboard. Start out small and start with the herbs you usually use when cooking.

She believes the basic seven herbs are parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, basil, chives and oregano. Once you've mastered the basic herbs, there are endless varieties to try.

"I love lemongrass," Nelson says. "Lemongrass is used in stir fry. The base of the lemongrass" -- she points to the white tender core at the root of the plant, just under the earth -- "that's what you shave into your stir fry. You take away layers of the grass, but you're adding a different dimension to the dish. I love it. Peeling it gives it that good lemon flavor. The oils tend to dissipate at the tops of the grass. The intensity of the flavor is down at the bottom core."

Decades of growing and experimenting have given Nelson rich rewards in the kitchen.

"You should pick off the flowers from the basil to keep the plant bushy during the summer," she says. "So, rather than throw the blossoms away, I dry the flowers and use them for tea."

Nelson also makes her own herb brews, such as double-mint, using peppermint, spearmint and lavender. But she has a warning for those who have never planted mint: Contain the plant.

“You need to plant mint in a five-gallon bucket,” she says. “Cut out the bottom of the bucket and set it in the ground, two inches above the earth. This will keep the plant from going wild. It will go wild otherwise.”

Speaking of going wild, Nelson has 560 lavender plants, 30 different varieties, in her Lavender Labyrinth meditation garden alone. The 60-foot mediation garden, with its winding paths to its inner circle/bench, Nelson says, is an intricate, yet beautiful way to expand an herb garden.