Lovage: Perennial Celery, Perfect for Food Forests, Veggie Gardens, & Fruit Guilds 

Lovage is the herb I will always grow no matter how little space I might have 💚 And don't be over cautious with the amounts you use. One of my favourite recipes is a lovage sauce. When you cook a chicken you make a thin bechamel sauce with some of the stock and add 2-3 handfuls of chopped lovage leaves and cook for a further 5-10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with the chicken and freshly harvested potatoes. It tastes amazing of summer! And remember to freeze a lot of the finest leaves from early summer. Then you can add some summer smell til your stews and soups during winter.

Loving this series of videos on particular perennial veggies please keep them coming!

Lovage is a great easy to grow plant. It grows to around 6 or 7 foot in my garden in the UK. It also self seeds. The key to getting good germination is to use fresh seeds. I have some germinated and growing the seed leaves within a week at the moment (mid August). The seeds can be used the same as celery seeds. It also makes great soup, potato and lovage soup is nice, made the same as any potato and watercress soup but with lovage leaves replacing the watercress.

A friend planted lovage just to have their hollow stems to use as straws for bloody marys! Ha! Like Angela and others, I, too, enjoy using lovage in cooking. Great video.

great, I like lovage, where I come from, Romania, we use it a lot in soups like a big bundle of it, the stalks simmered in the broth and the leaves added at the end like parsley. Sometimes with also with a big bundle of dill and parsley. It is also used to flavor a fermented bran beverage called bors either drunk plain or used to flavor sour soups like 500 ml to a liter added near the end of cooking, 1 l of this beverage is as tart as 1 1/2 lemons. In some areas people also add lovage to stew like parsley or dill, a big bundle of it. I have a plant growing in the garden for several years near some black currants and raspberries. it's doing pretty well. What you call celery as in celery stalk does not grow very well where I live, we call celery what you would call celeriac in English which is better suited for the climate here. I live in a mountainous area, it would be the equivalent of zone 5, the last frost was in mid april here, the winter is 5 months long, it can drop to -30 celsius, even in the summer the temperature is drops to half value during the night, sometimes even as low as 7-8 degrees celsius. Tarragon and Rhubarb ( also used to give a tart flavor to soups and stews here, besides preserves and pie filling) and fennel for seeds are some of the perennial vegetables that can easily grow here. I will plant asparagus to see how it grow even though I have only tasted it once before. It will probably end up in a soup or a meat stew like the rest of the vegetables here. You can also use the seeds as a very potent aromatic spice in stews or soups or sauces, toasted an ground or just sauteed in fat in a similar way to cumin or other aromatic seeds. Thanks for the good and honest content on your channel. Take care, best.

Lovage is definitely planned this year as I transition my garden to permaculture. I haven't been this excited about gardening in YEARS. Thanks for all you do!

just want to say I've been having pretty good luck using Etsy to buy food forest plants that I can't get anywhere else.

I've grown lovage the last 3 years, and I've moved and divided the same plant twice over that time. It's much easier than regrowing from seed.

I've thrown the lovage seeds from our plant for years all over the place and oddly this year I'm seeing volunteers everywhere! Maybe the cool/wet year we're having is what they need to get going

There were two big bushes of this in the garden in my new house. I use it dried in place of celery in sauces and soups and it is delicious. I had never heard of it before.

Had a huge lovage plant at my former home - was there when we bought the place and still there when we left - so about 30 years. It never spread beyond its little area. Looked wonderful most of the season, was about 5 ft. tall, but pretty pitiful in the fall every year. Now trying to get a new plant going at our new home. Was getting too shaded by some currants, so moved it last year - hoping for a great comeback this summer. I despise celery in anything, but love the flavor, so use lovage and celery seed for that kind of seasoning in my food.

I am not planting a food forest. I am planting a forest with food. I hope you can see the difference. LOL I have 8 lovage plants that I planted everywhere close to my house in my property last year. They all came back and are thriving right now. I don't practice permaculture. I practice Fukuoka natural farming. There are major differences between the two practices.

My seeds all germinated. I have about 20 plants. lol Good video.

I'm with you... Love the taste of celery, hate the texture. I'm growing celeriac this year, but so far it is a bit fussy to grow from seed and I want something easy. Also... I can relate to the kids not liking your homemade versions of things. Oh well, I guess, we tried!

Perfectly timed, thank you. I love celery and am planning to plant lovage again as my food forest is also becoming shadier. I am always thrilled whenever my herbs self-seed, can the world have too many wonder herbs? Probably not! (happy BDay I remember from last year it was near this time) I thank you for sharing your knowledge, life and humor with us. Love it. Be well.

Thank you for this amazing information about lovage! I divided ours and both plants are no less than 8 feet tall this year, which I believe is year 4! I have to cut them back and divide.

The stalks can be cut and dried then used as pollinator reeds for mason and leaf cutter bees. Our lovage grew to over 8 ft tall , likely because it was planted in a shaded area and was reaching for light.

I love my lovage..have a few plants that are going on their 10th season...mine do get at least 6 ft tall...ive never gotten seeds that are viable but I'm in zone 4 so shorter season. I use it a lot but also I do grow celery...i eat a lot of celery and use the lovage mostly in soup and bone broth. But a great plant to grow..easy also.

Loved is very helpful for headaches: fresh leaf put on your head and cover tight.

Whaaaaaat homemade tortillas are so much better than store bought. Get with the program, Angela’s kids lol

Cornell Farm carried lovage starts multiple times last year (maybe not a trip to the Westside), and looks like Permaculture Rising may have had it on offer. But now I want to try growing it from seed, after watching this. Thanks.

