Your Own Herb Garden
Have you ever considered growing your own food? With all the changes that are happening to our food supply it just might be the best healthy alternative.
If you are not up to all that, you will be pleased to know that without much effort you could at least have an herb garden. Herbs are hardy and grow with the same vigor as weeds, so even if you don't have a green thumb you can still succeed at growing herbs. And herbs are very useful plants. No dried herb can rival spicing with fresh vibrant herbs from your own garden. Better taste and nutrition AND you know where it's been.
Most herbs require a lot of sunshine. At least 4-6 hours of full sun. Mint and oregano can still thrive even in partial shade. And dill and parsley do amazingly well in the shade. It's best to observe your grounds to see where the sunniest spots are to find where you can situate your herb garden.
If you don't have any grounds, for instance, you live in an apartment and have no dirt, you can still grow herbs in pots at a sunny window. If you don't have a sunny window or any window, all is not lost. You can use a grow light. GE Grow Light LED Lights average $25 to $30 and you can get them at a nursery or florist or anywhere you can buy seeds. There are other less expensive brands as well.
Next you need to decide what you want to grow. Well that's pretty easy. What herbs do you normally use when you cook? What herbs would you like to use? Do you have a particular need for a medicinal herb? Then you look up what conditions those particular plants need to thrive and you compare them with each other and group them accordingly, planting like plants next to each other paying particular attention to their growing speeds, but also soil type and amount of sun needed.
The Best Way to Plan Your Herb Garden
You want them to have similar growing speeds, most importantly. And you don't want to crowd them too close together. At least 4 inches apart.
Two herbs you definitely do not want to mix with any other herbs are mint and oregano. They will take over the joint and choke everything else out. They absolutely need their own separate pots. And mint has even been known to jump pots, so a distant pot at that. At least 8 inches should be fine. Lemon Balm also tends to be fast growing and does better in its own pot. On the flip side though these are the easiest ones to start with to give a beginner successes.
Don't try to mix very fast growers together because they will blend their roots and the tastes will get mixed which is usually not an improvement over their original tastes. It even goes for different kinds of mint plants. Their own individual tastes would be ruined. So mints and oreganos - separate pots. Lemon balm - separate pot most of the time.
You want to pay attention to the nutrient contents of the plant as well, and how it complements other plants or does harm. This content is shared with other plants through the soil and water. For instance, Rosemary and Tomatoes just love to grow together and Basil loves Rosemary too and tomatoes love Basil. They improve each other's growth, disease tolerance and taste. But lemon balm and basil do not get along. They stunt each other and their tastes clash.
You can look up charts that show companion gardening combos and plant accordingly.
You will rarely have problems with pests because herbs tend to repel them and they also attract good insects. This is because of their strong scents which are caused by their essential oil content. In fact if you do grow your own food besides the herbs you can use potted mint and rosemary near your growing beds to repel the insects for those crops too. And basil, if you leave some plants to flower, will attract beneficial insects, like bees.
Learning about growing things is a big subject and you never really stop learning about it. The most important thing is to start. And then have an open mind to learn more.
Light, Water and Soil: The Three Essentials of Your Garden
Basically there are three areas to learn about. A plant needs Light, Water and Soil.
Light is simple. Sun is the best. In fact, outdoors is the best in all categories. There is a little to learn about growing lights and their different wavelengths, but that is best learned when you are shopping for them and know what you are trying to grow with them. Basically different stages of plant growth prefer different spectrums. Outside these spectrums become available automatically as the sun hits a spot at different angles as it moves through the sky from sun up to sun down. You just have to find out how much your plant is going to need.
Water is best if it is clean and not chlorinated. Plants and humans both need this ideally. Look up what kind of water your plant prefers. Some like hard water and some like distilled or salt free water. Some like to be drenched, some like a lot of drainage. This subject spills into the subject of what kind of soil is suitable to accomplish the water needs.
In general a plant needs to be watered if you stick a finger into the soil and about 3 inches down it is slightly damp, but the surface is dry. Too much water can cause disease as well as too little water.
A lot of self proclaimed brown thumbs are so over anxious about a plant that they over water it and fuss with it too much. Don't worry so much. Enjoy the process and hopefully this general rule will help. You have to put your finger into the dirt to tell. Don't just feel the surface or you could over-water.
The Importance of Soil
Soil can be a complicated subject. Soil is composed of organic matter, minerals, liquids, gasses and living things all of which combine to support life on planet Earth.
One has to know about soil types, nutrient content of soil and microbes within the soil. This is necessary if you are going to plant a food garden.
Since we are going an easier route with herbs, we only have to cover soil type. And even that could be completely neglected and your herbs will still grow.
There are three different types of particles to natural soil: sand, silt and clay. These are different sized particles. Clay particles are the smallest, then silt, then sand.
If a soil has too much of any of these components it is considered bad soil and additives are needed to balance it out. Too much clay will make it too wet and thick, too much sand will make it too dry and loose and too much silt will compact so much it chokes the plant.
The perfect soil is a balance of these components and organic matter and is called loam.
If you have no experience with this you can cheat and just buy premixed soil, but hopefully, armed with this information you can understand what you are looking for in a mix.
At Herbal Roots we procure our herbs from Organic farms using best practices to ensure nutrient content of the highest potency. It would take a lot to duplicate that in your own yard. But even we can't beat having fresh herbs in your kitchen to spice and garnish your food or make teas with. I hope you will give having your own herb garden a try.