Sophie Grigson lives down a lane which is turning into a tunnel of electric green in May. Her home, and gastronomic headquarters, is a small Cotswold-stone farmhouse on the edges of Oxford with views over rolling hills. You can guess which house is Grigson's, because the long kitchen window has six large pots of: wooden spoons, utensils, spatulas — who needs ten different spatulas? — and pencils. This is not just batterie de cuisine, it is weaponry. The door is open. A comedy-sized Yorkshire terrier puppy charges down the steps and goes to hang with some horses in the field opposite.

Grigson emerges from the general chaos of the house, wearing green and aubergine flowing garments and her trademark dangly earrings, today featuring glass bees and flowers, a costume that fits perfectly with the fact that Grigson, TV chef and great cookbook writer, has become president of the Herb Society. Her most recent book is Vegetables, but she has also written Herbs, a definitive book on the subject, about which we Brits are woefully cautious. The problem, says Grigson, is our parsimony with herbs. "It comes from our dried-herb mentality. Dried basil, parsley, coriander, eeeuch — why? They're like hay." She shakes her head in disgust. "They're culinary suicide."

Not using fresh herbs is now a crime: there is no cook without a windowsill for a plant pot; no Tesco Express without fresh growing parsley. "The idea of using herbs in abundance comes from warmer countries. On the whole, Persian salads are made almost entirely of herbs, big and fresh. Cleansing, purifying. Look at what we've done to tabbouleh ­ filled it up with bulgar wheat, when there the bulgar is dotted in the salad. We've turned it from veg to a carb."

We settle down in her kitchen, with its big grey-blue dresser and one red wall decked with pans, to discuss herb gardening and cooking. It's a comfortable lived-in and loved place, as opposed to those icy white modern streamlined kitchens that are for people who hate cooking. Her children, Sid and Florrie, wander in and out, as does Bob, the puppy she is fostering until he becomes a hearing-aid dog. There are also two snakes, fortunately in another room.

BACKGROUND

• Turf wars at Chelsea show over garden lawns

• Colourful favourites face public vote

BACKGROUND

• Kew experts create garden for hotter summer

• Things are looking up for urban growers

• Gardening advantages in hotter and drier summers

• Home on the web - Chelsea Flower Show

Multimedia

• Picture gallery: Chelsea Flower Show: six of the best

BACKGROUND

• Women ‘have the greener fingers’

• Chelsea Flower Show sustains a theme with some cosmic displays

• Mars attack leaves fans shellshocked

• Flower show judges favour life on Mars

Multimedia

• Picture gallery: Chelsea Show Garden Winners 2007

Related Internet Links

• The lowdown on Chelsea Flower Show

BACKGROUND

• It's a jungle out there

• Monty's world

• Judgment day

• The secret gardens

Chelsea Flower Show 2007 winners

Find out if your favourite garden won a gold at this year's show

BACKGROUND

• Newcomers to the Chelsea Flower Show

• Prestige design apprenticeship unveiled

• Cultivate your own style

• Damp start for Malvern Gardening Festival

Diarmuid Gavin plays it safe at this year's Chelsea Flower Show

Horticultural revolutionary Diarmuid Gavin is nothing if not controversial. But for this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, he seems to be hedging his bets

BACKGROUND

• Iggy, flower child of the Chelsea show

• Royal Horticlutural Show: calendar of events

• Water watch

BACKGROUND

• A path runs through it

• Border lines

As president of the Herb Society one might expect Grigson to possess a herb garden of parterres, box hedging and brick walkways, an essay in clipped control. But it looks pretty wild outside, and the other clue that things will not be as expected is the plastic pot of slightly tired Sainsbury's basil on the window ledge — just like you have at home, except you forgot to water it.

The herb "garden" is mostly a bunch of large, well-tended pots and barrels, which in summer will provide everything the cook needs. Lemon verbena grows madly round the back door and further up the hilly garden, a strawberry patch, followed by fennel and sorrel. "The stuff with the large pointed leaves is French sorrel, the rounder shape is regular sorrel," says Grigson, and we nibble some of the lemon-tasting leaves. "I'm not much of a gardener ­ I don't like to get down and dirty. I prefer genteel pootling around." She has about a third of an acre on a hill. "Now, if I had an estate with gardeners to order around, I'm sure I'd be better at that."

