A YEAR 'or two ago someone "gave me a root of lemon thyme. and I put it into a small herb bed near to the kitchen door where chives and parsley and mint provide the first necessities for herb flavouring. it evidently liked its quarters (well drained and in fun sun most of the day), for it spread over the parsley and then invaded the mint, and by now it is a huge cushion overlapping the low wall that forms the boundary to the bed.
We are now engaged in giving away whole portions of it to friends whose only experience of thyme for flavouring is the common thyme that has to be gathered before the flowers appear so that it can be dried for winter use. It is a splendid stand-by for soups and stews and rissoles but—to my mind, at least—not nearly so good as the lemon variety which can be used all the year round.
With a rosemary bush, a bay tree, thyme and parsley sage and mint, one has all through the year, ingredients for the flavouring of must soups and stews. (Jugged hare is always improved by a small bouquet garni composed of parsley, lemon thyme and rosemary tied firmly together with cotton, cooked with the hare, and fished out just before serving.) This is the month in which to divide lemon thyme, but do it when 1 the soil is moist. The common
thyme is best raised from seed sown any time between March and June.