Chives

Chives earn their place three times over. They give the mild onion leaves a cook reaches for several times a week. They give lavender pompom flowers that are fully edible and adored by bees. And their sulphur compounds quietly help deter carrot root fly and aphids from whatever grows nearby.

They are also a true perennial, which sets them apart from most kitchen garden herbs. Sow a clump in your first year and you will still be cutting from it in ten or twenty, the clump getting larger and more productive as it goes. Lift and divide every three or four years and you have spare plants to give away.

The flowers are the moment. In early summer the whole clump throws up lavender-pink globes on slim stems, each made of dozens of tiny stars. They last well in a vase, and the petals scattered over a goat's cheese tart are one of the loveliest things you can put on a table.