How To Add Herbs To Your Garden
Herb Growing Guide
And Inspirational Projects
Add herbs to your garden during the coming season, if you haven't already. From containers on the balcony to a home industry of harvesting herbs, the projects can run the gamut.
Here are a few for you to try and a guide to growing herbs.
Growing herbs is one of those fun projects. I say "fun" because they are so responsive to a small amount of care, and yield delights for table, vase, and garden.
How To Grow
- Always choose a sunny spot for herbs
- Average soil of good tilth is desirable.
- Drought-tolerant, water when needed.
Growing From Seeds And Cuttings
Easy Plants To Grow From Cuttings
Making More Plants
- One of the easiest, sometimes the best way, to grow your herb plants is by taking cuttings from them, rooting them in either water or soil, and planting them in the place desired.
- It is also possible to divide plants such as thyme. It depends on the root system. Long taproots in parsley or very woody stems like on a sage plant might not divide or transplant well. Cuttings will have all the qualities of the parent plant and will likely grow easily. Plus, it doesn't disturb the parent plant.
- Some herbs don't grow so well from seed, and others will abundantly self-seed.
Choose A Project
- Make an herb garden outside your back door.
- Fill an old ladder or a wagon wheel with a collection of favorite herbs.
- Create a patch for herbal remedies
- Make a knot garden
- Create a lavender hedge
- Fill containers on the patio or a balcony (choose a sunny spot)
Choose Your Plants
- Culinary
- Crafty Dye Garden
- Dried Flower Crafts
- Potpourri
- Medicinal
Lists of plants useful for each purpose, including dye plants, bee plants, physic and general herb plants.
Requirements
- Soil to grow in
- Sunny spot
- Water according to need
- Plants or seeds to get started
- Simple tools
- (10) Good reasons to grow them
- Herbs defined
Many Edible Flowers Are From Herb Plants
Herbs are used in so many different ways that it is hard to imagine a working garden without them.
As companion plants they are widely used to protect other plants by repelling pests, or lending their properties to encouraging good growth in neighboring crops.
They are an important part of cooking, so one almost always includes them among the vegetables.
They can provide beauty and fragrance to cut flower arrangements, and they are sometimes simply grown for their foliage or flowers.
Herbal Crafting
Whole cottage industries have grown up around herbal harvests. Making your own cosmetics, bath products, potpourri, and many other ways in which the aromatic scents and healing properties of these plants comes to the fore. I spent many a happy hour crafting wreaths, making dried arrangements, and creating my own potpourri. Always for gifts, although I did manage to keep a few thyme and marjoram wreaths for my kitchen.
Gardens with Herbs
Formal and Historical Gardens Kitchen Gardens, French Potagers Bee Gardens, Gardens Which Encourage Bees
Inspiration:
Grow some herbs on your windowsill for year 'round access to your favorites.
Variegated sage and a polka dot plant are as colorful as flowers
Include them in your container recipes. I always have plants of thyme and variegated sage in my flower containers, they bring beautiful foliage colors to the design.
Useful Tools For Herbs
Inside the kitchen is the place for handy scissors that are especially made for snipping parsley, chervil, and other culinary leaves into your cooking.
Outside, the Fiskars snips are extremely useful for harvesting.
Herbal Posts
Growing 4 Lesser Known Herbs: Borage, Cilantro, Lemon Balm, Hyssop
It's time to widen your herb growing adventure with a few of the lesser known herbs. We all start with our favorites or perhaps a popular combo of herbs: the basil, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. What of the ones that flavor a particular cuisine or have pretty...
Making a Front Yard Herb Garden
Perhaps you are new to this site and haven't read my articles on making an herb garden. Or perhaps you have been growing this kind of feature for awhile and are looking for more information and new ideas. Growing a front yard herb garden is a natural extension of many...
An Herb With Savory Flavor
Many herb plants grow best without additional fertilizing in an average soil. Savory is one on that list. Overly rich feeding will not produce the good flavors and aromatic oils desired as well as leaner growing conditions.
Best Videos About Lavender
British TV provides some of the best views and information on this most fragrant and favorite herb, so let's start a feature length overview. The show features Lavender, not just in the garden, but in cooking and its other uses. Filled with gorgeous color and engaging...
Growing Herbs From Seeds and Cuttings
Quickest for many plants is by planting seeds, easiest way is through the division. Cuttings fall somewhere in between, taking time to grow the roots, and preserving all the qualities of the parent plant
Grilled Salmon With Herbes De Provence
Perhaps lavender is not so well known to American cooks on its own, but the combination of spices that French cooking has made famous includes it in many of its variations. The Provence region of France is famous for its lavender fields and so it is no wonder that it...
You Will Not Rue Planting Ruta Graveolens
Grown foremost for its pretty, lace-edged finger leaves which are “glabrous” (effectively blue in color). This ancient herb has powers to enhance your garden.
My Ten Favorite Herbs In The Herb Garden
There are no perfect choices or gardens, just the ones we make and love.
A Simple Medicinal Garden
Grow Your Own Medicine You can make your own little "physic garden" with plants that can be used as simple remedies for common maladies like headache, colds, or general well being. Would you like to know how? The time to plan a medicinal herbal garden is in winter,...
A Garden of Simples, Growing Medicinal Herbs
Herbs are useful food, medicine, and flavorings, and have time proven properties. Warnings are necessary because proper knowledge is needed when taking even the most natural source of medicine. More and more findings about spices and herbs show that these are indeed healing plants
A Physic Garden
If you would like the project of making a medicinal garden, this table shows you the herbs that are most commonly included. For a design, anything from simple blocks to a complicated Tudor knot garden is possible.
| Boneset, Eupatorium perfoliatum | for fever and colds |
| Thyme, Thymus vulgaris | bacterial and fungal infections, and minor irritations |
| Motherwort, Leonurus cardiaca | calming, for heart, rheumatism and lung problems |
| Scarlet Bee Balm, Monarda didyma | expel gas, to relieve nausea, in menstrual cramps |
| Mugwort. Artemesia vulgaris | for worming and as insect repellent |
| Catmint, Nepeta cateria | mild sedative, settles the stomach, soothes flatulence, and colic |
| Meadowsweet, Eupatorium purpureum | for fever and to eliminate stones. |
| Hyssop, Hyssopus officinalis | expectorant, and cough suppressant |
| Southernwood, Artemisia abrotanum | deworming,moth-balls,and as topical wash |
| Yarrow, Achillea millefolium | styptic which help heal wounds; also used for cols and fever |
Whenever using herbs as medicine be sure to use a reliable reference. Some herbs are powerful drugs, and their dosages would not be scientifically measured. Beware of how you use them. Others are mild enough to use freely. I wouldn't think twice before eating elderberries or making elderberry flower water.
Do get good advice before using your herbs in a medicinal way, however.
Thyme
Rosemary
Basil 'Genovese'
