Herb Gardening Tips

While most people love gardens for the simple joy of growing and nurturing plants, herb gardener's have an added bonus because they can actually use the plants to flavor their food and cure their ills. With so many uses, you'd think that herbs would be hard to grow but in fact they are one of the easiest plants, require little attention and will grow under adverse conditions.

Of course, if you are thinking of starting an herb garden you want to make sure that you provide your herbs with the best conditions possible to ensure that you have healthy thriving herbs no matter what your purpose.

Here are some basic herb gardening tips to get you started:

1. While herbs can survive in many different soils, it's best to provide them with a rich fertile soil so that you will have lush fertile plants. Using humus from your compost pile is ideal, but if you have to buy a store-bought fertilizer to prepare the soil that's fine too. Just make sure that you keep your soil free of chemicals especially if you will be using the herbs or culinary or medicinal purposes.

2. Make sure the soil is well drained. A sandy soil is best for herbs as most of them don't do well in standing water so you want to make sure that the soil drains adequately.

3. Plan your herbs in a sunny spot. Most plants like sun, although there are plenty of herbs that will thrive in the shade as well.

4. Make sure you have a way to easily water your herbs. You want to be sure that you don't splash water on the leaves when watering as this can invite fungus, so the best thing you can do is use one of those soaker hoses that has all the little holes in it.

Herb Container Gardens

Herbs don't have to be grown in the soil of your garden, you can grow them in pots and containers too. In fact this is a great idea because it will allow you to bring the herbs in in the colder months and have them right in your kitchen. What more convenient place could they be?

To grow herbs in containers, you want to make sure that the soil is well-drained so you can use a regular potting soil and mix in a little bit of sand or gravel. The sand and gravel will ensure that drainage happens properly.

Put your herbs in a window, preferably one that faces south. Southerly facing windows get the most amount of sun which your herbs need to thrive. If you don't have a window that gets good sun, don't worry you can still grow herbs by using a growing lamp.

Growing herbs in pots in your kitchen is a great way to have herbs literally right at the tips of your fingertips for cooking. You can leave them indoors all year long or set your pots outside in the summer to give your herbs some fresh air.

Harvesting Your Herbs

When it comes to using your herbs, you want to make sure that you harvest them properly. For herbs like basil and parsley, you can simply go out and snip off some of the top growing leaves then add them fresh to your stews, sauces and other dishes. For basil you want a pinch off the smaller leaves that are growing at the top as this will help make your plant bushy.

If you want the full potency of your herbs for medicinal purposes, you want to harvest them right before they flower. This is when the oils are most potent. If your herb is an annual, you can pull the whole plant up but if it is a perennial you'll want to just cut back enough of the plant for you to use but not so much that you kill the plant - try to cut off less than half of the existing plant.

If you want to dry your herbs and save them for later use, you want to first wash all the dirt off and pat them dry with paper towels. One method that people use is to tie bunches of them together and hang them upside down in a dry cool place for a couple of weeks. Another method is to simply keep them in the oven at about 150° for three or four hours.

Herbs can be stored in a dry place in a sealed container and even frozen in the freezer for later use.




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