Lovage

One plant of intense celery flavor that towers over the herb bed: a tough, long-lived perennial whose leaves, stalks, seeds, and root all taste of celery - and one plant is usually plenty.

Give it rich, moist, deep soil and room at the back of the bed; start from fresh seed, a transplant, or a division, and plan for one very large plant.

Lovage wants rich, deep, consistently moist soil and full sun to part shade - it's happiest in cool-summer climates and appreciates a little afternoon shade where summers are hot. Because it grows into a 5-7 foot giant with a deep taproot, site it at the back of the bed with 2-3 feet of room, and improve the soil deeply before planting.

Start it from a transplant or a division for the fastest result, or from seed - but use fresh seed, as lovage seed loses viability quickly and old seed barely germinates. Surface-sow or barely cover it (light aids germination), starting indoors 5-8 weeks before last frost or fall-sowing outdoors to let winter stratify it. One plant is plenty for most cooks; two if you want a steady supply for drying and stock.

Keep it moist and fed, harvest young tender leaves, cut it back after flowering for a fresh flush, and divide every few years - otherwise it is nearly carefree.

Lovage is low-maintenance once established. The keys are moisture and feeding: keep the soil rich and evenly moist for lush, tender growth, and give it a spring dose of compost or balanced fertilizer to fuel its big flush. Harvest the young outer leaves and stalks, which are the most tender; older leaves and post-flowering growth turn tough and very strong.

The one useful trick is to cut the plant back hard after it flowers - even to the ground - and water well; it responds with a fresh flush of tender young leaves for late-season cooking and preserving. Removing the flower stalks as they form also keeps the plant in leaf longer. Every 4-5 years, divide the crown in early spring to renew it or make new plants. In cold zones it dies back completely and overwinters as a hardy root with no help.

The celery herb: use young leaves, stalks, seeds, and root wherever you'd want a deep savory celery note - soups, stocks, stews, potatoes, and broths - but use it with a light hand.

Lovage is a savory workhorse. Its intense celery flavor makes it superb in soups, stocks, broths, and stews, with potatoes and other vegetables, in savory breads and biscuits, and chopped into salads, egg dishes, and compound butters. The hollow stalks can be cooked like celery, blanched, or candied, and famously used as an edible straw for a Bloody Mary or tomato juice. The seeds serve as a celery-seed-style spice for pickles, breads, and dressings, and the root can be cooked or grated like celeriac.

Because the flavor is so concentrated, use it sparingly - a few young leaves flavor a whole pot of soup. It also dries and freezes exceptionally well, keeping its savory punch for winter stock and soups better than most herbs, which is a large part of its old value in the kitchen.

Used in seasoning amounts, so not a bulk food, but the leaves supply vitamins and aromatic oils; its main value is delivering deep savory flavor for almost no calories.

Lovage is a seasoning herb, used in the small amounts its intense flavor demands, so it isn't eaten for calories or bulk. Leaf for leaf, though, it supplies vitamin C, some B vitamins and minerals, and aromatic oils rich in phthalides and terpenes - the same compound family that gives celery its scent and savory depth.

Its practical nutritional value is as a flavor tool: a little lovage makes vegetable soups, broths, and stocks deeply savory without added salt or fat, which is genuinely useful in low-sodium cooking. The root and seeds add fiber and minerals when used. Treat lovage as a healthful way to build savory flavor rather than as a vegetable in its own right.

Lovage is a traditional European medicinal herb as well as a kitchen one. Its root and seed have a long use as a carminative for gas and bloating, a digestive, and a gentle aquaretic (increasing urine flow) used to flush the urinary tract. Food-safe in culinary amounts, but medicinal doses are avoided in pregnancy and kidney disease. Educational only, not medical advice.

Lovage has been a medicinal as well as a culinary herb since antiquity, grown in Roman and monastery physic gardens for the digestion and the urinary tract, and it retains a recognized place in European herbal medicine.

Traditional and recognized uses: the celery-scented root and seed are classic carminatives, taken for gas, bloating, and indigestion, and gentle digestive tonics. Lovage root is best known as a mild aquaretic (it increases the flow of urine without irritating the kidneys) and has an established traditional use in 'irrigation therapy' - flushing the urinary tract to help with minor urinary complaints and to help prevent gravel and stones, taken with plenty of fluids. It was also used as a mild expectorant and a breath freshener. The activity comes from its essential oil (phthalides and terpenes) and coumarins.

Honest caveats: the herb is food-safe in normal culinary amounts, but medicinal-strength doses of the root, seed, or oil should be avoided in pregnancy (it can stimulate the uterus) and in kidney disease or reduced kidney function, and irrigation-therapy use requires drinking plenty of fluids. Like other carrot-family plants it contains furanocoumarins that can cause skin photosensitivity when large amounts of sap meet sunlight. Educational information, not medical advice.

A Mediterranean herb spread across Europe by the Romans and grown in every medieval monastery garden - once a major pot-herb and medicine, now an underused old-world classic.

Lovage is one of the great old herbs of Europe. Native to the southern European and eastern Mediterranean mountains, it was carried across the continent by the Romans and became a fixture of medieval and monastery gardens, where it was grown as a major pot-herb, a medicine, and a strewing herb. It appears in Charlemagne's list of plants for the imperial estates and in countless old herbals, valued for digestion, as a diuretic, and as a breath freshener.

Its names carry that history: Levisticum derives from Ligusticum, 'of Liguria,' the Italian region, and the English 'lovage' is a folk reshaping of the same word - later tangled up with 'love' and a reputation as a love charm. Widely grown into the nineteenth century and the source of the intense savory note in some traditional 'Maggi' seasonings, lovage faded as celery took over the kitchen, and today it's a cottage-garden classic ripe for rediscovery.

Tough, bitter leaves mean it flowered or dried out; tunneling squiggles are leaf miners; too-strong flavor means using old leaves - harvest young and cut back for a fresh flush.

Leaves gone tough, bitter, or overpoweringly strong: the plant has flowered, or the leaves are old - cut the plant back hard, water, and harvest the fresh young flush; always use the youngest leaves. Pale, winding tunnels or blotches in the leaves: leaf miners (a carrot-family pest) - pick off and destroy affected leaves; the plant easily outgrows light damage. Clusters of aphids on new growth: hose off or use insecticidal soap; lovage's own flowers draw the beneficial insects that control them. Yellow or brown leaf spots in wet, crowded conditions: a celery-type leaf spot - improve airflow, avoid overhead watering, and remove affected leaves. Plant small, tough, and struggling: usually too little moisture or too-poor soil, or too much summer heat - enrich the soil, water more, and give afternoon shade in hot climates.

A very cold-hardy perennial that thrives in cool-summer climates; it needs winter chill and moisture and struggles in hot, dry, or frost-free regions.

Zones 3-5: ideal - lovage is very cold-hardy (to about -30°F), loves the cool summers, and returns as one of the first herbs up each spring; keep it moist and it thrives for years. Zones 6-8: grows well with rich, moist soil and some afternoon shade where summers turn hot; a mid-season cutback and good watering keep it in tender leaf. Zone 9: at the warm edge - plant in fall, give shade and steady moisture, and expect it to struggle in the heat; it needs winter chill to be a good long-term perennial. Zones 10+: generally too hot and frost-free - lovage does poorly without cool winters and moist, cool summers. The plant's real preference is a cool, damp, temperate climate; heat and drought are its enemies, not cold.