The secret (garden) ingredient

Summer savoury is almost like thyme but isn't, though thyme isn't exactly thyme either, but at least one thousand different flavours, scents and textures, depending on the variety and, er, time, or season, because thyme tastes different in mid-winter from the greater fragrance that it radiates during a hot sunny summer.

Summer savoury is small leafed, small clumped and does well in sunny pots. The more sun, the more flavour. It isn't called summer savoury for nothing. And the flavour is … incredible. You get the first taste and then echoes, each one different.

I pick long stems of it, then tie them into a bundle to simmer with the lemon chicken gravy, or the tomato for a gazpacho or the stock for a zucchini soup. For the pikelets and rosti the tiny soft leaves are stripped from the tough stem. Slide your fingers along it and they'll come off.

Herbs are the secret of both five-star chefs and peasants. Add exactly the right herb – and there may be several possible perfect herbs you might add to any ingredient or combination of ingredients and something like a spud or a zucchini is transformed.

The secret of our smoked salmon frittatas? Dill that grows like a weed in the summer garden. Plant it now and give it sun. The secret of our oven chips? Heat the well-oiled oven trays as hot as possible, then add chopped potatoes, not too close together or they won't crisp then scatter with chunky sea salt and a very light scatter of rosemary leaves between the slices, not on top where they will blacken. Bake in the top of the oven at the highest settling possible till the chips are crisp and light brown.

Rosemary also comes in several flavours, as well as many growing habits, from a tall bush to a neater, less vigorous one that makes an excellent, longer-lived hedge, if trimmed carefully – don't cut below the leaves or the branch, and then even the bush, may die back. The prostrate form is lovely spilling over an earth-filled urn or stone wall, but not quite as delicious as some others. It still is pretty delicious though.

The best flavour maybe the original Rosmarinus officinalis that can be hard to find as the newer cultivars have been bred for flowers, foliage and growing habits rather than flavour. But the fragrance is so strong that possibly only experienced palates will pick up much difference. Or maybe they won't.

The classic summer secret herb is tarragon, with its elusive not quite aniseed flavour. There is truly nothing like it added to almost any sauce, but with discretion, chopped into salad sandwiches or on a cracker and cheese, transforming grilled tomatoes or the sour cream or crème fraiche on a baked potato in its jacket.

Rub a little between your fingers before you buy, as some are far better scented than others; grow in full sun with no weed competition and never ever plant the seeds or it will be Russian tarragon, not French, and have little flavour, if any. French tarragon must be grown from cuttings and is short lived. Or maybe just for me in our harsh summers and winters (we do have perfect springs and autumns, to compensate.)

And then there is basil, which is no secret whatsoever as, unlike other herbs, basil is usually best scattered on at the end of cooking, or in quickly cooked dished like pizzas. Which reminds me I have yet to plant our summer's basil, which is deeply negligent. How can we have mid-summer feasting with no midsummer basil? Small leafed, deeply scented basil, large leafed, milder basil, pungent Thai basil mixed with coriander …

Basil is never secret. And now, none of the others are, as well.

. Making a note (again) – plant basil … lots!;

. Not filling vases with anything as outside each window is a glory of roses, deep pink from the dining room, pale pink outside my study, the richest red from the living room;

. Cherishing yet again the soft patterns of lichen that have grown on old garden chairs and tree trunks;

. Eating a few ripe loquats, not making jam with the rest, and hoping many, many birds arrive soon to eat them as well as the two possums arguing in the lemon tree;

. Eating strawberries, sun warmed; and

. Marvelling at the bright purple snapdragon, over a metre high, that suddenly bloomed under an avocado tree – it has been twenty-five years since I last planted snapdragons as they never did well here growing short and often mildewed. But this one is glorious. It is almost certainly a gift from the birds, who excreted its seeds as they sat on a branch to eat avocadoes. Fair exchange.

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