Great timing! I just purchased a lovage plant from the local nursery. I noticed that there are actually 3 plants in the pot and planned to divide them, in hope that one might actually survive this time. Though the tag attached says full sun, I now understand why my plants always died ... sunscald in zone 9 of the GulfCoast. Thanks for all the great info!! I will be planting in a shader location this round!!

lovage was a nice surprise (after I figured it out) I moved to my new place. I divided it last year for the first time because it was HUGE and made a few other folks pretty happy! I moved a smaller section closer to the apple trees and hoping for success.

Just had to say, It brings me happiness when you wear this cardigan- it was a staple of my mom’s closet in the 90s…and probably still in her closet :) And of course appreciate learning about these perennial veg I know nothing about!!

I love this! I didn’t know lovage tasted like celery. Celery seed is a pig to germinate so will definitely be getting some seed. Thanks Angela

Just bought some Lovage seeds. Can't wait until my seeds get here and get this planted.

We're starting a food perenial garden bed this Spring. Good King Henry,Lovage, Cardoon (maybe an annual in my zone of 5B) gonna try it though and see what happens. Hoping to plant 2 Cardoon. 1 mulched heavily and very little mulch. Thanks for the informative video. Really enjoy your channel.

The flowers of lovage are amazing. They attract tiny insects I never saw before and wasps for sure. They are important pollinators so that was wonderful to see. And the taste is great too, I can feel cardamon besides the celery taste.

This is the perennial we are growing in our permaculture orchard as well. I decided to give it a try since we always have a hard time growing it.

Good content... So excited to try butter cup squash this yr!!

Yay! New video. I was wondering if you could also do a video on your mulberry plant specifically? Also what are your thoughts on Alpine Strawberries in part shade?

Lovage reminds me of the Maggi spice that my mother bought when I was growing up.

Grew it here in SC last spring from seed and agree it does get sunburned w the summer Sun. I moved it to a shadier spot this year. Will see how it does

Thanks Angela, these plant profiles are great

We grow both lovage and leaf celery. We aren't sure if the leaf celery is biennial or perennial, yet, but its growing beautifully through the recent freezes and its leaves have a great celery flavor. Leaf celery is a smaller plant around 2 ft tall. I got my first lovage about 30 years ago, and occasionally I divide and share or move parts of it. We like to cut fresh spring lovage tips and make a "pesto" of fresh lovage and olive oil to store in the freezer for times the lovage is dormant or when it gets bitter in late summer. I cut the summer tops back in early fall to get another flush of green tips for the fall jar of pesto, since frost brings dormancy. I have had lovage plants send flower stalks up as high as 7 feet, but most of the time the plant is more 3-4 ft tall. Only the flower stalks get really tall.

Great video, thanks for the introduction to lovage.

Thank you. I just started my seeds. We like to juice celery. I don’t like the watered down taste. I’m hoping to add some of this in with it. I’m going to try growing celery this year. I heard it is much better flavor than store bought. I can’t wait to try lovage. Thank you again

Thanks so much for your sharing your knowledge.

My kid and I started our Fedco lovage seeds this morning! Looking forward to growing a new plant and really hoping we get some successful germination. I also saved some of the seeds to try fall sowing, as well, in case that ends up being a more successful option.

I'm going to have to try this! We've been eating a ton of broth lately and I'm intimidated by the prospect of growing celery.

New sub! Renewal project zone 6a. Will be binge watching on rainy days!

How did I not know about perennial celery!?!? 🤯

I got some from my colleagues. It's a nice plant, I use it in stews sometimes. Mine hasn't flowered yet... Maybe there's something I should be doing

Do you have a list of perennial veggies? I have asparagus, rhubarb, and some herbs like sage that seem to survive the winters here. I had never heard of Sea Kale or King Henry, but I'm going to research those. And lovage for sure.

Put a bit more healthy sweetner, salt and healthy oil into your tortilla recipe;) It'll still be way healthier than the preservative filled, sad flour store-bought ones, and they'll scarf em down!

If you make bee hotels use the stems!

I like celery but don't grow it in my garden. If I spot some seed for this I'll try growing some for sure.

I’d love to find a start somewhere. I had it in my idaho yard, pretty plant. Buying seeds for one plant doesn’t make sense, mine was 6’.

My lovage grows to 6 feet or so every year in my front yard herb garden, and my bitchy neighbor absolutely hates it!

I would like to grow more perennials in my backyard, but the plants are so huge. When I see that a plant can grow to 3-5 ft tall and wide I just think it’s not for me. My backyard is tiny and I grow in containers. Any advice for container gardeners? If grown in a container, will perennials stay smaller and still live for more than one season? Or should I try to manage the size of the plant with frequent pruning? I have some Borage volunteers in my garden from last year, they are almost as tall as I am. Last year, they shared a 30gallon container with my tomatoes, but now they have taken over the pot. I’m afraid this could happen with other large plants that are perennial or easily reseed themselves. Also, can the seed of lovage be used as a spice?

I started some seeds this year they just came through two days ago. I'm surprised that it said low germination I got my seeds from a friend with no instructions and had all five I planted come up. Maybe I just had good luck.

My lovageb got to 6' :-) and maybe a little higher last year.

I wish somebody could send me Egyptian Walking Onions. Like citrus...can`t BUY in Louisiana! I used to grow it but lost it during a move even though I brought a start with me.

Do you water your germinating seeds/seedlings from above or from below? Do you have any strategies for avoiding damping off? Thanks!

which perennial vegetables don't you love?

Would you know if deer like lovage too?

Why not just divide your one lovage plant?

Boop

It’s toxic to cats and dogs I believe

Don't do it! It is so invasive.