Tips for Growing Herbs
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
When you plan to grow herbs, there are several things that you need to keep in mind; so this blog post deals with Tips for Growing Herbs. Over the years many friends and acquaintances have asked me for advice on growing herbs. Many times it is because they just don’t know because they lack experience. At other times it may be because they have failed when trying to grow a certain herb. I don’t have all the answers, but when I do know what will help, I suggest it to them. Over the years I have kept track of some of these…
Tips for Growing Herbs
My Raised Herb Garden
There are nine tips presented here. So let’s get started.
1. Be sure you know what makes herbs so valuable.
Many herbs came from the Mediterranean region. They grew in poor soil, often with little rain, and devastatingly hot sunshine. To survive, they produced oils from their leaves that protected them. It is these oils that make herbs so valuable.
The benefits of these oils were that they not only protected the herb plants, but often they were very fragrant as well. Today, you can purchase these oils. They are called essential oils. For example, there are essentials oils for lavender, peppermint, and common thyme as well as numerous other herbs. And that’s the first of the nine Tips for Growing Herbs.
2. Plant your herbs in raised garden beds.
The reason for this fact is that most herb plants prefer well-drained soil. So planting them in a raised bed is a great idea to ensure that the water does not pool around them.
3. Leave your herb plants alone.
You do no need to fertilize them, and you do not need to water them often. Most herbs do very well in poor soils, in direct sunlight and do not require watering very often. These conditions encourage the herb plants to produce their oils which give them their flavors.
4. You will need to perform some care to your herb plants.
Weeding is one thing that you have to perform frequently. You can mulch around the plants to kill the weeds, but you will still need to pull weeds from around them, even when mulched.
In addition, when you have herbs that self-seed such as coriander, dill, garlic chives, catnip, and fennel, you will want to be sure to pick their flower heads before they go to seed.
Finally, you will want to watch and cut back the runners of those herbs that propagate this way. Good examples of these herbs are comfrey, the mints and bergamot. And that’s the fourth of the nine Tips for Growing Herbs.
5. Know what herbs are annuals and when is best to harvest them.
You want to be able to harvest these herbs at their peak. Usually, their peak is before they have flowers that bloom. You can prevent them from flowering for a while by pinching off the flower heads, but after a while they will die anyway because all annuals die annually.
Basil is a good example of an annual herb. While it’s growing, pick it often. The leaves you don’t use you can either dry or freeze for later use.
6. Know what herbs are biennials and when it is best to harvest them.
A biennial herb is one whose life span is two years. Parsley and lovage are biennials. Harvest them frequently in their first year and up until the time that they produce a flower stalk their second year.
You should plant these herbs every year so that you have some in their first year as well as others in their second year. That way you ensure you have a ready supply and won’t run out.
7. Know what herbs are perennials and when to harvest them.
Perennials are the herb plants that grow back year after year. They are hardy and survive the winter when given proper care.
The thymes, mints, lemon balm, bergamot and winter savory are some of the perennial herbs.
Harvest some of the leaves from each of these herbs before they bloom. It you have an excess, you can either dry or freeze them for later use. The thymes bloom in late spring or early summer, and sometimes late in the summer. The mints bloom in late summer, lemon balm flowers in late spring or early summer, bergamot in late spring or early summer, and winter savory in the summer. And that’s the seventh of the nine Tips for Growing Herbs.
8. Plan your herb garden.
Whether it is outdoors or indoors you need to plan what you will grow and where you will grow it. If it’s outdoors you will probably have more space, and you should have a space where you can be assured of getting a lot of sunlight. You’ll want to build it raised if you’re starting from scratch, or add raised side on an existing garden plot you plan to devote to herbs.
Indoors, you’ll need some south-facing windows or a grow light or both. You’ll need pots and a tray to set them in. Plus you’ll need a table or shelf that’s big enough for your tray and the grow light above it.
9. Recycle your herb plant waste and start a compost pile.
Whenever you have herb or vegetable plant waste, such as herb plants that you’re throwing away or vegetable scraps you have peeled from carrots, tomatoes or onions, throw them on the compost heap. But do not throw weeds or diseased plants on the compost pile. You will be able to use compost on your herb garden and other gardens as well.
And these have been the nine…
Tips for Growing Herbs.
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