Overview: Dill is a light-tasting herb, useful in many dishes: fish, chicken soup, potato salad, dips, pickles. It’s easy to grow, helpful to pollinators, and excellent as a companion plant.
Seed Starting: Plant seeds ¼ inch deep, spaced about 8 to 10 inches apart, after danger of spring frost (Source: University of Minnesota Extension). Direct sow, as dill does not like to be transplanted. This plant will readily reseed, offering easy harvests year after year.
Growing Advice: Dill will reach 2 to 4 feet tall and be 1 to 2 feet wide. It has feathery foliage and sends up several yellow flowers, reminiscent of Queen Anne’s lace. Dill, Queen Anne’s lace, carrots, and others are all in the umbelliferae family [Source: Farming While Black].
Pollinators love dill. It is a host plant for black swallowtail butterflies!
Harvesting: Harvest the feathery leaves to use fresh in many dishes. Dill also leaves dry and store nicely for future use. Let the big yellow flowers go to seed to have “volunteer” dill plants next year. Or save the seeds to make dill pickles.
Dill Potato Salad Recipe (from Spend with Pennies)
Ingredients:
- 3 pounds potatoes white or red skinned
- 1 ½ cups celery diced
- 3 tablespoons green onion finely sliced
- ¾ cup mayonnaise
- ½ cup sour cream
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 4 tablespoons fresh dill minced
- 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
Steps:
- Boil the potatoes until tender (approx. 15-20 minutes). Cool and cut into bite sized pieces.
- In a large bowl, mix all ingredients except the potatoes.
- Combine cooled potatoes with dill mixture and refrigerate at least one hour.