Having fresh herbs available for use in the kitchen makes cooking more fun and enhances the flavor of many of your favorite dishes. The leafy herbs— basil, parsley, oregano, rosemary, chives, dill, thyme, and cilantro— are easy to grow in pots or a bed.

Most are perennials so they come back year after year. All can be started from seed if you have the space and time, but seedlings are readily available at your local home improvement store or hardware store in the early spring. All require sunlight and well-draining soil that has appropriate nutrients.

— Basil, one of the most popular, is an annual that must be planted every year. Basil plants can get two feet wide and three feet high so give them plenty of room. Keep the plant cut back so it will branch and remain full. Late in the summer snip off flowers to encourage vegetative growth. Cut the tips, wash and chop the leaves, and enjoy the aroma and flavor added to your dish.

— Oregano is a perennial that, along with basil, can spice up Italian recipes especially marinara sauce and pizza. This herb grows low and spreads along the ground. In our climate oregano stays green all year. Cut it back early in the spring, add a little all-purpose fertilizer, and it will provide stems with small leaves all year.

— Parsley is a biennial that provides vegetative growth in the first year, may die back in winter, then more vegetation the second year, but starting to flower mid-summer. It will reseed itself in an appropriate environment, but to ensure I have enough, I plant every year. The Blue Swallowtail Butterfly (sometimes called the parsley worm) will lay their eggs on the plant and the brightly colored caterpillars will eat the leaves. So plant enough to share. Do not use a broad-spectrum pesticide on your herbs, especially on parsley. Butterflies are pollinators that help lots of crops produce, and you can never be sure this harmful chemical is washed from your herbs.

— Thyme is another perennial that will spread along the ground, so treat it like you would oregano. Its leaves are much smaller so snip several twigs to get enough.

— Sage and chives, both perennials, do well in pots or in a bed. They are usually needed in smaller amounts due to their potency. Chives produce lovely. fluffy, lavender flowers late in summer that will delight you and the pollinators.

—Dill is an annual that gets 2-3 feet tall. It is a lovely bluish-green color and produces heads of yellow flowers late in summer. Both twigs and flowers are used in pickles, but it also adds flavor to mashed potatoes.

— Rosemary is an evergreen perennial that makes a lovely shrub if pruned each year. Rosemary is a must-have for poultry, especially for the holidays. Parsley, rosemary, sage and thyme are traditionally used for the turkey and dressing.

— Cilantro, an annual, should be planted several times through the spring and summer for a better-tasting herb. The plants get leggy and taste bitter when they age. Cilantro is used in Mexican dishes and really enhances fresh guacamole. The seeds of cilantro are the spice coriander and can be kept on your shelf a long time.

All these leafy herbs can be dried and stored for colder seasons if you have space and time. The aroma and flavor fresh herbs adds to your cooking makes them well worth it.

Bonnie Kelley is a Scotland County Master Gardener volunteer.