That's really up to you Darren. I use thyme in quite a number of dishes. Dried herbs could be pricey at the market and of course fresh will give you better flavor, but those need looking after and it could easily get overwhelmed by weeds in the garden. Why not just grow an herb garden in your kitchen? You can most likely pick up a kit at your DIY store or garden shop.

I realise it's up to me BG... Some herbs are concentrated in flavour by drying? It's not something I'd grow in the ground, just in pots. But if it grows so slowly it may be a waste of a pot?

I meant there are pros and cons to growing thyme, and buying it. It may grow slowly, but once it does grow,you will always have it handy.

Well I grow it in a pot on my balcony in full sun, where it does really well, but make sure you do get Thymus vulgaris - there are a lot of thyme varieties available and some of them make reasonable, slow growing ground cover in dry, sunny situations, but don't get very tall, more of a creeping plant. I grow it because I use a lot of it - I could use dried, but then you've got all those bits of dried thyme stuck all over your carrot batons in butter, which I don't like, so I cut a lump off the plant and just pop that in the foil parcel so it can be lifted out at the end of cooking time. All the flavour, none of the specks... also great in your home made potato salad (unlike the dried form) but obviously, the dried forms are stronger so you need less of them, and using it fresh in something like that means stripping the leaves from the stems, which can be a bit fiddly. That and rosemary are definitely worth growing in my opinion, though I do replace the rosemary about every 3 years once it gets too large and woody in a pot. I use short branches from both when making stock too... I just wish I had the space to grow Fennel - the leaves from that are fab with fish and in potato salad, but it needs a deep pot and it dies down in winter.

I''ve had the Thyme probably 4, maybe 5 years, and last autumn I was obliged to remove half the top growth to keep it in check, so although you might have to be a bit careful how much you cut off in its first year, after that, its not that slow a grower. Another advantage is pollinating insects like bees love the flowers...

I find tarragon quite useful to grow. It freshens the air and you can go either sweet or savory with it. Works well either way.

I can buy a bag of dried thyme leaves locally for under £1.
Thyme, tarragon, oregano, etc. don't seem to be degraded taste-wise by drying like mint or basil?
I'll give growing it a try, why not...
Any other culinary herb thoughts welcomed☺
Is it lovage that has the strong celery taste? Wonder if I could dry that & grind it to avoid the salt in celery salt but still have the flavour

Darren, you can buy celery seeds in some dried herb sections of the supermarket - they give the flavour of celery salt without the salt... I don't know about lovage, never tried it. I think I found the celery seed pack in the Indian section, where they sell cumin, sesame seeds, dried garlic, turmeric nd so on in packets of different sizes (which always work out much cheaper than the little pots and packets in the standard herb section).

I wouldn't be without my thyme. I have it in a pot outside and it loves dry conditions. But as bamboo says make sure you get T vulgaris if its for cooking.

I often chop herbs and freeze in ice cube trays when they are growing really well.

While we're on the subject of herbs, I think chives are essential (I freeze those in little foil packets for use in winter) but last year for the first time ever in early spring, mine were completely infested with what looked like very persistent black fly, and now, I don't have any chives at all, they died - is there something specific that affects them, Seaburngirl?

I remember vividly Mary Berry saying on telly that she NEVER uses dried Thyme as it improves nothing. I have always grown common thyme. The bees love it, it grows well here in freezing cold Scotland, and the smell when you get down to weed around it is absolutely wonderful. A few sprigs in your Roasting tin......sublime! YES, definitely worth growing, as are all the other varieties of Thyme! This year I am growing Chervil for the first time. Never tried it before. :)

Eileen made a good point about using the freezer & that's what I do with basil when I get a huge glut all at once, then nothing for the rest of the year. Instead of icecube trays, I just fill a giant ziploc freezer bag. It works out.

So it'll overwinter outdoors without problems CK? That'd be a bonus!
I quite enjoy simple pickling too so I'll need dill for the baby cukes. Maybe there's ways to make more strongly flavoured oils so that small amounts would go further?

Oh yes. As long as the drainage is sharp and the position is in full sun. But you’ll want to replace it every few years because it gets woody like Lavender.

Thanks Karen, that helps. If I can get it going in a pot or two then pretty much forget it till I need some then there's no reason not to grow it. & if Mary Berry says so, it must be true☺
I've got to take some rosemary cuttings from one that's getting woody so I assume that's similar to lavender?

Thanks all by btw! I was having a terrible, grump-inducing day yesterday. So many ideas about culinary herbs is the distraction I needed☺
Bamboo, another thing you can buy in 'ethnic' supermarkets is nigella seed that will germinate. You could have a field of love in a mist for £1.49!

Bamboo can I send you some chives? I have plenty

make sure it is Nigella sativa and not N damascena for culinary use though.

as far as I am aware Bamboo chives can be affected by onion root fly but also aphids. seems you had a bad experience with them. worth trying again though.

I often do a stew mix/pasta mix of fresh herbs. frozen in cubes is a perfect stock cube size

yes Darren cuttings from rosemary in the same way as lavender.

Steragram: that would be lovely, thanks, but better send them with no soil! Been trying to get some in the garden centre, but they haven't had any the last two times I've been...

3 yrs ago I grew on the potted ones [living herbs] from the supermarket. last year did that with basil and coriander too. saved me having to germinate them.

Well that's the funny thing, Seaburngirl - I couldn't even find a pot of chives in the supermarket during the last month... they have others like coriander, parsley, basil, but not chives. No mint or rosemary either, not that I need those... Weird... I also remember reading that some of the 'chives' sold in pots aren't actually chives, but some other plant from the allium family that I now can't remember, other than realising it wasn't something you wanted to let loose in your garden...