Lovage

 In the Herb Garden

Going to keep this short and sweet because I have been busy with getting the garden planted and taking care of the meat chickens.  This week, I thought I would highlight one of my favorite new herbs...lovage!  Lovage is a perennial herb plant that tastes like celery.  I will be honest, I am not sure how or where I heard about lovage, but I just remember that once I heard about it, I just had to get one to put in my herb garden.  I found one in Spokane when Henry and I went out for a date night to watch The Biggest Little Farm movie in June 2019.  It was on the way home from this date night that we hit a deer with our minivan and it got totaled.  Then, I got my pickup!  That was a memorable evening and I can't imagine trying to take care of Mark's girls with a minivan.  Last time we picked up feed it was a half ton in the bed of the pickup...that never would have fit in the minivan.  But, I digress...

I wanted to mention that, if you live locally in Moscow, ID, I saw some lovage plants at Fiddler's Ridge Nursery.

I planted the lovage in the herb garden and it has done well.  This spring, it really came to life!  It was over 6 feet tall!  I had no idea it would get so big!  I should have taken a pic before I cut it down but I didn't think to do that at the time.  Here is a pic after I cut it back...it is still really big!

I brought it inside and picked the leaves off of the stalks.  The stalks are kind of stiff so I did not bother to try and dry them.  I placed the leaves on drying racks and let them dehydrate overnight.  This will go into the herb blend that I make to feed to the girls this winter.

You can eat the leaves, stalks, seeds, and even roots!  It can be dried or frozen to store and use in soups or stews.  As I mentioned earlier, it has a strong celery flavor so use it any recipe where you would put celery.  You can make a tea from the leaves, use it to make a flavored vinegar or flavored salt, sauté the roots to be served as a side dish, or use the stalks to make an old fashioned candy!  Recently, I added some to our vegetable lasagna and it was delicious.

Lovage has several therapeutic benefits too.  Taken from theherbalacademy.com:

Lovage has been used in infusions, tinctures, decoctions, vinegars, elixirs, lozenges, and bath and foot soaks.

All parts of the lovage plant have been used therapeutically (and culinarily). Teas of the leaf and stalk were common and used for sore throats and tonsil problems, rheumatism/arthritis, jaundice, and for digestion. Lovage is known to be a diuretic and was considered good for kidney stones and to increase the flow of urine (Wood, 2007).

The roots were used in salves for skin problems and put in bath water for aching joints or skin problems.

The seeds, collected when ripe, were chewed on for digestion and gas.

At one time boils were treated with the lovage leaves fried in oil and used as a poultice.

Lovage is in the same family as osha (Ligusticum porter) and therefore, some herbalists consider it as possible lung ailment relief (Wood, 2007).

Lovage is good for the chickens too!  It has powerful anti-inflammatory properties and can promote respiratory health.  It is also a blood detoxifier.  Lovage has been used for medicinal properties for centuries!

So, that is it...short and sweet...we are enjoying the warmer weather and out in the garden a lot lately.  Hope your garden is growing well!

~Denise