Herb Trios Sizzling Wok

With the summer entertaining season fast approaching, it is time to prepare the garden! What better way to start than with some delicious herbs that are ready and raring to grow. They will fill you meals with fragrance and flavour in no time. Offering you plenty of bragging rights with friends and family.

The Sizzling Wok Herb Trio includes:

Vietnamese Mint, Persicaria odorata. Ginger Mint, Mentha x gracilis. Curry Plant, Helichrysum italicum.

The herbs come pre potted in a 10cm pot, you can pot them on individually, or keep them together and pot them on to a 20-40cm decorative container. You could of course put them in the garden, there are no hard and fast rules!

Vietnamese Mint AKA Vietnamese Coriander, Persicaria odorata is a creeping perennial herb that grows 15-60cm high and wide. In a pot it will spill gracefully from the sides. The handsome foliage is topped with little pink flowers spring/summer. You can use the leaves in soups, woks, rice paper rolls, salads, teas or casseroles. They have a peppery-mint flavour. If you want to break it out of the pot, it likes a moist soil and could be a handsome ground cover. In the right conditions (moist and warm out of afternoon sun) it can run away so keep that in mind – unlikely to happen in cool climes as they are frost tender.

Ginger Mint, Mentha x gracilis is wonderfully spicy with notes of ginger and mint. A lovely addition to salads, fruit salads, stir fries, teas and more, it can be eaten raw or cooked. It grows into a small, upright bush with dark stems and mid green serrated foliage with violet blue flowers summer to autumn. This variety is a cross of M. spicata (Spearmint) and M. arvensis (Corn mint).

Curry Plant, Helichrysum italicum is a fragrant and easy to grow perennial. With evergreen, handsome, silver foliage and yellow flowers it is quite decorative too. Dry tolerant and easy care as well as a natural insect repellent. Use it in moderation for chicken stuffing, dressings, risottos or soups.

While they will be kept small initially with pinching/cutting for dishes, some may eventually outgrow their decorative container at which point you can pot them on individually, plant them out or increase the size of the pot.