Mark Anderson wrote:

I just bought a Lovage herb seedling from the garden store. I've been
looking for herbs that grow tall and big and the label said that this
will grow 40" in height. After reading about it on the web it seems what
I'm looking for but it also looks a lot like Cilantro. Last year when I
grew Cilantro, that plant petered out around July. I need something that
will have nice foliage into autumn. Does anyone have experience with
growing this herb?

Nothing like Cilantro in habit or flaver.[thank goodness-- like weird
stuff, but have never acquired a taste for cilantro]

I love my Lovage plant. Mine is 10-12 years old & except for sharing
the occasional shovelful with an admirer I haven't done a thing to it.
If I remember right it came in a 4" pot-- for the past several years
it has been holding at about a 2foot in diameter clump.

It emerges before my Rhubarb does as a nice, round green mound. By
mid-summer it is 3-4' tall. In late summer it gets some seed heads
which I should probably snip, but look attractive, so I leave them.
The hollow stalks stand through most of my New York winters & seem to
disintigrate just in time so they don't ruin the appearance of the
spring plant.

I wish I used it more often in the kitchen, but as it is I mostly just
use it as a celery *leaf* substitute. It is much stronger flavored
than celery so it adds no texture to a meal.

A few snips in a potato salad. A bit in a seafood salad. A little
in soups.. . . a leaf or two to chew on as I walk into the garden. .
.. .

We've used the hollow stalks as straws to drink Virgin Mary's.

Jim