Growing your own garden is one way to reduce your carbon footprint. Even a small garden with a few tomato plants, some beans and other tasty, summer staples can make a difference — fewer trips to the store, fewer goods trucked in from afar. And besides fresh and tasty food, gardening is fun.

Herbs are a wonderful way to get started gardening. Most are readily available, grow happily in poor ground or pots, have many uses and are beautiful. Many are perennials, coming up year after year without your help, and others prolifically spread seeds for the next season. The first herbs that come to mind are culinary herbs like oregano, basil or chives, but there are many beautiful flowers and herbs that are medicinal. Herbs not used fresh are extremely easy to process by drying or freezing and the flavor is exceptional.

Here are some of my favorites to grow, and how I use them:

• Basil, oregano, thyme, marjoram, garlic: seasoning, tomato sauce or soups.
  

• Chives (including the blossom), parsley, dill, cilantro, tarragon, Johnny jump-ups: chopped and mixed with greens for a salad.
  

• Any of the above singly or in combination: herb butter or vinegar.
  

• Basil: pesto.
  

• Mints, anise hyssop, lemon verbena, sage: herbal teas — just put in a cup and fill with boiling water.
  

• Echinacea (purple cone flower): in a vase, steeped for tea, or whole plant pureed with vodka and allowed to soak a couple weeks and strained for an immune boosting tincture. Use just a quarter teaspoon several times a day when a cold is coming on, when allergies are acting up or you have the flu. It is also a good mouth wash, being anti-fungal, antibiotic and anti-viral. It just doesn’t taste good.)
  

• Feverfew: leaves eaten fresh for migraine and other headaches.
  

• Cilantro: ground with water in a blender and strained. The paste is applied to itchy bites, or rashes, the liquid is drunk. Immediate relief.
  

Not all plants are edible. Always use plants from known sources until you get to know a plant well. For example, foxglove (digitalis can be fatal when ingested) looks very similar to comfrey (good for many things) at some stages of growth.

It will be fun to read about other people’s favorite herbs and how they use them.

About the author: Don and Nancy White live in a passive solar house in Rexford they built in 1980, and are building a new home, which combines active and passive solar technology. The house will conserve water by collecting rain water and storing it in a underground cistern for irrigation, toilet and indoor utility use. Avid gardeners, the Whites have many vegetable, herb and flower beds.

Cornell has a home gardening website, with information on growing vegetables, lawns, herbs and flowers. Click here.

Are you starting a garden? Want to share tips or ask for advice? Comment below, or email greenpoint@dailygazette.net.