Part of the series: Ukrainian Prairie Stories – Recipes and Roots Across the Land

Key Takeaways

Ukrainian settlers brought familiar herb seeds, including dill, to Canada as part of their survival and cultural continuity.
Dill thrived in the boreal-prairie zones of the Canadian West, often reseeding itself along fencelines and farmyards.
Herb gardens were vital spaces for both culinary traditions and traditional preservation methods.
Dill became a defining ingredient in borscht, pickles, and ferments, anchoring food traditions in seasonal eating.
The enduring presence of dill reflects the way culinary heritage can root itself in new landscapes.

→ From Old Country to New Garden: Ukrainian Herb Traditions
→ Why Dill? Flavour, Medicine, and Identity
→ Growing Along the Fenceline: Naturalization in the Boreal Fringe
→ Summer Kitchens and the Work of the Herb Garden
→ Pickles, Borscht, and Ferments: Dill as a Prairie Preserver
→ Seed Saving and Seasonal Cycles
→ The Language of Flavour: How Dill Carries Memory

From Old Country to New Garden: Ukrainian Herb Traditions

When Ukrainian immigrants began arriving in Canada in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many brought more than just tools and textiles. Tucked into coat linings or sewn into satchels were precious seeds from the Old Country—reminders of the land they left behind and essential for the lives they hoped to build. Among the most prized were herbs: dill, caraway, lovage, parsley, and sorrel.

In Ukraine, herb gardens were spaces of nourishment and healing, flavour and folklore. They lined cottage fences and filled monastery fields, used in cooking, fermenting, and medicine-making. Bringing herb seeds to the Canadian Prairies wasn’t just a practical move; it was an act of cultural preservation.

Once in Canada, settlers carved out garden spaces wherever they could—often just outside the kitchen door. These plots became some of the first cultivated land on new homesteads, even before barns were built. Herbs were planted near the home to be accessible during cooking, drying, and preserving.

Why Dill? Flavour, Medicine, and Identity

Of all the herbs carried across the Atlantic, dill quickly became the most visible and influential in Ukrainian-Canadian cooking. Its bright, slightly sweet aroma paired beautifully with root vegetables, eggs, beans, and fish. It thrived in the cool nights and warm days of the prairie growing season, reseeded easily, and matured quickly—often providing multiple harvests in a single summer.

In traditional foodways, dill was used liberally in soups like green borscht (sorrel soup), in pickled cucumbers and beans, and sprinkled fresh over varenyky, stewed potatoes, and eggs. Its feathery fronds and flowering heads also had uses in folk medicine: steeped as tea to soothe digestion or nerves, and sometimes bundled with other herbs in Orthodox and Byzantine ritual blessings.

Dill’s role was more than practical—it was emotional. Its scent and taste linked families back to village kitchens and sun-warmed summer fields. It wasn’t just a seasoning; it was part of the language of home.

Growing Along the Fenceline: Naturalization in the Boreal Fringe

Many early Ukrainian homesteads were established along the boreal fringe—the transitional ecozone between prairie and forest. In places like east-central Alberta and parts of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, settlers worked soil edged with poplar groves and boreal undergrowth. The climate was well-suited to dill, and it began to self-seed quickly.

By mid-century, dill could often be found growing not only in gardens but along fencelines, near barns, and beside grain bins. Children would pluck dill heads on their way to do chores; women harvested both young fronds and mature seeds from wild clumps near the yard. It became what some called a “half-wild” plant—cultivated, yet willing to naturalize, thriving along the boundaries of human effort.

This pattern reflected more than just agricultural adaptability. It was symbolic of how Ukrainian foodways were embedding themselves into Canadian soil—not displacing wild plants but growing alongside them. Dill joined lamb’s quarters, fireweed, and wild mint as part of the edible landscape of prairie life.

Summer Kitchens and the Work of the Herb Garden

In Ukrainian-Canadian homes, especially during hot prairie summers, many households operated “summer kitchens.” These were usually outdoor or semi-outdoor spaces—porches, lean-tos, or detached sheds—where cooking and preserving could take place without overheating the home.

In these kitchens, herbs like dill took centre stage. Fresh fronds were added to boiling jars of pickles, mixed into potato salads and cold borscht, or hung to dry in small bundles tied with string. Dill was usually harvested in stages: young growth for fresh flavour in June, mature leaves and flowers in July, and seeds in August.

The herb garden itself was tended almost exclusively by women and older children. These plots were highly seasonal, deeply sensory, and part of a wider system of food knowledge that wove together sustainable cooking and climate-conscious preservation. Everything had its time—its use, its drying method, its place in the winter pantry.

Pickles, Borscht, and Ferments: Dill as a Prairie Preserver

Dill’s most iconic use was in pickling—and Ukrainian settlers pickled almost everything. Cucumbers, of course, were the favourite, but dill also flavoured jars of green beans, garlic scapes, beets, and even zucchini as families adapted to new produce.

Fermented pickles (as opposed to vinegar-brined) relied on dill not just for flavour but for structure—its stalks held down vegetables beneath the brine and added antibacterial properties. In ceramic crocks or canning jars, dill heads were layered between vegetables, often alongside mustard seed, peppercorns, and garlic.

Borscht, both red and green, almost always included dill. Even in winter, dried dill was rehydrated in soup pots, reminding families of summer fields. It also appeared in dairy dishes: stirred into sour cream for dressing potatoes or mixed with cottage cheese fillings for varenyky.

These culinary traditions weren’t just about taste—they were practical, low-waste, and responsive to the land. Dill helped define a distinctly Ukrainian form of sustainable cooking Canada inherited through its settlers.

Seed Saving and Seasonal Cycles

As the growing season wore on, dill was left to flower and seed. Mature seed heads were cut in late August and dried in paper bags or hung upside-down in dry corners of the house. The seeds were saved for both next year’s planting and for flavouring winter dishes.

This seed-saving practice was part of a much larger cycle. Families planned their gardens around generational memory: which seeds performed best in clay soil, which herbs repelled pests, which plants grew well together. Dill was often intercropped with cucumbers or beans, acting as both culinary staple and companion plant.

Seed-saving also represented a link to ancestral cooking methods. It required observation, timing, and patience—values central to the homestead. Some families even passed down dill seeds from one generation to the next, each batch slightly more adapted to prairie soil and season.

The Language of Flavour: How Dill Carries Memory

Today, dill still grows wild along rural roads and fencelines across the Prairie Provinces. In home gardens, it often reappears year after year, no matter how carefully it’s harvested. It has become part of the Canadian landscape—an immigrant plant that rooted itself deeply and naturally.

But its role is more than botanical. Dill carries memory. Its scent can trigger stories, its taste can open doors. For many Ukrainian-Canadians, a single sprig in a bowl of soup or a curl of dill head in a pickle jar is enough to recall kitchens filled with steam and conversation, the feel of warm summer earth underfoot, the ritual of gathering food for winter.

In that sense, dill is more than a flavour—it is a cultural archive, seeded across the land, quietly flourishing in gardens, fence corners, and hearts.