Herbs have been around forever it seems and serve different kinds of purposes. Herbs have been used to treat illness, maladies, and flavor cooking as well as being used in many craft type projects. Interested in starting your own herb garden? Here are a few pointers on how to start an herb garden.
Make your garden plan. Think about the type of herbs you want to plant. Consider the kinds available. Would you like annuals, biennials or perennials? What are the purpose of the herbs that you are interested in?
Time to research some specific information on those plants. How big will they be full grown? What are their sunshine and soil requirements? You can get a book at the library or gardening catalog of some type that will list those variables for you.
Time to draw out your plan on paper. Some suggestions would be to separate the annuals from the perennials. The reason for this is at the end of the season you can easily pull up the annuals without disturbing the perennials and make planting annuals next season easier. Sometimes you can plant the perennials on the perimeter of the garden, or in a section by their lonesome.
Another factor to consider is to plant the tall ones towards the back and the shorter ones in front. Give your plants plenty of space to grow and also find out their sunlight requirements and make adjustments accordingly. Properly positioning will help you in this department.
If you would not put your herbs in your garden you could grow them in container pots. These are large pots with three or more outlets. Fill the container to the first outlet and plant it before filling the second outlet, and continue that process until finished. It's preferable that the herb that requires the most water is planted in the bottom outlet, while the variety that needs the least, goes in the top one. Use a good quality potting soil and ensure that it has proper drainage.
You can design your garden in a creative manner. Try using a wooden ladder or wagon wheel and lay on top of the garden. Then plant your plants in between the sections for a square or circular division and interesting look.
It's important to factor in the needs of each variety of plant. Many need alkaline soil conditions, so if you need to add any special additives you'll already have that information on hand. If you start your own seeds, be sure to read the packet on the seeds as to water, temperature requirements, as well as when it's safe to plant them in the spring.
Herbs are some of the easiest plants to grow. You just have to provide them with an effective drainage, sunlight, enough humidity or moisture and fertile soil. Even with just minimally meeting these requirements they will be bound produce a good harvest.
You'll also want to consider what you plan to do with the harvest. Will you cook them fresh? Freeze or preserve them in some other way? You'll discover that you have some favorites each year and which ones didn't perform as you would have hoped.
About the Author:
By Rachel Ray an avid gardener who loves being out there in the clean air. Visit her site for resources dedicated to assisting family and career life be more comfortable .
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