Grown for both leaves and seeds, leaves are generally ready to be harvested in approximately 8 weeks after sowing, needs to be cut back or it will go to seed however the seeds are used in pickling. Dill can be frozen others recommend drying but it looses to much flavour (well I think so) Although a perennial best treated as an annual and grown successively every couple of months prefers cooler weather but dislikes heavy frosts. Easy to grow and great for the Sunday roast :).
Extract from Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure by William Thomas Fernie (1897)
Cordial waters distilled from the fragrant herb called Dill are, as every mother and monthly nurse well know, a sovereign remedy for wind in the infant; whilst they serve equally well to correct flatulence in the grown up "gourmet." This highly scented plant (_Anethum graveolens_) is of Asiatic origin, growing wild also in some parts of England, and commonly cultivated in our gardens for kitchen or medicinal uses.
It "hath a little stalk of a cubit high, round, and joyned, whereupon do grow leaves very finely cut, like to those of Fennel,but much smaller." The herb is of the umbelliferous order, and its fruit chemically furnishes "anethol," a volatile empyreumatic oil similar to that contained in the Anise, and Caraway. Virgil speaks of the Dill in his _Second Eclogue _as the _bene olens anethum_, "a pleasant and fragrant plant." Its seeds were formerly directed to be used by the _Pharmacopoeias_ of London and Edinburgh. Forestus extols them for allaying sickness and hiccough. Gerard says: "Dill stayeth the yeox, or hicquet, as Dioscorides has taught."
The name _Anethum _was a radical Greek term (_aitho_--to burn), and the herb is still called Anet in some of our country districts. The pungent essential oil which it yields consists of a hydrocarbon, "carvene," together with an oxygenated oil; It is a "gallant expeller of the wind, and provoker of the terms." "Limbs that are swollen and cold if rubbed with the oil of Dill are much eased; if not cured thereby."
A dose of the essential oil if given for flatulent indigestion should be from two to four drops, on sugar, or with a tablespoonful of milk. Of the distilled water sweetened, one or two teaspoonfuls may be given to an infant.
[157] The name Dill is derived from the Saxon verb _dilla_, to lull, because of its tranquillizing properties, and its causing children to sleep. This word occurs in the vocabulary of Oelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, tenth century. Dioscorides gave the oil got from the flowers for rheumatic pains, and sciatica; also a carminative water distilled from the fruit, for increasing the milk of wet nurses, and for appeasing the windy belly-aches of babies.He teaches that a teaspoonful of the bruised seeds if boiled in water and taken hot with bread soaked therein, wonderfully helps such as are languishing from hardened excrements, even though they may have vomited up their faeces.
The plant is largely grown in the East Indies, where is known as _Soyah_. Its fruit and leaves are used for flavouring pickles, and its water is given to parturient women.
Drayton speaks of the Dill as a magic ingredient in Love potions; and the weird gipsy, Meg Merrilies, crooned a cradle song at the birth of Harry Bertram in it was said:--
"Trefoil, vervain, John's wort, _Dill_,
Hinder witches of their will."
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