MINT is the earliest of the culinary herbs of which I have any sort of recollection, when Mum would put a sprig of it in the saucepan when boiling potatoes. It grew in a bed just outside the back door, and it was always there. But it wasn’t until I became a student of gardening, in my teens, that I realised there are hundreds – certainly 600 or more – of types of mint. And, it has to be said, dropping some leaves in a pan of spuds is probably the least inventive way of using them!
Many of these woody herbs are now looking their absolute best, full of freshness,