We come upon the place where her angelica has passed away. (She uses the green angelica stems to infuse custards and milk-based puddings, but we see them more often candied on cakes.) "Perhaps that hole has something to do with itŠ been wet this winter, but not cold. Probably killed it." Grigson shrugs. She is more interested in her herbs for supply rather than display: "If you plant it and it grows, it was meant to be there. If it dies, why worry? My herb gardening technique is exactly that."

Before she moved back to her home town of Oxford five years ago, Grigson lived near Daventry in Northamptonshire, close to the headquarters of the Herb Society, which deals with herbs in every form, from medicinal to cosmetic, culinary, gardening and historic. "It's a broad church." In Daventry, she had an acre of land: "My then husband was very keen on gardening, but I felt guilty trying to maintain an acre. We had a potager with brick paths, a lawn. It was lovely, but a lot of maintenance."

Although Grigson, at 48 the author of more than 20 cookery books, does not believe life is too short to stuff a mushroom, she does believe life is too short to weep over Italian basil dying in an English summer. Hence the Sainsbury's pot. "Perhaps the basil needs more protection. They have huge fields of it in Italy, but maybe we haven't yet reached that level of Mediterranean heat."

Herbs are far more interchangeable than people assume. "Why use dying supermarket basil when you can use mint, or fresh flat-leaf parsley in a tomato salad with a lemony dressing, maybe with some Moroccan preserved lemons?" Her conversation is peppered with droolsome recipes. "As for coriander," she continues, "I don't like that weak stuff in supermarket pots. I'd rather buy it than grow it. West Indian, Asian and Cypriot shops have big-leafed, cheap bunches that actually taste of something."

We move down to inspect the herbs on the flagged area behind the farmhouse — two late 17th-century and early 18th-century cottages joined together. In between the creamy stones of the garden wall, there is winter and summer savory, which looks a bit like thyme crossed with rosemary. "It's a classic with beans, supposedly anti-flatulent," says Grigson helpfully. She also has old-fashioned herbs such as lovage, and sweet cicely, which reduces the acidity of rhubarb, so you can use less sugar. These are the sort of ingredients she used when cooking below stairs for Edwardian Supersize Me and the appetite of Giles Coren. "Lovage and potato soup... gorgeous."

The conversation has begun to bring on terrible hunger pangs. "I like to do a pesto-style coriander and coconut relish with roasted squash or fish; and sage, anchovy and tomato fritters are very good." The marjoram goes in meatballs, and a barrel is bursting with mint to go on griddled courgettes. In pots, Grigson has purple and green sage, the leaves of which are beautiful cooked in crisp batter. She lectures me on "real sage and onion stuffing, not that ghastly stuff in packets. Fry onion and breadcrumbs, and before adding the sage, pour boiling water on it and wring it out to bring out flavour." (I made this later, sprinkled on chicken. It was speedy and glorious. She was absolutely right.) "Dried sage," declares Grigson, "is perfectly vile."

It is a simple philosophy: fresh counts above all else, and for her other ingredients, Grigson goes to farm stands, Oxford's covered market and gets a weekly vegetable box from Riverford Organics. We discuss how organic lettuce often wilts an hour after picking. "But it tastes good. That supermarket lettuce in bags looks good because it's Botoxed. They fill the bags with preservative gases."

As for quantities of herbs, although Grigson has to specify "two heaped tablespoons" when teaching or writing recipes, she says we should toss them in with wild abandon. "I think that with any herb, except maybe tarragon, a big handful is a good measurement."

Sophie Grigson demonstrates cooking with herbs at the Herb Day at Garden Organic, Ryton, Wolston Lane, Coventry, on June 9. To book, visit www.herbsociety.org.uk, or call 0845 4918699

Times recommends

• Second homes: credit crunch casualty or money-spinner?
• How I built my own sliding house
• Top 10 incentives for house buyers