Gardening for Beginners - Herb Gardening
Sun-dappled basil that you pick fresh from your own garden could convince you for a precious moment that you actually live in an Italian villa. Until those kids turn their music up too loud.
Hey! Let’s talk about herb gardening!
As with any other kind of garden, soil is one of your first considerations. Different herbs thrive in different soil compositions, so, unless you are planning to pot all of your herbs (which isn’t a bad idea), you may have to limit your selection based on whatever kind of dirt you’re working with. Basil, for instance, thrives in moist soil, whereas rosemary does better in sandier soil.
Herbs can be decorative or, as they are probably mostly thought of (mostly thought of by me), used for their culinary properties. In this case, decide which herbs you would most like to have fresh from your garden. What do you most often cook with or can you least often find fresh at the store? From there, figure out what the needs (water, light, soil) of each plant will be and plan your garden accordingly. Any outlying herbs that you still want to grow can be potted separately from the rest of the garden (haha: nerds).
Herbs are very versatile in terms of the gardening designs that can implemented. Many people choose to plant them in geometric patterns or interweaved in such a way that different herbs’ foliage complements one another. You can also simply plant herbs between vegetables or flowers in one of your other gardens. How you choose to do it is, of course, up to you (it’s certainly not up to me: that is a silly notion).
If you plan on cooking with your herbs, you can pick them as needed or dry them. The point at which they’ve peaked differs from plant to plant (no surprise there), but finding out when to pick them isn’t difficult; there are gardening books and different places online that list herbs and the best times to pick them (as well as some of the other important information discussed earlier in this post).
