Hunger is NOT the best sauce!

[British Red]

There is the old saying that "hunger is the best sauce", meaning that if you are hungry enough anything tastes good

In my experience that's frankly hogwash. There is a reason that, for centuries, the price of black pepper was fixed at the equivalent weight in pure gold

Now we keep a fairly comprehensive herbarium and a very good store of spices

Herbarium by British Red, on Flickr

That being said stored items will not last forever. Some items are impossible to produce here (e.g. cinnamon), some are easily foraged (horse radish for example) and some are stupidly easy to grow (e.g. mint). Beyond those items though there a range of things we can grow, and seed save, and produce for ourselves. I think that's important. Wood pigeon for example is, on its own, a slightly earthy and inferior meat. However flash fry it with an oriental sauce, bean sprouts & spring onion and that stored rice has a purpose!

Now any of us can grow Spring Onions they breed true, produce a lot of seed reliably and can be grown in any old pot or container. They over Winter brilliantly too.

Spring onion by English Countrylife, on Flickr

Garlic is simple. Push sone cloves in the ground in September, hoik them out again in June, keep the best, replant

Garlic by English Countrylife, on Flickr

Chillies need heat but we grow them happily in unheated greenhouses and on Windowsills. Some varieties (e.g. Apache), have a lovely compact shape

Chilli plants by English Countrylife, on Flickr

One that I've not, yet, successfully grown is root ginger. It would be a fantastic addition to oriental dishes and sweet dishes - even ginger beer! I'm trying again this year though and I'm determined to do it We've got germination - its now a matter of producing a decent quantity of root!

Root ginger starting by English Countrylife, on Flickr

If I can sort the ginger, it will be soya sauce next

Do you grow anything spicy?

[jansman]

Yes. Chillies, and the same as you; Apache. They are so reliable , and yes, they grow in our cold greenhouse. Also, I have a stand of horseradish, and rather than Spring onions, I grow perennial onions , Welsh, Egyptian and chives. I am not a big fan of garlic,so I don’t grow it ( Mrs J buys it in a tube!) but we have Jack-by-the-hedge if we want a garlicky flavour. Also there are Nasturtiums for a peppery addition to salads.

[British Red]

Pepper is interesting. I have grown mustard from scratch and that's easy. Black pepper I hear won't grow here although I hear Szechuan pepper is possible. Must give that a go!

[GillyBee]

Your garlic looks great! I am trying mine in pots this year to see if it does better than in my rather chalky alkaline soil. I have yet to successfully produce any heads more than a couple of cm across in the soil and it does not help that the local snail population seems to like garlic,

I grow hot chillies in an unheated greenhouse. I have tried lots of varieties in the search for ones that are compact, early and hot. It was almost frost time before Padron started to crop which was a waste of effort. Carolina Reaper was much the same but is so very hot that a little goes a very long way. (We make a very hot chilli oil with 4 or 5 dried Reapers.) Cheyenne is a favourite but no longer easily available. I also like Prairie Fire and Numex Twilight. I save my own seed for these where I can.

I have had no success with ginger but I did manage a very small crop of turmeric last year. I will have another go this year. I think I will try them under the greenhouse bench this year. I understand they like it warm, damp and somewhat shady so it may suit them.

I also have some lemon grass which was started from seed last year and overwintered on a windowsill. It is very scrawny but will hopfully bulk up well this year for a few Thai curries. The flavour seems fine.

[British Red]

Would love to see pictures of the Turmeric - that's one I've not tried! Our default greenhouse chilli is Ohnivec. Huge chillies - up to 8" long. They freeze brilliantly, dry well and have a good heat - about 90,000 Scoville. Not blistering heat but a good cooking strength

[korolev]

We've had an issue with chillies this year; last year (our first) we took some seeds from a bird-eye chilli from Tesco, soaked them in warm water for 48 hours and planted them. They came up great and we ended up with half a dozen plants. We froze all the chillies and are still using them. We also over wintered a couple of plants and they are going good.
This year I tried germinating seeds from the frozen chillies with no joy so I bought a pack and tried with them. No joy there either.
I've ended up buying a few different varieties from the South Devon Chilli Farm (Cumari, Mini Meanie, Paper Lantern) and they seem to be coming on ok.
Mystified as to why I couldn't germinate them though...

[GillyBee]

I had a problem last year with one of the big name suppliers with my chilli seed. Not a single one came up. I complained. They told me I had sown them wrong. I sent photos showing all my chilli seedlings sown on the same day. This made it plain that theirs were the ONLY ones not to come up. 100% failure and over £3 for ten seeds is NOT acceptable. At that point I got a reluctant refund but had lost several weeks of growing time.

So it may just be that you got a batch of bad seed. I have yet to have bad seed from the smaller independent seed suppliers but it does seem to happen with some of the big boys. If you only grow one variety of pepper (not F1 types) then the seed is very easy to save for yourself. You just let the chillies ripen & dry out completely and then pull them apart and store the seed.

(If you are growing more than one variety or also have sweet peppers then you need to keep them apart or in a net bag so that they don't cross pollinate. Fiery sweet peppers or tiny sweet chilli shaped peppers next year are not a nice surprise.)

[British Red]

We've had an issue with chillies this year; last year (our first) we took some seeds from a bird-eye chilli from Tesco, soaked them in warm water for 48 hours and planted them. They came up great and we ended up with half a dozen plants. We froze all the chillies and are still using them. We also over wintered a couple of plants and they are going good.
This year I tried germinating seeds from the frozen chillies with no joy so I bought a pack and tried with them. No joy there either.
I've ended up buying a few different varieties from the South Devon Chilli Farm (Cumari, Mini Meanie, Paper Lantern) and they seem to be coming on ok.
Mystified as to why I couldn't germinate them though...

I've had great results from South Devon Chilli farm seeds . Normally use a well drained potting mix and germinate in a heated propagator in January

[grenfell]

Another one I'll put in the mix is celeriac. Maybe not to everyone's taste but quite flavoursome. Best used in smallish quantities I find. My wife recently made celeriac soup which was perhaps almost a little overpowering but mixed in with other vegetables it can be rather nice.

[Mad Scientist]

Fabulous gardening, everyone! Very envious of your herbarium, Red!