The best culinary thyme variety: Jekka's Thyme

I have a (possibly bad) habit of growing new and interesting vegetables. Some things grow exceptionally well for me, other things I can’t get them to crop at all. Sometimes they taste amazing and earn themselves a permanent place in my garden each year from them on, others aren’t all that great and I decide not to grow them again.

About a dozen years ago I grew yacon, I have kept dividing the same plant since then and have brought it with me as I moved house time and time again. I grew some skirret years ago and it has earned a permanent place in my yard, I can’t recommend this delicious and hardy vegetable highly enough.

Other things such as maca (Lepidium meyenii) I really enjoyed, but they never cropped all that well for me and couldn’t cope with the endless furnace like blasting dry heat when we lived in the Central West so I had to let them go, they may do well now I live in a cooler region again.

Some of the annual vegetables (or perennials that I grew like annuals) such as some fancy varieties of eggplant sounded great but really didn’t perform for me in my garden so have never been grown since.Others have been so great I grow them every single year.

A few years ago I tracked down a bunch of different varieties of edible thyme. I wrote a blog post comparing thyme varieties and showing pictures of their leaves near a ruler for scale. They have all grown well for me, and I am rather fond of most of them, but one variety of thyme in particular is far more vigorous and useful than any of the others.

Jekka's thyme forming a dense carpet

Jekka’s thyme was bred by a well-known herb breeder by the name of Jekka McVicar. I can understand why the breeder would want their name associated with such an outstanding variety. I believe Jekka's thyme won a bunch of awards at various horticultural shows, I would try to list them but really don’t think they mean a great deal. I have a feeling that winning these awards often has more to do with marketing than with the quality of a plant, I have bred some remarkable new vegetable varieties but wouldn’t know how to even enter these competitions.

Jekka's thyme smells and tastes strongly of thyme, which is the main reason I grow thyme. Plants produce comparatively large leaves (for thyme), and even without trimming they produce a lot of them. Most of the larger leaf varieties of thyme seem to struggle in the heat far more than the smaller leaf varieties. Jekkas thyme grows rather dense and casts a lot of shade on the soil, which appears to help it stand up to the heat surprisingly well for a larger leaf variety. Like most varieties of thyme they respond well to regular harvesting.

Jekka's thyme on the right (tabor thyme on the left)

One thing that surprised me was how fast and dense Jekkas thyme grows, they grow into a thick blanket of leaves and branches which cover the soil surface completely. As it is so thick, Jekkas thyme could probably be grown as a deep living mulch around taller plants or container grown fruit trees. I have a feeling that this would work well in pots long term.

Like most varieties of thyme they flower well, and the flowers are moderately attractive to honey bees and various native pollinators. The flowers look and smell like the flowers of most other varieties of edible thyme – dense clusters that are pink and tiny.

Jekka's Thyme Flowers

One thing I particularly like about this variety is how fast and how far Jekka's thyme spreads. They grow faster than any other variety I have grown, they are reasonably low growing, and any node that touches soil seems to set down roots quickly. The plant can be cut at this point and the new plantlet dug and moved, or it can be left where it is to keep expanding. Like most varieties of thyme they also grow easily from cuttings. Jekkas thyme seems to grow a lot faster than any other variety I have seen, I have one patch that has spread more than a meter and a half from the original plant in one single year!

Frosts down to about -10 do not appear to bother Jekka's thyme, it doesn’t really get colder than that here so I can’t comment about its survival in colder temperatures.

Jekka's thyme in the frost

People sometimes ask me about fertilisers and so forth. Honestly I can’t provide advice with that as I don’t use them. I fertilise when I prepare the garden bed by digging in homemade compost or manure from our animals. I water these plants over summer, and sometimes remove weeds, but that is all. I have never seen any pest or disease issues, I assume these issues can happen with Jekka's thyme but I haven’t encountered them yet.

In my opinion Jekka's thyme is a superior variety.  The only difficult part about growing Jekkas thyme is actually finding plants for sale.

Please don’t ever waste your money on seeds of Jekka’s thyme as they won’t grow like the parent. Most will be smaller and less vigorous, some may almost be as good as the parent. You are better off buying a plant as you will be sure of its quality.

I sell small bare rooted Jekka's thyme plants (or vigorously growing rooted cuttings depending on timing) and can post them to most of Australia. If you are interested they are listed on my for sale page along with other perennial vegetables, edible herbs, and heirloom vegetable seeds.